Douglas ‘Duggy’ Clark

Douglas Clark, one of the greatest rugby league players of any era, was born in Ellenborough, Maryport on 2 May 1891. ‘Duggy’ played school at rugby until he left at age 15 and went to work with his father, a coal merchant. He joined Brookland Rovers, before signing for Huddersfield in 1909 for £30. He went on to 485 games in the claret and gold scoring 99 tries. His extraordinary career as a sportsman was at its height when the Great War broke out. Douglas joined the Army Services Corp, along with some of his fellow Huddersfield teammates. The following year he was badly wounded in eighteen places by shrapnel from a bomb and badly gassed at Passchendale, France. He was discharged in a wheelchair, but within four months returned to his unit. At the end of the war with a 95% Disability Certificate and fragments of shrapnel in his body, he was awarded the Military Medal for his valour during combat.
Doctors advised him to take things easy if he wished to reach an old age – when Clark returned to his old position in the Huddersfield team, within a season he had won a place in the 1920 Great Britain Tour side to Australia. His Test career spanned nine years from 1911 to 1920, playing in 11 international matches and scoring three tries. He also won a further seven caps for England. He retired in 1929 but his sporting talents extended beyond rugby league, and he was a champion wrestler until the age of fifty. In later life Douglas took up golf and started painting in water colours, he also took a great interest in wildlife and the great outdoors. After his death on 6 February 1951, even though he had lived most of his life in Huddersfield Douglas was interred at Maryport.