25-596: The Glasgow Academical Football Club is the third oldest rugby football club in Scotland. The club was also a founder member of the Scottish Football Union (the future SRU) in 1873. In 1997 the decision was made to combine the first XV's of Glasgow Academicals and close rivals Glasgow High Kelvinside (themselves a fairly new club having been formed when the struggling Glasgow High FP and Kelvinside Academicals clubs combined in 1982), something that
50-615: A team to be known as Glasgow Caledonian. The Borders was resurrected in 2002 and joined the second season of the Celtic League, now known as the United Rugby Championship . As a consequence Edinburgh Reivers became simply Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow became Glasgow Rugby. In 2005, all three teams adopted new names. The Borders readopted the name Border Reivers; Edinburgh became Edinburgh Gunners, but would revert to Edinburgh in 2006 due to Arsenal F.C. owning
75-461: Is scheduled to be from 2022 to 2024 . He is the third SRU president to be elected from Stewarts Melville, the other 2 Presidents being Fred McLeod and Lex Govan . Rigby put in place a new governing structure for the SRU in 2022. He hailed it as a 'significant milestone'. Rigby started in finance with Motorola, CTS Automotive, and Basilica Computing. He then moved into Operations and became first
100-694: Is the governing body of rugby union in Scotland . Now marketed as Scottish Rugby , it is the second oldest Rugby Union, having been founded in 1873. The SRU oversees the national league system, known as the Scottish League Championship , and the Scottish National teams. The SRU is headed by the President ( Colin Rigby ) and Chairman (John McGuigan), with Mark Dodson acting as the chief executive officer. Dee Bradbury became
125-745: Is the main home ground of the Scottish national team , though in 2004 international rugby games were played at Hampden Park in Glasgow and McDiarmid Park in Perth , as part of the SRU's campaign to reach out to new audiences outside the traditional rugby areas. When the Heineken Cup (now replaced by the European Rugby Champions Cup ) was suggested SRU officials were concerned that Scottish club sides could not compete against
150-628: The Scottish Cup . It is not directly responsible for local, university or 2nd XV leagues. See also Scottish Women's Rugby . Since the Scottish Women's Rugby Union merged with Scottish Rugby in 2009 the governing body also oversees Women's Fixtures. A National Cup competition: Regional Cup Competition: The SRU oversees Scotland's national teams. The most prominent team is the Scotland national rugby union team , which competes in
175-620: The "Gunners" trademark; and Glasgow became Glasgow Warriors . Furthermore, the SRU planned to have a world-class rugby side for each city or large town in Scotland, when financial circumstances permitted. In 2007, The Borders team was disbanded yet again as a result of continuing financial difficulties. In the same year, the SRU began organising the Scotland Sevens , first held in Edinburgh and later in Glasgow. For several years, it
200-580: The 157 clubs in the National and Regional leagues in 2015–16, only three had a winning % record which bettered Accies. Success came on the 9 April 2016 with a 26–7 win over Allan Glens at the Bearyards. Days after winning the league, the 150th year of the club was celebrated in April 2016, with a 1st XV match against a team mainly principally from West of Scotland F.C. but including representatives from
225-891: The Cook Islands. With the advent of the Hawks, the Glasgow Academicals lost many of their strong first XV but made the decision to continue as a league side for the following year - which under SRU rules meant that they had to rejoin the lowest league of Scottish rugby. In 1998 the club competed in Glasgow District division 3. The club raced back up through the leagues, being promoted as league champions five years in succession. In 2016, their 150th year, they won West Regional League Division One giving them promotion to Scottish National League Division Three for 2016/17, after only losing one league game all season. Of
250-611: The Director of Rugby and she was due to commence this role in August 2014. Colin Rigby Colin Rigby is a Scottish former rugby union player and referee. He is the 130th President of the Scottish Rugby Union ; the 129th person to hold the office. Rigby played rugby at school. He went to Stewart's Melville College . At the age of 21 an injury ended his playing career and he moved into refereeing
275-522: The RFU to join the SFU. The SFU was a founding member of the one and only International Rugby Football Board, now known as World Rugby , in 1886 with Ireland and Wales . (England refused to join until 1890.) In 1924 the SFU changed its name to become the Scottish Rugby Union. International games were played at Inverleith from 1899 to 1925 when Murrayfield was opened. The SRU owns Murrayfield Stadium which
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#1732797832331300-676: The Scottish national women's rugby team is Shade Munro . On 28 March 2019, the SRU announced that it had taken a minority stake in Old Glory DC , a team set to begin play in Major League Rugby (MLR), the current top level of the sport in the United States and Canada , in 2020. As MLR operates on a "single-entity" business model similar to the two countries' Major League Soccer , with the league owning all teams and
325-685: The Six Nations tournament every year and in the Rugby World Cup every four years. The SRU also oversees the Scotland national sevens team , which competes every year in the World Rugby Sevens Series . And the SRU oversees the Scotland national women's rugby team. The head coach of the Scotland national rugby union team is Gregor Townsend , who began in June 2017. Scott Johnson is Director of Rugby. The head coach of
