From The Vaults

17 November 2015

Newport Rugby Football Club '140 Years of Rugby' exhibition

Newport Rugby Football club is celebrating its 140th year with an exhibition at Newport Museum. Club historian Stephen Bennett here describes what visitors might expect.

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17 November 2015

Newport Rugby Football Club '140 Years of Rugby' exhibition

Newport Rugby Football club is celebrating its 140th year with an exhibition at Newport Museum. Club historian Stephen Bennett here describes what visitors might expect.

11 November 2015

A History of the Bristol Memorial Ground

The Memorial Ground was built for the Bristol Rugby Club, and is now the home of Bristol Rovers Football Club. Next year, the city's Ceremony of Remembrance is to be held at the war memorial stadium.

29 September 2015

An American rugby pioneer in China - Henry Bluett Liversedge

Liversedge, nicknamed 'the Horse', had a huge influence on the rugby scene in China in the late 1920s, his legacy continued in Shanghai through to 1940. Born in California in 1894, he was a freshman at the University of California in 1914. During his first year, rugby was the football of choice on the west coast of America.

09 August 2015

Durham rugby friends die at Gallipoli in August 1915

Two teammates and close friends from the rugby fields of Durham School, Rosslyn Park and Oxford died at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli, just days and a few hundred yards apart in August 1915. This is their story...

06 August 2015

From Middle Park to Gallipoli

On Saturday 8 August, 1914, only four days after Australia had entered the war, East Melbourne played South Melbourne on the Middle Park ground in the final game of the season...

23 July 2015

The 1956 Arctic Rugby Football Championship

The World Rugby Museum was recently contacted by a man who, in the 1950s, helped to implement the DEW Line system in northern Canada.

08 July 2015

MATCH REPORT - Harlequins v Richmond, 1909

Harlequin Football Club (Harlequins F.C) had a gentleman's agreement with the RFU to use their new football ground even before it was built in 1909. The first game at Twickenham was contested between Harlequins and Richmond, two local rivals, on the 2nd October 1909.

23 June 2015

Poulton scores five!

The Varsity fixture between Oxford and Cambridge Universities was first contested in 1872 and quickly became one of the most celebrated on the annual rugby calendar.

08 June 2015

INTERVIEW - Lawrence Dallaglio

Lawrence Dallaglio, despite his Italian father, was brought up in England, and with his mother Eileen being half English and half Irish the former Wasps back row forward had a further choice to make. He made his England debut against South Africa as a replacement in 1995.

12 May 2015

Remembering the Middlesex Sevens

The Middlesex Sevens began life as a southern counterpart to the popular Melrose Sevens that had taken place in the Scottish Borders since the 7-man game had been invented there by a butcher, called Ned Haig, in 1883.

09 May 2015

Lest We Forget - Harry Berry (England and Gloucester) and Harry Barnes (Gloucester) 09/05/2015

One hundred years ago today the only Gloucester international rugby player to die in the Great War, Henry 'Harry' Berry, was killed in action on 9th May 1915, during the Battle of Aubers Ridge. Herbert Henry 'Harry' Barnes, his Gloucester teammate, was also killed this day in the same battle. Martin Davies and Malc King here pay tribute to them both.

06 May 2015

...he might have stood as a symbol of the heart of England...remembering Ronnie Poulton

The following is an extract from AA Thomson's 'What Do They Know of England?' published in 1955. It begins with a description of Ronnie Poulton's devastating display against Cambridge in the 1909 Varsity Match:

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