Storm clouds gather over Europe and Rochford

On to 1914 and .......WAR

Reacting quickly to the pressing needs of the serious situation, the club gave the committee power to suspend or otherwise deal with the subscriptions of members serving with H.M Forces and decided that officers stationed locally should be allowed free use of green and clubhouse. The club also rallied to calls for support of 'our brave lads,'organising charity and exhibition matches in aid of hospitals caring for the wounded with professional matches in one month raising over £100 for the cause.

It was during the war years that Mr Tabor rented more land to the club to enable it to change the course and between 1915 and 1917 new greens were apparently laid down and a fair amount of money spent on bunkers and new fairways. Unfortunately no original diagrams, or maps from that time exists today, however, what is know is that a serious dispute arose between the club and the Essex and Rochford War Agricultural Committees. Having spent between £500 and £600 on the 18½ acres of the new nine holes, the club was certainly not amused when it was informed that the Agricultural Committees wanted it all dug up again for cultivation. The First World War apart a ding-dong battle certainly raged at Rochford over the freshly created fairways, not only between the club and the War Agricultural Committees, but among the members themselves. Compensation....was the demand from one element of the club. Unpatriotic.....cried the loyalists. In any event what were described as "acrimonious discussions" took place with the War Committees and with the farming Bentalls, whose cattle and sheep grazed on the course. Offers to cultivate as much of the land as possible without interferring with the fairways and greens met with no success and Mr John Steel a past Captain and member of the Rochford Agricultural War Committee made his views clear by temporarily resigning from the club. Ultimately the club was ordered to plough and cultivate the whole of the 18½ acres with Bentalls paying 35 shillings an acre for the area for three years. The desperate needs of the country for food were overriding. In addition to this inconvenience on the course the clubhouse dining room had by now been occupied by the military.

During the 1914-18 war our adjacent neighbour the then Rochford Aerodrome was first developed as an operational base for the embryonic Royal Fying Corps and had become the largest flying ground in Essex. It was designated as night fighter station and many sorties were flown against Zeppelin airship raiders, including LZ38 on 31 May 1915. There is an as yet uncorroborated tale of a Zeppelin crashing on Rochford Hundred golf course, but one incident that is well documented occurred on 6th December 1917 when a Gotha (a large three seater German biplane bomber), was hit by anti-aircraft fire from a battery on Canvey Island. The pilot tried to land at Rochford Aerodrome but crashed into a tree on the golf course, adjacent to what is now the 15th green. Its cargo of two aerial torpedoes, a gas bomb and 68 incendiary bombs were removed, but unfortunately the machine was accidentally set on fire and destroyed. In 1920 the station closed and reverted to farmland for a while.

So in times of War which comes first - golf or self preservation? Well as far as one member from 1917 was concerned it was definitely the the latter and the committee agreed. It was decided that a Mr Fletcher, who had interrupted his round for sometime in order to take cover during an air raid should not be disqualified from the monthly medal in which he had been playing. Such compassion by the committee.

By the grace of God 11th November 1918 came and it was time to start clearing up.