350-589: The best teams from France and England and that centrally funded so-called 'super-district' teams might do better. The four traditional districts—the South (renamed Border Reivers ), Edinburgh, Glasgow and the North & Midlands (rebranded as Caledonia Reds )—were given the go-ahead to take part in Europe. For the first two seasons, players were still released to play for their clubs in domestic competition, but eventually
375-463: The districts became full-time operations. Then financial difficulties – the SRU's high debt, partly as a result of the redevelopment of Murrayfield – called for retrenchment. After two seasons, financial difficulties forced the SRU to merge the four teams into two. Edinburgh merged with the Border Reivers to form a team to be known as Edinburgh Reivers. Glasgow merged with Caledonian to form
400-530: The first female president of a Tier 1 rugby nation upon her appointment on 4 August 2018. The Scottish Football Union was founded on Monday 3 March 1873 at a meeting held at Glasgow Academy , Elmbank Street, Glasgow. Eight clubs were represented at the foundation, Glasgow Academicals ; Edinburgh Academical Football Club ; West of Scotland F.C. ; University of St Andrews Rugby Football Club ; Royal High School FP ; Merchistonians ; Edinburgh University RFC ; and Glasgow University . Five of these clubs were, at
425-486: The following week. The final “points for” tally in the league was 930 from 22 games – the highest in the national leagues – with a points difference of 600. In April 2018, Accies secured promotion to National 2 with an 8-try win at Murrayfield Wanderers. The club run the Glasgow Academicals Sevens. Their first Sevens tournament was in 1908 to raise funds to pay for their pavilion, but their Sevens
450-503: The game. He became a president of Stewart's Melville from 2012 to 2015. He became a chairman and director of the club from 2015 to 2018. He was elected onto the Scottish Rugby Union council in 2017. He had three years on the SRU board from 2017 to 2020. He was voted a vice-president of the Scottish Rugby Union in 2020. Rigby became the 130th president of the Scottish Rugby Union in 2022. His term in office
475-526: The new coat of arms of the SRU that was granted by the Lord Lyon King of Arms on 28 February 1973, for the centenary season. The coat of arms is still in use today, but in the main the SRU use the commercial thistle logo on jerseys and stationery. The coat of arms has the motto "Non Sine Gloria" , meaning "Not Without Glory" . The SRU oversees the national league system, known as the Scottish League Championship , and consisting of: It also oversees
500-476: The other six clubs who, along with Accies and West, had founded the SRU in 1873. In recent years, the club has toured overseas to destinations including Zimbabwe (defeating leading province Matabeleland ), United States ( Carolina ), Poland , in the 150th year Luxembourg , and most recently Budapest in 2017. In 2017 the club finished third. They did win 13 games in a row, including a 163–10 defeat of Livingston, followed up by 95–0 against Greenock Wanderers
525-533: The team operators being league shareholders, this effectively meant that the SRU had taken a small stake in MLR itself. The current president is Colin Rigby who succeeded Ian Barr in 2022. John McGuigan was appointed chair in May 2023. The Chief Executive Officer is Mark Dodson. In May 2014, it was announced that Sheila Begbie had been appointed to the newly created post of Head of Women's Rugby, reporting directly to
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#1732797832331550-548: The time of founding the Scottish Football Union, already members of the previously instituted Rugby Football Union . Although the RFU now represents exclusively English clubs, in its first few years it had members from outside England, there being no other national union. West of Scotland, Glasgow Academicals and Edinburgh University had joined the RFU in 1871 and Edinburgh Academicals and Royal High School FP had joined in 1872. These five renounced membership of
575-643: Was predicted would happen only after "hell freezes over". The combined team was named the Glasgow Hawks . The Hawks won the second division championship and the Scottish Cup in their first year and have since continued in the first division - winning the league in 2004, 2005 and 2006, and the Cup again in 2004 and 2007. Glenn Metcalfe together with Derek Stark and Gordon McIlwham became Scottish Internationals while Mike Beckham and Tommy Hayes played for
600-690: Was re-started in 1969 as an annual tournament. 15 Glasgow Academicals have been President of the SRU: Eighty-four players have played for Scotland , with five also playing tests for the British Lions . The team has also provided internationalists for New Zealand and Sweden . All six of these players played in the first ever rugby international - on 27 March 1871 - when Scotland beat England by 1 goal (2 tries) to nil (1 try). Scottish Rugby Union The Scottish Rugby Union ( SRU ; Scottish Gaelic : Aonadh Rugbaidh na h-Alba )
625-424: Was the final event in the annual Sevens World Series , but that distinction now belongs to Madrid. On 21 November 2009 Scotland beat Australia 9–8 after 17 attempts in 27 years. The SRU celebrated its centenary in 1973 with a number of events. Among these was the 1973 International Seven-A-Side Tournament , the first sevens tournament to have national representative sides. The programme for that event also sported
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