London Welsh RFC

Affiliated teams

Despite professionalism, London Welsh has tried to retain the atmosphere of an amateur club. The first-XV squad are fully professional, and they are complemented with the London Welsh Amateurs, Wizards and Occies are still strong parts of the club. They also have a successful social section, which goes a long way towards maintaining the 'amateur ethos' of enjoying a game and a pint on a Saturday.

London Welsh has one of the longest-standing women's sides – LWWRFC – which celebrated thirty years of women's rugby at the club in the 2015–16 season. While still being amateur, the women train hard and have enjoyed recent success with the club, both in XVs in the winter and 7s during the summer. There are London Welsh Women representatives at England Regional Level and on the Wales National Touch team. There is also a popular mini & junior section.

Early years

London Welsh, established by and for London's Welsh community, has played senior-level rugby in England since its formation in 1885. Its name in Welsh, is Clwb Rygbi Cymry Llundain.

Over the years the club has contributed 177 players to the Wales national team and 43 players to the British and Irish Lions. Seven London Welsh players were selected for the 1971 tour to New Zealand (a Lions record which remains unbroken to this day): captain John Dawes (now London Welsh president), JPR Williams, Gerald Davies, Mervyn Davies, John Taylor (now Managing Director and ITV commentator), Mike Roberts and Geoff Evans.

In December 2006, London Welsh revealed their ambition to leave the English league and become the fifth Welsh team in the Celtic League. The club later appeared to go back on this report, claiming they had been misquoted and said this would only be considered if the English Premiership decided to prohibit promotion/relegation, but confirmed their hopes of ground-sharing with Brentford FC either at their current stadium Griffin Park or a new 20,000 seat ground to be built at Lionel Road, near Kew Bridge.

2009–12: Championship era

In June 2009, the club went into administration shortly after turning professional. They were bought from the receivers in July 2009 by Saudex Global, owned by Neil Hollinshead, and allowed to continue in The Championship, albeit with a five-point deduction. According to the BBC in March 2011, court documents show that Hollinshead is "alleged to have submitted forged documents and fake bank account details in order to continue his control of London Welsh and that he repeatedly lied to ensure that ownership of London Welsh was transferred over to him." The former shareholders of London Welsh RFC rescinded the 2009 agreement, by which they sold the shares of the club to Hollinshead, and had regained control by January 2010.

The 2010–11 season was the club's 125th anniversary and to kick off the celebrations they held a military tattoo on the evening of Wednesday 25 August at Old Deer Park with the Band and Corps of Drums of the Welsh Guards, plus the London Welsh Rugby Club Choir.

2012–15: Premiership era and relocation to Oxford

On 1 June 2012, it was revealed that Crystal Palace co-chairman Steve Parish had approached senior figures at the club about a possible ground-share at Selhurst Park, as the clubs plans to play their matches at Kassam Stadium in Oxford were deemed unsuitable by the RFU, after securing promotion to the English Premiership. However a legal appeal by the club against the RFU's actions was upheld on 28 June 2012, after the appeal panel ruled that the criteria were in breach of EU and UK competition laws. Promotion was ultimately secured when it was announced that Newcastle Falcons, the club facing relegation from the Premiership, would not appeal against the ruling. A move to the Kassam Stadium was then confirmed for the 2012–13 season

In 2013 London Welsh caused controversy by fielding an ineligible player (Tyson Keats) in nine league matches during the season, eventually receiving a 5-point deduction and £10,000 fine.

On 14 April 2013, London Welsh were relegated from the English Premiership in their first season (pending the winners of the RFU Championship meeting the Premiership entry requirements) after a 14–31 defeat at home to Northampton Saints. Newcastle Falcons were eligible for promotion and therefore confirmed Welsh's relegation.

On 4 June 2014, London Welsh won promotion to the English Premiership again, defeating Bristol Rugby 27–8 at home and 21–20 away, 48–28 on aggregate. However, the club endured a difficult season back in the English top-flight, and suffered defeat in all of their 22 league fixtures of the regular season, claiming only 1 bonus point throughout the entire campaign. The team therefore finished bottom and was relegated to the RFU Championship for the 2015–16 season. The team was also defeated in every single European Challenge Cup game, as well as every single Anglo-Welsh cup game. As a result, they became the first top-flight English side to suffer defeat in every single competitive match over a season, for over 10 years.

2015–present: return to Richmond and liquidation

The club left Oxford and returned to Old Deer Park at the end of the 2014–15 season. Following the return the club went on to win the British and Irish Cup lead by Head Coach Rowland Phillips beating Yorkshire Carnegie 10-33. Phillips then moved on to take up a coaching role with the Welsh Rugby Union. He was succeeded by forwards coach James Buckland who took the role of Head Coach assisted by Sonny Parker and Richard Tonkin.

HMRC petitioned the High Court to wind-up the club in September 2016 due to unresolved debts. The debts were paid and the petition was dismissed by the High Court. HMRC returned to court with a second winding-up petition in October 2016 and the insolvency court granted a stay of two weeks to arrange refinancing. After failing to pay their debts, the club went into voluntary liquidation on 23 December 2016. The club ceased to be a member of the RFU at that point and the liquidator stated that London Welsh would not be fulfilling the club's fixtures in the league. A separate entity was created "Rugby 1885 Limited" on 21 December 2016. The club were deducted 20 points from the Championship dropping them from 5th to 12th. Rugby 1885 Limited were granted a temporary licence to complete London Welsh's two fixtures until a further decision on their future in the Championship. When the temporary licence expired on 17 January 2017, the RFU Board met and extended a deadline to allow the new entity to show it could meet RFU regulations. After a further deadline was not met, on 24 January 2017 it was announced by the RFU that London Welsh had been removed from the Championship and their results expunged. The RFU stated that their place in the league was "untenable".

Honours

Sunday Telegraph Pennants

runner-up 1965–66 third 1971–72

runner-up 1965–66, 1971–72 third 1972–73

third 1965–66

Western Mail

runner-up 1967–68, 1971–72

Daily Mail

Whitbread

British and Irish Lions

The following former players were selected for the British and Irish Lions touring squads while playing for London Welsh.

Wales International Captains

The following former players captained the Wales national rugby union team while playing for London Welsh.

See also Wales rugby union captains

Other notable former players

London Welsh Football Club

The club set up an association football side in 1890 called London Welsh FC. They disbanded after a couple of seasons.