Harlow Rugby Club

Harlow Rugby Club

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Club information
Full name	Harlow Rugby Club
Colours	Red and Green
Founded	1955
Website	Harlow Rugby Club
Current details
Ground(s)	Ram Gorse, Harlow
Competition	London Divison Three North-East

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A Harlow player (Green Shorts) wins a lineout

Harlow Rugby Club is a Rugby Union club based in Harlow, Essex. The club came into existence on December 8th 1955 at a meeting in the Essex Skipper pub in Harlow. Founder members included; Ron Bracewell, Ron Strudwick, Ron Parkin, Derek Jennings and Eric Jones. Harlow Rugby Club quickly became a pinnacle of camaraderie for ‘The Long, The Short & The Tall’ within Harlow and surrounding community.

Initially playing in a white and green striped strip, rugby established its home in Harlow fairly rapidly. The New Town Development Corporation enthusiastically provided grounds for this new venture @ £15 per annum rent, however, this area wasn’t playable to begin with so the club played rugby on a local farmer's field for the interim.

The Official opening of the Ram Gorse Club House by Sir Richard Costain in 1959 gave Harlow Rugby Club a real independence and freedom. Over the years, membership grew with Harlow attracting members form all over the UK, and especially from Wales. Membership really swelled over the years with Harlow fielding more and more teams on match days. During the 1980/81 season Harlow were fielding 7 teams on a Saturday. During these years one of Harlow’s corner stone teams was the Saints. The Saints have had 2 unbeaten seasons during their time, 1975/76 (a season in which Mike Ryland played every game) & 1982/83.

The strength in depth at Harlow continued over several decades benefiting from some great coaching teams but also from an incredible and constant tide of juniors coming into the game. One theory opines that Harlow club member, Gwynne Harris, was partly responsible for this. He was the PE Advisor for West Essex Education Authority for a number of years and was responsible for bringing so many high quality PE teachers from the Welsh colleges to the town during its boom years. Encouraging their boys to ‘get down the club’ was pretty much a genetic thing – and the boys went down the club for years building what would be one of the highest quality junior rugby set-ups in the UK.

Colts Rugby

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The Harlow Colts who won 100 consecutive matches

Winning 100 matches in a row from 1979 to 1981 was a magnificent achievement for Harlow Colts – and having a reputation like this meant getting bigger fixtures. Wasps, Saracens, Leicester, and Bristol were just a few of the first-class teams Harlow Colts played and expected to beat. During this period, a number of Harlow players - Dave Hurley, Jonathon Locke and Wayne Kearns, were selected to play first-class rugby for leading clubs. Jonathon Locke and Wayne Kearns both achieved junior international honours for England and Ireland respectively. More recently, Harlow junior, Steven Pope, has represented Wasps, Blackheath, London Welsh and Swansea rugby clubs and he has also represented England Divisions against South Africa.

Promotion

This successful junior rugby section ultimately meant that this talent would feed into the senior teams and having been placed in Eastern Counties Division One when the leagues were formed in 1987/88, Harlow gained promotion every 2 years until finally reaching London Division One in 1993. Harlow have never won the Essex Cup, however, Harlow has won the Eastern Counties Cup twice; firstly in 1995 and secondly in 1997, and in 1999 a Harlow Sevens squad reached the Middlesex Sevens Finals and played on the hallowed turf at Twickenham beating Richmond in their last tournament as a professional club.

Harlow Rugby Club currently fields 4 senior teams, plus a very vibrant Ladies team. The 1st XV currently compete in London Division 3 North-East.

There are currently over 150 juniors and minis registered with the club.

External Links

Harlow Rugby Club

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