From The Vaults

13 May 2019

Who is Eric Bole?

Who is Eric Bole? During the 1940s, he was an English rugby player of outstanding ability—profiled in 1945 by The Times as “a forward of high promise”—and yet, he never managed to earn his international cap for England...

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13 May 2019

Who is Eric Bole?

Who is Eric Bole? During the 1940s, he was an English rugby player of outstanding ability—profiled in 1945 by The Times as “a forward of high promise”—and yet, he never managed to earn his international cap for England...

06 May 2019

Richmond FC at War

When we talk about our playing days we casually throw out words which suggest we were engaged in a sort of warfare, but for an awful lot of our predecessors at Richmond Football Club the words had a harsh and vivid reality...

29 April 2019

Historic Rugby Internationals: South Africa v British Isles, 1974

Rugby history beckoned at Ellis Park, Johannesburg on Saturday July 27th 1974. The British Lions were playing the 22nd and final match of their tour and they had won all their previous matches...

22 April 2019

Thomas Cook’s Rugby Club

The book, Thomas Cook’s Rugby Club 1910-1966, tells the story about the life and times of the illustrious travel firm and its rugger club...

16 April 2019

The 1919 Rugby World Cup Final...

A century ago, in this deciding clash for George V’s King’s Cup, could the Mother Country reverse their earlier defeat by New Zealand, or would the men from 12,000 miles away maintain their edge and build on the winning reputation they and their countrymen had built over the previous fifteen years?

09 April 2019

Play-offs loom in the 1919 King's Cup...

The Services teams from Down Under finally clashed at Bradford after a snow-postponement, and the against-the-odds Aussie win helped the Mother Country in their hopes of forcing a play-off for the 1919 Kings Cup…

05 April 2019

1919 King's Cup tournament draws towards its climax...

As the King’s Cup tournament of 1919 drew towards its climax, the Mother Country and New Zealand travelled north of the border to Edinburgh’s Inverleith, for what turned out to be a terrific foretaste of the eventual final and produced the ‘Storey’ of the day…

01 April 2019

Space Oddity

During the recent England v Scotland Calcutta Cup match held here at Twickenham we were lucky enough to be able to welcome British astronaut and rugby fan Tim Peake.

25 March 2019

Historic Rugby Internationals: Wales v Ireland, 1899

The final match of the 1899 International Championship produced one of the great contests between Wales and Ireland...

14 March 2019

William Webb Ellis, Are You Mad?

In the late 1960s the Rugby Football Union began making plans to celebrate its 1971 centenary year. As part of the programme of events a film was commissioned that would tell the story of rugby union, from its origins to the present...

11 March 2019

What Constitutes a National Treasure?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a ‘national treasure’ as something that is emblematic of a nation’s cultural identity. The World Rugby Museum has at least one of these on its register in the shape of the world’s oldest international football trophy, otherwise known as the Calcutta Cup.

01 March 2019

The RAF - and "Taffy" - shot down on St David's Day...

In the ‘King’s Cup’ opening encounter the fledgling Royal Air Force outfit, with the last- minute addition of an amazing Air Force character, met a strong New Zealand Services XV at a windblown Swansea on St David’s Day 1919...

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