Rugby union is a global sport, played from Alaska to Sri Lanka, with the game’s most famous venues dotted around both the northern and southern hemispheres. My book looks at those great cathedrals and more unusual grounds, in heartlands such as the Welsh valleys and historic English institutions. If you were to write a personal bucket list of rugby grounds to visit, you couldn’t go far wrong with this collection – and yet we are certain there are many more hidden gems still to uncover.
The Tump, Clydach Vale, Wales
In 1965, a deadly explosion at Cambrian Colliery in the Rhondda valley claimed 31 lives. Two years later the colliery closed down, ripping the heart out of the local community. The legacy of the miners lives on through the local rugby ground, as Cambrian Welfare chairman Jonathan Davies explains.
“The ground is at the top of a mountain,” says Davies, who explains that a century ago, miners took their pickaxes to a patch of land and levelled it. “There wasn’t really a team or a league to play in, but it was something for the miners to do at weekends and the pitch has been there ever since.”
The team that now calls the Tump (a term for a hillock, likely related to the Welsh word twmp) home was only formed in 1982, by Davies’ dad and his mates. “Much the same as the miners. It started off as something to do at the weekend, but then it got serious,” Davies says. The club, which has gone on to win a string of trophies, are named after the ground, known locally as Welfare Park.
“We’re in a socially deprived area,” says Davies. “There isn’t much for kids to do here. But they get to play rugby for free, and we recently set up a boot bank. A lot of parents can’t afford to give their kids a good pair of boots, so when an older lad grows out of a pair, we put them in the boot bank, ready for another kid to use.”
Hamilton Park, Strandhill, County Sligo
Founded in 1890, Sligo RFC is one of Ireland’s oldest rugby clubs. The ground gets its name from the father-in-law of former club president George Draper, who sadly passed away, surrounded by his clubmates, on a return trip to watch Ireland play at Lansdowne Road.
Above: Hamilton Park with the floodlights on, pictured from the top of nearby Knocknarea mountain.
The weather has a habit of causing havoc at Hamilton Park, and the grass pitch would often take a battering from the elements. A new 3G playing surface was installed which allows for a busy schedule of matches and training. The club has 10 youth teams and eight children’s teams.
Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin
The world’s most southerly Test rugby venue was built for the 2011 World Cup and replaced Carisbrook – aka The House of Pain. The giant glass roof is more than just a design feature; it means a constant temperature can be maintained to allow the grass to grow while keeping out the elements – in Dunedin, it rains 167 days a year.
Voted one of the world’s 10 most impressive stadiums by Popular Mechanics magazine in 2016, the ground is nicknamed “The Glasshouse”. It hosts Super Rugby’s Otago Highlanders team and will also host soccer games at this summer’s Women’s World Cup.
Richmond Athletic Ground, Surrey
It can be argued that no club has had as much influence on the history of rugby union as Richmond RFC. It was one of 21 teams that founded the Rugby Football Union (RFU) at a meeting in central London in January 1871. There were meant to be 23 attendees, but Ealing’s representative took a detour to the pub, while Wasps turned up in the wrong place, at the wrong time, on the wrong day.
The meeting was initiated by Richmond’s founder, Edwin G Ash, who became the RFU’s treasurer, while fellow Richmond official Algernon Rutter was named the first RFU president. The club hosted the All Blacks on their first tour of the UK in 1905, and 86 years later, four Richmond WRFC teammates, led by Mary Dorrington, overcame IRB resistance to put on the first Women’s World Cup in 1991.
The Pavilion was built in 1886 and was given Grade II-listed status in 1997.
The Athletic Ground has been home to Richmond since 1889 and London Scottish since 1894. It is situated on the edge of Old Deer Park, a historic sporting complex sandwiched between the town and the River Thames that also hosts a lido, golf club, London Welsh RFC, and the King’s Observatory.
Kamaishi City Stadium, Japan
The small town of Kamaishi, on Japan’s eastern coast, has been described as a place built on “fishing, metal and rugby”. The local team, Kamaishi Seawaves, won Japan’s national championship every season from 1979 to 1985.
On 11 March 2011, an earthquake off the coast triggered a tsunami that ripped through the town, taking more than 1,000 lives in a town with a population of just 35,000. As part of a plan to rebuild the stricken city, the municipal government announced in 2014 that Kamaishi would bid to stage matches at the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Originally named the Kamaishi Recovery Memorial Stadium, it was the only ground purpose-built for that tournament. Some locals questioned whether the money could be better spent on new housing. But having a set timeframe in which to build the stadium gave fresh impetus to rebuilding the town, and put the area back in the spotlight for all the right reasons.
The stadium still holds huge emotional weight – it was built on the site of a school that was destroyed by the tsunami, its children safely evacuated to higher ground. The venue only hosted one match – Uruguay’s shock win over Fiji in Pool D – with a second game between Namibia and Canada called off due to a typhoon. Despite this, the decision to stage World Cup matches in Kamaishi was a resounding success.
The Greenyards, Melrose, Scottish Borders
In 1995 there were 76 nations affiliated to the International Rugby Board, now called World Rugby. As of 2023, that figure has risen to 130. One of the key reasons for that growth is the global popularity of rugby sevens – the history of which can be traced back to Melrose, a sleepy Scottish village 25 miles from the English border.
In 1883, the first Melrose Sevens was held here, making it the world’s oldest rugby union tournament. The exact details of why Ned Haig, a local apprentice butcher and rugby player, suggested playing a different version of the game remains unclear.
