From The Vaults

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.

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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.

14 June 2021

Rugby World Cup Bolters!

There were three Rugby World Cup tournaments held in the years before rugby went fully professional in the summer of 1995 and there was at least one player in each of the cup winning sides who could be said to have owed their selection to being in the right place at the right time.

07 June 2021

The Formation of Marlborough RFC

From being one of the founding clubs of the RFU (Marlborough Nomads) to the current day on the Common (Marlborough RFC), rugby and Marlborough have never been far apart.

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.

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.

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

12 May 2021

The 1971 British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand

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

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.

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...

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.

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.

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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