Currie RFC

Currie RFC
Full name Currie Rugby Football Club
Union Scottish Rugby Union
Founded 1970
Location Edinburgh, Scotland
Ground(s) Malleny Park, Balerno, Edinburgh
President Scotland Phil Thomas
Coach(es) Scotland Ben Cairns
League(s) Scottish Premiership
1st kit
2nd kit
Official website
www.currierugby.org

Currie Rugby Football Club are an Edinburgh-based rugby union club in the Scottish Rugby Union, they currently play in the Scottish Premiership. Despite the name, "Currie" RFC is actually based in the neighbouring suburb of Balerno, and they play in Malleny Park.

Currently the club run three senior sides, along with the Colts and youth rugby ages group teams.

History

The foundation of the club was iniitally started by six individuals; Bob Kirkwood, Jack Hogg, Roger Mclaren, Tom Chandler, David Bisset & Alex Galbraith . Having discussed the formation of a team in a local bar called the Weavers Knowe. From these discussions followed the idea to form a full rugby club in the local area.

The 'six' were joined by Gordon Stewart, and given the necessary backing and, more importantly, use of the facilities at Currie High School, by the Headmaster, Ronnie Paul. Together the group sent out posters and leaflets around the Currie, Balerno and Juniper Green area calling on all interested to attend an open meeting at Curriehill School in April 1970 to 'discuss the formation of a local Rugby Club'. On the given evening 35 individuals attended and it was agreed to form a club to be called Currie Rugby Football Club, with the aim of promoting and developing the game of rugby within the area for the benefit of the sport and the community. The club officially formed in April 1970 and in October that year a team was fielded to play Gala Wanderers at Gala. For the very first game the club played in jerseys borrowed from Boroughmuir. By January 1971 they were fielding two XVs and the following season a third occasionally appeared.

In the season 1973–74 the SRU decided to formalise the then unofficial championship and bring in a league structure, which gave Currie the entry to Edinburgh District League, Division II. Progress and promotion followed in 1976–77. The club was promoted from the District League into the National League during the 1979–80 season, where the Club would go undefeated and scored over 1000 points.

Successive promtion to Division 6 came the next year and following league reconstruction the club was in Division 5 by the start of the 1981–82 season. The rise of the club would continue with them winning promotion in 1982–83, 1985–86 and 1986–87 to arrive in Division 2 of the National League.

In 1989–90 Currie completed a remarkable rise through the leagues by finishing second in Division 2 and were promoted to Division 1 alongside Edinburgh Wanders. The club remained in the top division of Scottish Rugby until 1995 where league reconstruction saw them along with five other teams demoted into the Division 2. However, the club would bounce back the following year to win Division 2 outright regained promotion back to Division I, alongside Jed-Forest. The club have remained in the top tier of the National League ever since.

In 2006–07 season Currie secured their first Division 1 championship with victory over Heriots at Goldenacre, beating Glasgow Hawks to the league title. It completed the fasted ever journey from club formation to League success in the history of Scottish Rugby. They would repeat this in 2009–10 beating Ayr to the title.

Club Honours

Notable former players

Scotland Capped players

Dougie Fife

Matt Scott

Ben Cairns

Graham Ellis

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, March 25, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.