Clark was born in Dorset in 1857, but moved to Wales while in his childhood. By 1874, at the age of 17 he began playing for Neath Rugby Football Club,Neath - Rugby Town Rugbyrelics.com and on 27 April 1880 he was appointed as the secretary of the South Wales Football Association.Smith (1980), pg 38. The SWFU was a body, although only formed in 1878, which was attempting to organise rugby events within South Wales and was Welsh rugby's first union. When Richard Mullock organised a Welsh XV to play England in 1881, it was Clark who notified the press that "...the team which represented Wales was not elected by the committee of the South Wales Football Union; neither had they anything to do with it."Smith (1980), pg 41. Although this served in distancing the SWFU from the humiliating loss suffered by the Welsh team, it turned Mullock into the lone voice of Welsh international rugby.
