Club History
The club was originally established in 1895 and the present golf course started in 1910.
The latter half of the 19th century saw Broadway village in a transition phase. For 200 years it had been a major coaching centre, located as it is on the Worcester, Oxford, London Road, but in 1860 the opening of the railway in Evesham made coaches obsolete almost overnight. Gradually the village changed into a beautiful, quiet backwater, a Mecca for the Victorian elite society.
Into this arrived a man, who according to his contemporaries, was quite remarkable; he had unbounded energy, great organising skills, and a sort of Pied Piper magnetism which drew everyone into his schemes. This man was Dr Charles Turner Standring, 29 years of age. He reorganised the Cricket Club, formed the Football Club, became Secretary of the Tennis Club, and most importantly founded the Golf Club - in other words he was the prototype sporting doctor. With some friends he began to play on a few holes “some extemporised links in Deans Meadow” (now the home of the Cricket Club) according to the contemporary Evesham Journal. This “taster” must have been successful because they sought better facilities. In fact it took 4 further moves before the club finally became settled on what we now call “the bottom 9” in 1911, to be increased to 18 holes in 1962.
The first match was played against Alcester in 1894 and the club (by this time on the hill below the Broadway Tower) was instituted April 18th, 1895, with Dr. Standring as Captain.
Whilst one could name several people to whom we are indebted for the development of the first class facilities which we enjoy today, the Founder, in his role as Honorary Secretary, a position he held for twenty six years, through hard work and enthusiasm kept the club going through the difficult time of annual leases, problems with landlords and tenant farmers, expenditure in excess of income, not forgetting grass which refused to stop growing, thistles, sheep and marauding rabbits. Whilst other Cotswold clubs like Chastleton and Moreton in the Marsh succumbed under the challenge, Broadway kept going through the self help pattern exemplified by Dr Standring and followed in later years by other outstanding individuals.
After the ebb and flow of the past century the club is in a secure position, on land and assets owned equally by all members - a far cry from the beginning, on ground roughly mown, on short term rental from the local farmer.
