Oldest Rugby Club Still Playing: Which Is It?
Guiseppe Medhurst
2025-05-28 22:40:01
Count answers: 4
As part of our #FitForKings campaign we wanted to shine a light on the GKT Rugby Club, a founding club of the RFU and recognised as the oldest rugby club in the world.
Founded in 1843, the Guy’s Hospital Rugby Club came into being only a few years after pupils at Rugby School decided to liven up traditional football matches by picking up and running with the ball.
The foundation of Guy’s Hospital Rugby Club in 1843 is accepted by both the Rugby Football Union and the Guinness Book of Records and makes Guy’s Hospital Rugby Football Club (now GKT) the oldest rugby club in the world.
Although challenged by several other clubs, the claim for Guy’s is supported by circumstantial evidence and relates to a score fixture from the 1883-84 season which referred to the 40th season of the club, alongside submissions from distinguished officials in 1863 and 1864, currently no existing club has advanced an earlier claim.
Following the merger of the medical schools the rugby club followed and became the GKT Rugby Club.
The GKT Rugby Club still compete in the United Hospital Cup to this day with their most recent victory being in 2019.
Hudson Johns
2025-05-19 06:37:50
Count answers: 3
But Richmond vs Blackheath takes the billing this week. Richmond and Blackheath meet on Friday in what will be the 160th anniversary of the fixture. Richmond and Blackheath, both of England’s third-tier National League 1, clash in a repeat of the world’s oldest inter-club fixture. But isn’t it interesting that you’ve got the two oldest clubs in the world which are community clubs that both put out three or four men’s teams, a women’s team and a minis team which is the absolute foundation of the game?
Gerda Schowalter
2025-05-19 04:21:04
Count answers: 5
Blackheath is the oldest independent Rugby club, meaning that it was not attached to any institution such as a military establishment, hospital, school or college. There are, however, documents that indicate that rugby was instituted at the Blackheath Proprietary School around 1856, and also that the boys who founded the Club were playing on the Heath in 1858. Blackheath FC are still known as “the Club” to this day.
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