Reg Quick was one of the most prolific try scorers in the history of the Bristol club.  His 33 tries in the 1920/21 season was a club record until Mike Ellery beat it over forty years later, and he scored a grand total of 190 in 261 appearances.  Although he played his early games for the club in the centre it was as a left winger that he achieved his remarkable try scoring feats in the years immediately following World War One.  The characteristic feature of his play was a high-kicking run which made him extremely difficult to tackle, and he formed a superb understanding with centre Len Corbett as an integral part of an exciting three-quarter line.

Quick first played the game at St Mary Redcliffe School in 1908, captaining the school XV in the following year, when he and Corbett played in the Bristol Schools side.  He sang in Redcliffe Church choir, and excelled at athletics, winning several gold medals as a sprinter in schools competitions.  He trained by running on the cobbled streets around the school.  After a brief flirtation with soccer, when he considered signing for Bristol City, he joined Bristol in the last season before World War One, winning his Second XV cap, and playing a few first team games, including the last one of the pre-war era, a 14-3 loss to Aberavon.

Reg Quick was an early recruit when war broke out, joining the 1st South Midland: Gloucestershire Brigade Royal Field Artillery.  He became a proficient horseman and served with distinction as a signaller, winning the Italian Croix de Guerre for bravery and being recommended for a Military Medal for conspicuous gallantry repairing telephone lines and manning a visual station under heavy bombardment. 

When the war finished, Quick became a member of the interim Bristol United team which operated during 1918/19, scoring ten tries.  The Bristol club was relaunched the following season and Quick played in the opening game, scoring a try in the victory over Bridgwater.  By the end of that season he had scored twenty tries, won his first team cap and been selected for Somerset.  He set his club record in the next season, when perhaps his most important and spectacular score was a brilliant individual effort in a famous 13-6 defeat of Newport at Bristol City’s Ashton Gate ground.  The bulk of Bristol’s home games at this time were played on a makeshift ground at Radnor Road.  The pitch had a pronounced dip in one corner and Quick scored tries there so regularly that it was christened “Quick’s Corner” by the club’s supporters.  When the Memorial Ground was opened in September 1921, Quick scored two of Bristol’s tries in the 19-3 victory over Cardiff and was on 32 for the season and looking certain to beat his own record when an injury against Bradford on Easter Tuesday thwarted him. 

The 1921/22 season was memorable for Quick for many reasons.  He became the first Bristol player to receive the newly introduced award of a blazer for playing seventy first team games, and he was appointed captain of Somerset, a post he held until 1927.  He also played for England against The North in a trial, the closest he got to the international honours he so richly deserved.  He became Bristol captain in 1922/23, scored 32 tries again, and on December 23rd in the game with Old Merchant Taylors, crossed for his hundredth post-war try for the club.  This was the season in which Somerset won the County Championship, defeating Leicestershire at Bridgwater, but Quick was unable to lead his side in the final as he was injured playing for Bristol against Bath on the previous Wednesday.

Reg Quick continued with what the Annual Report called his “genial and happy” leadership of Bristol in 1923/24, enjoying the team’s visit to France, where he scored a try in the 8-6 win against Cognac.  In the following season he captained his county in the game against the New Zealand All Blacks, and scored a further 26 club tries.  His form gradually declined as the decade progressed and he stepped down to captain Bristol’s second XV in 1927/28, although he still played for Somerset.  This was Quick’s final season as a Bristol player, but by no means the end of his association with the club.  He joined the committee in 1929 and stayed there for the next thirty-two years, eventually acting as chairman from 1954 until his retirement in 1961.  He also  continued his links with Somerset and was county president from 1955 to 1961, as well as being an honorary member of the Rugby Football Union.

When Reg Quick retired as chairman in 1961 he ended an official association with the Bristol club which stretched back nearly fifty years.  There was a special presentation to mark the occasion, and the following appeared in the Annual Report: “We who have worked with him for so many years realise what a loss he will be to Rugby Football.”  Reg Quick, besides being one of Bristol’s very greatest players, was a dedicated worker for the club he loved.