Now, I’m sure that our friends from Clubbies SA are thinking this is an odd question, but it was posed to me by my lovely sister when discussing the possibility of getting my father down as a guest speaker at the club one night. I’m keen to re-instate the tradition of a guest speaker talking about something topical, be it technical, history or just a good interesting yarn, all over a glass of wine and a cheese platter and to do that, I need to find people willing to come in and, as we would have said in the navy, spin a dit.
“Dad? What on earth would he talk about” she asked
“Anything he wants”, I replied.
“Like?” she queried?
“Anything! Tell a yarn. Talk about something topical from a point of history. Anything – you know how he likes to talk! Could be growing up on the River in the 1930s and the seeing last of commercial paddle steamers, the 1956 and 1974 floods, that’s certainly topical, or riding a motorbike with no clutch and no gearbox up to Birdwood. Even the countless trips to Mallala, Rowley Park or the local Speedway as a time keeper in the 1960s, anything really … I’m sure the owners of the Clubbies in the club would be interested to hear his recollections of Garrie Cooper and his earliest cars. Anything really – he’s never short of a bloody good story!”
That lead to the obvious “what’s a clubbie” and then my attempting to explain what a Clubman Car was and it got me thinking; what, really, is a clubman?
That source of truth and accuracy (the internet) has as its #1 answer with the somewhat scandalous definition…’ A man who is a member of a gentleman’s club’. I’m not really sure that is the right answer in this case but was that the whole story? No, it seems. Like everything on the internet, its only very small part of the full story story and intimates somewhere the Bentley Boys might have gone post race!
Dive a bit deeper, and you’ll find a definition a bit closer to the mark ‘… an amateur enthusiast, someone willing to partake in their sport without necessarily being a winner, for the love of the sport.’ If the competition reports are to be believed, this is much closer to the mark, although I do get the sense of strong rivalry between drivers at time!!
Perhaps the best definition actually builds on the ‘gentleman’s club’ theme, which further defined these purported ‘gentleman’s clubs’ (which Google may leave you thinking were just private boys’ clubs and dens of iniquity and defined them as being formed after World War 1 and where sporting clubs where former soldiers could escape the daily nightmares of the horrors they witnessed. We hear every week on the news about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the suicide rate amongst ex-service people, police, nurses and paramedics and the current Royal Commission. With people suffering with all the benefits of modern medicine and phycological support, how returned servicemen and nurses from the horrors of WW1 coped is beyond me. My father talks of how his dad would rarely talk about his experiences and emersed himself in his farming but always looked forward to visiting his local RSL where he could be with his mates, no doubt exactly what the term Clubman actually refers to. Club level participation in something as a type of therapy and a way to escape the horrors of their recent past whilst having ‘jolly good fun’.
Many clubs today still award a Clubman Award. Its not to the best player/driver/scorer, but it’s the award for the person who turns up, gets involved, doesn’t moan. In many sporting clubs, the ‘Clubman Award’ was THE award to win as it meant you’d earned the respect of your peers.
‘The Clubman’ has, as we all know, spilled over into motorsport, not least the ‘Clubbies’ that form such an integral part of our club as we look towards 2023. Motorsport history of the 1940s and 50s is littered with ‘Clubman’ events on two wheels and four. Even the Isle of Man had a Junior and Senior Clubman TT category for production bikes that could be bought on the high-street one day and raced the next. I’m really not sure that is all that different to the daring-do racers at Brooklands or a local Hillclimb whom might have bought an MG Midget, Austin 7 or similar with sporting intent in the 1920s or 30s and gone racing without any notion of ever actually winning!
Is that all that different to most of the entrants in the Adelaide Rally that starts next week, or indeed the Peter Hall Memorial 6 Hour or any round of the MSCA or Collingrove Hillcimbs?
Then of course, there are the Clubbies. With their direct link to Colin Chapman’s game changing Lotus 7, when the motor racing technology advanced, people realised what the 7 offered amateur motor sport and an entire community developed around a class of car know affectionately as ‘a clubman’.
So, what, really, is a clubman? Whilst the term is a little outdated (clubperson maybe?), its someone who participates simply for the joy of participating and the bonds of friendship it brings. Today I took an hour out of my day to help young Chris get his Mini (yes, it’s a Clubman) running so he can, hopefully, come out and enjoy some of the events for next year. He tried to pay me and I’m not sure he understands why I politely refused (he can buy me a coffee one day), as hopefully he can tag along and start to understand what is meant to be a ‘clubman’.
Perhaps one day soon we might even get his actual Sprite or Midget up and running for club runs, but that might result in another story for here!
