THE tale last month of Blackburn's water polo team being forced to move to Darwen after being based in the town for 125 years sent Looking Back diving into the swimming club's archives.

And from the reminiscences of two of its founders - Joe Kay and T.L. Cowburn - recorded 67 years ago by the Northern Daily Telegraph when the then Blackburn Amateur Swimming Club was marking its 58th anniversary, it's clear that water polo was always a sport for the super-fit.

For while the present-day polo players of Blackburn Centurions - the name the club adopted when it reached its centenary - are being banned from the town's Daisyfield Pools after dislodging ceiling tiles with extra-strong throws of the ball, the old-timers also had plenty of muscle.

The old BASC was based at the town's old Freckleton Street Baths which opened in 1868 ten years before the club was formed and Kay and Cowburn recalled the robust early water polo matches staged there.

"At first friendly matches were played, with the entire ends of the bath as goals and with holding, pulling, scratching and ducking taken for granted, to say nothing of swimming below the surface with the ball," they told the NDT.

"A local amateur, Joe Thompson, who was able to swim five lengths under water, was naturally the chief exponent of 'submarine goal-scoring'. A foul was unknown until it was gradually appreciated that the game was played according to rules."

Joe Kay was captain of the water polo team for four years and for 30 years was the town's swimming instructor for schoolboys, coaching an average of more than 1,500 each year.

The pair also recalled the early swimming galas staged at Freckleton Street by the club, with prizes for winners of the races being donated by local traders.

"Tradesmen offered all manner of prizes, with the result that the winner of a gala race frequently received a load of coal or a new suit," said the NDT.

In those days, the club also promoted races that were open to professionals who swam side-by-side with the amateurs who would only accept goods as prizes, not cash.

"To attend the galas, some of the professionals walked from as far away as Manchester, and frequently the club took pity on non-winners and paid their train fare home," the NDT added.

The club also had a thriving ladies' section, as can be seen from this picture lent by long-time Centurions' member Albert Mather, of Langho, showing women swimmers before the First World War, sporting club costumes, some of which are decorated with medals.

In those days, the baths at Freckleton Street had two pools - a new 'first-class' one having been added in 1884. The inauguration of the new plunge was also recalled by Kay and Cowburn.

They told the NDT: "After Mr T.J. Sycklemore, B.A., a master of the Grammar School, then opposite the baths, had been the first to plunge in, the president of the club, Alderman R. Eastwood, who was later Mayor of the town, gave a banquet, the guests having the novelty of eating at tables placed in the emptied second-class bath."

One of the biggest years in the club's history was 1923 when its water polo team won the English championship. The team included two internationals, J. Brown and captain Dick Hodgson, seen holding the ball.

Dick, who died in 1968 aged 75, was a top water polo player for 25 years before his retirement in 1932. He was capped 15 times and captained the England team on nine occasions and also took part in the Olympic Games in 1925 and 1928 when he narrowly missed winning a medal when England lost to Germany in the semi-final.

The Freckleton Street Baths closed in 1969.