Pontypool RFC
The Pontypool Rugby Football Club is a rugby union club that plays in the Swalec Championship, the Second Division in the Welsh league system. The home games are played in Pontypool Park Pontypool.
History
The club was founded in 1868. In 1902 it joined the league and takes Monmoutshire since a regular participant in the Welsh league play. 1904 Pontypool won for the first time the championship title in Monmoutshire. In 1908, he met for the first time to a foreign club, Racing Métro 92 from France. Two years later, the players traveled to Bordeaux to play there against regional selections. In 1914 the club won for the first time the unofficial Welsh national championship. 1927 traveled to New Zealand Māori to Wales and played against, among others Pontypool. The Welsh were able to win the game. In the same year the Waratahs from New South Wales were beaten in Australia.
During the Second World War the matches stood still in Wales, a selection of soldiers from Pontypool but met in 1941 on an army selection of New Zealand. At the end of the war, the club moved from the Recreation Ground in the Pontypool Park, where to play since then. Over the next decades, joined frequently with other clubs from the area together to compete against different choices of the southern hemisphere. 1971 saw the club's worst season in its history. For the first and only time he finished last in the Welsh Cup. In the following years, however, developed into one of the dominant clubs in Wales. Especially the first series, called Viet Gwent, cared for many successes. They consisted of Graham Price, Bobby Windsor and Charlie Faulkner and was praised among others by Max Boyce.
1976 and 1979 traveled the selection Pontypools in the United States. 1983 Germany was the target of the association, where he became, among other things against the Welsh Regiment for the first time. Five years later they traveled again to Germany. In the next few seasons played Pontypool including against New Zealand and toured Kenya. With the introduction of official Welsh League structure the club was placed in the first division. 1995 got off to, but soon returned back into the top division. Since then, the association between the Premier and First Division fluctuates.
Since 2003, the club for the Newport Gwent Dragons player, one of four Welsh teams in the Magners League multinational.
Achievements
- Welsh Champion: 1914, 1921, 1932, 1959, 1973, 1975, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988
- Welsh Cup winners: 1983
Well-known former players
- David Bishop
- Eddie Butler
- Charlie Faulkner
- Martin Jagr (Czech Republic)
- Dan Lydiate
- Ossie Male
- Graham Price
- Ray Prosser
- Clive Rowlands
- Jeff Squire
- Mark Taylor
- Iestyn Thomas
- David Watkins
- Bobby Windsor