Redruth v Camborne on Boxing Day, there cannot be a more famous fixture in rugby, a fixture wrapped in history, as well as some myth. Even in these days when league success is the priority for both clubs, this fixture is still a hugely important event in the rugby calendar.

The game this week will be the 112th Boxing Day encounter between our two sides. One game, scheduled for 1998 couldn’t be played because of a waterlogged pitch however, such is the importance of this fixture to the two clubs, that it was rearranged at the end of the regular season and played on May 3rd. Redruth won that one 66-27.

The belief that this is the oldest fixture in rugby union has long been proved to be untrue. Although the first ever Boxing Day fixture between the two sides was played at North Roskear in 1877 it was another eight years before the clubs met again on Boxing Day. Indeed, between 1877 and 1900 only three such matches actually took place, even though Redruth and Camborne were regularly playing up to four matches a season against each other.

Redruth were successful in all those early games and it was not until 1910, 33 years after that first fixture, that Camborne won a Boxing Day game against the Reds with a 9-3 victory. The Great War, together with the cancellation of fixtures following a series of disagreements, meant that the 1928 match, which Redruth won 10-0, was the first of the continual series of fixtures, except for a break for the Second World War, up to the present day.

The records show that Redruth have won 72 of these games to Camborne’s 26, the rest ending in a draw.

This week’s game is sure to draw a large crowd and there is the added attraction that Redruth’s 2nd XV face their Camborne opposite numbers on Boxing Day morning at Camborne.

As Redruth's Billy Phillips said many years ago 'We wish each other the compliments of the season-then get stuck in."