About Croyde Surf Club

The idea of forming csc was born in a car park overlooking the beach in 1979. Home of one of the best beach breaks in the uk plus some of the best surfers in the land. Many years on the club still strives and achieves success through its individual members and its teams. The club is continuing to attract more members of all ages and sex, who are benefiting from various club perks such as specialized coaching, training sessions, social occasions and being part of a club, proud of its heritage.

The club is now looking to its future to represent surfing in N.Devon and beyond, to maintain its positive influence within the community, and to cater for what is a burgeoning membership. CSC aims to nurture and retain our talented and our recreational surfers alike,  to ensure the safe and  future sustainability of surfing by safeguarding access and providing world class facilities for CSC surfers.

In depth...

In the ‘60s, Surfing Contests were usually run by Surf Life Saving Clubs and were mainly aimed at Surf Life Saving Club members. Surf Clubs started to appear in the mid 60s, to cater for those surfers that just wanted to surf, compete with each other and have social events, in their village.

Croyde attracted some surfers, but most surfed at Woolacombe, Putsborough or Saunton. Croyde Beach had a bad reputation for rips (remember there were no leashes in those days). Woolacombe had a surf club, The Red Barn, surf contests and The Long Bar at the Narracott Grand Hotel. We used to surf Croyde and then drive to Woolacombe for the evening. On the way we’d stop off at the Kings Arms in Georgeham and usually didn’t get much further ! That was the evening meeting place for the Croyde surfing community.

In the mid ‘70s the Thatched Barn Village Tea rooms became a public house and, along with the Beach Club a little later, became the haunt of many of the local surfers. We didn’t have to leave the village any more !

By the late ‘70s many of the local lads were surfing well enough to enter and be successful in National competitions. Several were chosen to represent their country in British, European and World Contests. Most of the important competitions were being staged by British Surfing Association Officials, often in Cornwall. We had to redress the balance.

In 1979, in the National Trust Car Park, Baggy Point, Terry Veitch, Tim Barrow, Richard Carter and Keith West hatched a plan to form The Croyde Surf Club. The main aim was to focus the obvious surfing interest in the community in order to be able to run our own contests, grow the surf talent of the village, have local social events and host, organise and run Regional and National Contests.

Forming the club was pretty easy, as there was a lot of local support, although we had to have Parish Council approval to use the name Croyde ! During the ‘80s, we hosted and ran many local, Regional and National Contests, won many National Inter-Club Championships and had several early successes from within the ranks. The social side was pretty good too ! Croyde Surf Club parties in the ‘80s Beach Club/ Cave Rave days, will live forever in the minds of all who were fortunate to be there and are still able to remember!

Keith West