Gloucester Rugby Heritage online

Gloucester RFC has a long and proud heritage. Capturing, celebrating and sharing over 130 years of its history is the task of the Gloucester Rugby Community Heritage Project.

Today sees the launch of the Gloucester Rugby Heritage web site – www.gloucesterrugbyheritage.org.uk

Gloucester Rugby is rightly proud of its long heritage, and with the Gloucester Rugby Community Heritage Project the club is leading the way for others.

The foundations of the project lie in the demolition of the old South Stand, which revealed a goldmine of old photographs, papers and other memorabilia.

Saved from the skip by Gloucester Rugby Club Community Marketing Manager, Gary Little, 31 boxes of material were welcomed enthusiastically by Gloucestershire Archives.

Thanks to their efforts, financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and volunteers from the Friends of Gloucestershire Archives, the project has been working to make this wealth of historical information available to the public.

There is far more to the project than a web site. Alongside the displays in the C&G Grandstand at Kingsholm, the focus will soon turn to delivering educational packages to local schools.

Early news dates from the birth of the club, and covers the move from the Spa to Kingsholm, the first international in 1900 and the dramatic burning down of the grandstand in 1933.

Player profiles include the likes of Tommy Bagwell, Whacker Smith, Bumps Carpenter, Tom Voyce, Kit Tanner, Digger Morris, Peter Butler, Mike Teague and Phil Vickery.

A timeline traces the highlights – and occasional lowlights – of the club’s long history, and there are enough old match programmes and match results to satisfy the most ardent fan’s desire for details and statistics.

The site also includes some of the cartoons that appeared in The Citizen in the 1920s, a trivia section and audio clips of interviews with players past and present.