What is known is that the club were looking for ideas to raise money, and Haig suggested staging a sports day that would include a tournament. There wouldn’t have been enough time to play 15-a-side matches running to 80 minutes. Instead, the teams were reduced to seven-a-side, playing 15-minute games. The rest is history.
Rugby School, Warwickshire
Rugby School was established in 1567 and is famous for two things: Tom Brown’s School Days, and inventing the game of rugby. The legend of William Webb Ellis, a pupil who picked up a ball during a game of football and ran with it, is part of the sport’s folklore. The game that evolved was picked up by other schools and then codified at Rugby School in 1845.
Tom Brown’s School Days (1857) is a book by Thomas Hughes which sheds light on the English public school system, and includes descriptions of rugby and cricket. The book’s popularity helped spread knowledge of the game both at home and abroad; it was used as an English-language textbook for Japanese students between 1868 and 1912, which may account for the nation’s adoption of rugby. (The Japanese version omitted cricket from the book as it was deemed too complicated.)
Along with Webb Ellis’s innovation, the invention of the oval-shaped ball took the game forward. Richard Lindon was a boot and ball maker with premises close to Rugby School. The Rugby boys wanted an oval ball to distinguish their game from the bounders playing association football, so Lindon devised an egg-shaped bladder with four stitched panels that would evolve into the modern rugby ball.
For his efforts, in 1861 Lindon was recognised as the principal Foot-Ball Maker to Rugby School, Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin Universities. He called his creation the Big-Side Match Ball, which was successfully manufactured by both Richard Lindon and, subsequently, his son, Hughes John Lindon, for half a century.
Welfare Ground, Porth, south Wales
On 13 July 1985, as LiveAid took place at Wembley Stadium, the Welfare Ground – 160 miles to the west in Porth – hosted the first ValleyAid concert, which also raised money for humanitarian causes. A group of local women suggested doing a local version of the London gig; the choice of venue was wholly appropriate given the Welfare Ground’s origins.
“The land was a donation to the community from the Miners’ Welfare Fund and the local colliery owners, Powell Duffryn,” explains the Porth Harlequins club secretary, Christian Rees. ‘The ground is on the site of what used to be an iron slag tip. It was for the whole community to use, not just the rugby team.”
The Welfare Ground first hosted rugby in October 1934 and the local club continues to thrive, with children’s, juniors’ and women’s sections all growing in number. Any young stars at the club will have to go some to match Porth’s greatest player, however. Cliff Jones won 13 caps for Wales, playing in the 13-12 win over New Zealand in 1935. He went on to become the president of the Welsh Rugby Union in 1981.
The Edgar Davies Ground, Bridgnorth, Shropshire
Situated on the banks of the Severn, Bridgnorth RFC’s home is at constant risk of flooding – in fact, the pitch has been submerged five times within a two-year period. The club are currently fundraising to build a new “flood-proof” clubhouse on stilts. It is a sign of things to come for other sporting grounds built on marginal land as the climate crisis continues to deepen around the world.
Founded in 1964, the rugby club sits in Bridgnorth’s “low town”, at the bottom of the town’s Cliff Railway, a funicular line that transports passengers to the “high town” above. In 2015, the club made history by reaching the Intermediate Cup final, with thousands of fans travelling to Twickenham to see Bridgnorth ultimately come up short against Maidstone.
Stade Jean-Bouin, Paris
Stade Jean-Bouin and the Parc des Princes sit on opposite sides of Rue Claude-Farrère in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. Having two stadiums a literal stone’s throw apart may seem odd, but it works for the famous rugby and football clubs based there.
Stade Français play at Jean-Bouin (19,904 capacity) but can play big matches over the road, at the 48,583-seat home of Paris Saint-Germain FC. In return, PSG’s women’s side play many of their home matches at the smaller venue, which is named after France’s first great long-distance runner. Jean Bouin won silver in the 5,000m at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.
The ground was redesigned in 2010 by the architect Rudy Ricciotti, who was tasked with making the Jean-Bouin stand out next to its more imposing neighbour. Taking inspiration from his Mucem museum design in Marseille, Riciotti proposed an undulating roof and an outer web structure consisting of 3,543 fibre concrete panels.
The structure was tested using simulations of conditions that would equate to a minimum of 30 years’ worth of exposure to the elements. Plus, like any modern stadium, it ticks the green boxes with 2,800 solar panels and a system for collecting rainwater used to maintain and irrigate the playing surface.
The Holmes, County Donegal
Donegal Town RFC’s home since 1980 is in a truly idyllic spot, next to Holmes Beach on a quiet peninsula overlooking Donegal Bay. It’s not just the picturesque setting that makes this club remarkable; formed in a corner of Ireland dominated by Gaelic football, it grew from basic beginnings to represent something more substantial.
The team began in 1973 amid The Troubles, a violent and bloody conflict that claimed thousands of lives and saw communities in Northern Ireland divided on sectarian lines. During this bleak period, the team would often venture across the nearby border to play matches, breaking down barriers and helping to grow the sport.
The photographer who took these wonderful shots is Conor Doherty. “There’s just incredible beauty to this coast that is largely unseen,” he says. “Little places, like this pitch, where you’re turning off the main road for just five minutes, are not where people would usually go. Hopefully, shots like this help people to appreciate what a stunning place it is.”
Remarkable Rugby Grounds by Ryan Herman is published by Pavilion, HarperCollins. You can order a copy via this link.
