From The Vaults

27 September 2021

PLAYER PROFILE: Francis Luscombe (1849-1926)

Francis “Frank” Luscombe was the fourth man to captain England at rugby. He gained the first of his six England caps against Scotland at the Oval on 5 February 1872...

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27 September 2021

PLAYER PROFILE: Francis Luscombe (1849-1926)

Francis “Frank” Luscombe was the fourth man to captain England at rugby. He gained the first of his six England caps against Scotland at the Oval on 5 February 1872...

20 September 2021

DD and RA Howie – Scottish brothers from Kirkcaldy

On January 20th 1912, the first player to be capped from the Kirkcaldy rugby club in Fife took the field at Inverleith for the first of Scotland's four matches in the 1912 International championship...

19 July 2021

Tom Richards, the Australia Campaign and the road to the King's Cup

“I don’t feel the coming danger [the forthcoming Gallipoli invasion] any more than I have felt anxious the night before an international football match.”

21 June 2021

The Evolution of the English Back Row

The major achievements of the England rugby team since 1910 have been invariably linked to the selection of back row combinations of the highest quality.

22 May 2021

He Saved Many Lives But Not His Own. Lest We Forget- Kit Tanner

On this day 80 years ago, Kit Tanner lost his life after rescuing 30 people from the wreckage of HMS Fiji. Here Malc King of the Gloucester Rugby Heritage archive pays tribute to a remarkable man.

19 April 2021

Selected but never played Part 2 (1920-1996)

In the days before substitutes were introduced into international rugby, many players faced a dilemma following their selection to play for their country for the first time.

05 April 2021

Selected but never played Part 1 (1871-1914)

...there were over 90 players who had the misfortune to be selected to play for their country in a test match but who never took the field and so remained uncapped.

26 March 2021

Meet the 1871 Captains...

When England and Scotland took the field for the first time on 27th March 1871, they were led by Francis Moncrieff and Frederick Stokes. At 21, Edinburgh born Moncreiff was the senior of the two and, as a former pupil of Edinburgh Academy and captain of Edinburgh Academicals, was in the most familiar of circumstances as the two teams ran out at Raeburn Place.

11 January 2021

Denzil Batchelor's All-Star XV

Denzil Batchelor was a sports and war correspondent, poet and playwright. He played rugby at Oxford University in the 1920s and was a lifelong fan of cricket and rugby. This All-Star XV is an extract from his book ‘Babbled of Green Fields’ published in 1961.

30 November 2020

‘L’art du drop goal’ – a French phenomenon?

Kicking a drop goal has often proved a decisive factor in the winning of matches at international level since the second match between England and Scotland at The Oval in 1872 when Harold Freeman for England and Charles Cathcart for Scotland each scored a drop goal.

02 November 2020

International Triplets

There have been around 30 known cases of "triplets" appearing for their country, but only a select group of six families have produced siblings who have appeared alongside at least two other brothers in the same international team on the same day.

05 October 2020

Ernie Crawford - a legendary Irish full back

The Irish selectors alighted on the Lansdowne and Leinster player William Ernest ‘Ernie’ Crawford as their full back when they chose the team for the first post-war Ireland international against England at Lansdowne Road, Dublin on February 14th 1920.

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