From The Vaults

14 March 2022

Le Crunch, Old Gaytonians, PLESSIS MEUDON and 60 years of sporting frivolity by Connor Dickins

Connor Dickins explores the 60-year relationship that epitomised England v France…

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14 March 2022

Le Crunch, Old Gaytonians, PLESSIS MEUDON and 60 years of sporting frivolity by Connor Dickins

Connor Dickins explores the 60-year relationship that epitomised England v France…

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20 December 2021

Bringing Rugby History To Life For Children

Rugby author James Stafford chats with us about his new book ‘How Wales Beat the Mighty All Blacks’ and his mission to bring rugby history to life for readers of all ages.

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23 August 2021

A Game Of Poetry

Vane Ihe (41 years old) has been attending Otautahi Creative Spaces since 2017 and has been writing poetry since he was 18. Vane has written over 200 poems, one of which was for New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.

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31 May 2021

USA v South Africa, 1981: International Rugby on a Polo Field

Owl Creek Polo Field in Glenville, New York State, can lay claim to being the most unlikely international rugby ground of the last 150 years. On Friday 25 September 1981 it was the venue for the inaugural test match between the USA Eagles and the South African Springboks.

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18 May 2021

Remembering the 1996 Peace International

On the 18th May 1996 Lansdowne Road hosted a special fixture between Ireland and the Barbarians called the Peace International

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12 May 2021

The 1971 British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand

On 15th May 1971, the British and Irish Lions began their tour of Australia and New Zealand. Barney Burnham reports on the tour from a tent in Henley-on-Thames...

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03 May 2021

New book documenting the history of rugby in East Germany

In 1948, Erwin Thiesies, a former German national player, moved from Berlin to Hennigsdorf, an industrial city with a steelworks in the north of Berlin. He gathered schoolboys around him and introduced them to rugby.

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26 April 2021

The One and Only Whistle

When JD Dallas blew his whistle for a scrum, not a try, in 1905, he ignited a dispute that continues to this day. Here, in his own words, he seeks to set the record straight...

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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.

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12 April 2021

The Cavaliers tour of South Africa 1986

The rivalry between the New Zealand All Blacks and the South African Springboks had been intense ever since their first meeting in 1921. The generation of leading players in the mid-1980s were almost without exception keen for that rivalry to continue despite the growing public awareness of the injustices that were occurring daily in apartheid South Africa.

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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.

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27 March 2021

27th March - A Red Letter Day for Rugby

On 27th March 1971, England and Scotland stepped out at Murrayfield for their second international test-match in the space of a week. The previous Saturday, both sides had completed their 5 Nations campaign at Twickenham, where Peter Brown's conversion had secured a 16-15 victory for Scotland.

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