Let's Look At Glasgow Rugby - Part One: If You Know Their History

WE REALLY need to talk about Glasgow Rugby. OK, everyone and his brother and sister believes the Dear Green Place is a football city, but, right from the start of rugby 150 years ago, Glasgow has had a proud rugby heritage.

There were six Glasgow Academicals and one West of Scotland player in the original 20-strong Scotland team which beat England in the inaugural international in 1871. These two clubs, plus Allan Glen's, Clydesdale, GHK, Glasgow Hawks, Glasgow High School FP, Glasgow University, Hillhead High School FP, Jordanhill College, Hutcheson's Grammar School FP and Kelvinside Academicals have all as individual clubs, produced full Scotland caps over the 150 years of international rugby. (I appreciate GHK and to a degree Hawks are amalgamations of clubs also listed separately, by the way.)

In addition, from the wider Glasgow District: Ayr, Greenock Wanderers, Kilmarnock, Paisley and Stirling County have produced full caps. So, Glasgow District rugby has history.

In the final season of the old Unofficial Championship in 1973, there were eight Glasgow District sides listed in the 30 Championship clubs. The following season, the first of the Official Leagues, there were 11 Glasgow District teams in the three National Leagues. Today, there are 18 Glasgow District (now West Region) sides in the four National Leagues. Below that, there are a further 31 clubs playing in the West Regional Leagues.

These figures indicate – there is nothing wrong with club rugby in the West, at least as far as numbers are concerned. However, this quantity does not always transfer into quality.

For all the old Glasgow District had the most clubs; in 46 Inter-District Championship tournaments, Glasgow won a mere three, and shared a further five – hardly a case of biggest being best.

Back in the days of the Unofficial Championship, Glasgow Academicals won the title ten times, and shared it on a further five occasions. Accies, however, did not win the title again after the glory days of Herbert Waddell and Jimmy Nelson at half-back, in 1926.

West of Scotland come next, with six wins and a further three shared titles – their last in 1971, the heyday of Sandy Carmichael and Gordon Brown off with the Lions, and the likes of Ronnie Hannah, David Shedden, Ian Murchie, and Quinton Dunlop being around the Scotland team, and Lionel Weston capped by England.

Glasgow High School FP come next, with four wins and three shares – their last in 1962, when Hamish Kemp was still playing. Jordanhill College famously took the title in 1969, while Allan Glen's are the only other outright winners from Glasgow – taking the title in 1939. Hillhead High School FP have twice shared the title, in 1934 and 1937.

The Official Scottish Club Championship was not a Glasgow success story. In the first 21 seasons, from 1973-74, there was not one Glasgow winner, although West of Scotland did travel to Mansfield Park and beat Hawick in an epic play-off game, in the inaugural season. However, they still fell short, the Greens taking the title on points difference. That was as close as a Glasgow club came to winning the crown, before Stirling County finally triumphed in 1994-95 – the last season before the game went open.

No side form the West won again, until Glasgow Hawks had their run of three straight league wins, between 2004 and 2006. Since then, Ayr has consistently been the Best in the West, with title wins in 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2019. Marr were on-course to win the Premiership in 2020, when Covid intervened and the season was cancelled.

So, it could be said, the story of Glasgow or West club rugby has been: lots of clubs of a near-identical standard, with one club at a time leading the way and standing above the rest.

Of course, the rugby landscape has changed greatly over the last few years. At the highest level of the club game, it's all about full-time professionals – Edinburgh Warriors and Glasgow Warriors – playing in the PRO14.

We could, therefore, view Warriors as the one West club standing above the rest and leading the way. However, when the likes of West of Scotland held that role in the amateur days, or Hawks or Ayr or Marr was the leading club side – their squads tended to be made-up of locally-trained young men.

That is not the case with Warriors. The club might have a 50-strong playing squad, but, only 12 of these players – less than a quarter – are genuine West of Scotland boys, who came through local clubs. So, there appears to be a definite glass ceiling which locally-reared players struggle to break through to the professional ranks.

Looking ahead, it appears the SRU is planing to use the FOSROC SUPER6, which will be expanded to at-least a Super8, as a sort of finishing school where those players who can train-on to become full-time professionals will be sorted out from those who, in Murrayfield's eyes, don't have what it takes.

However, it looks as if, rather than inviting either GHA or Glasgow Hawks, currently the two top clubs in the city, to take-up one of the additional Super franchises, the Murrayfield Brains Trust will place the franchise, under central control, at Scotstoun, playing under the Warriors banner.

Murrayfield has form on this. There are long-standing Hawks officials who will tell you, and provide compelling evidence, that Murrayfield played its part in stifling their club's ambitions to be the best in the west by amongst other activities: “encouraging” Hawks' sponsors to divert their cash from the club side to Warriors.

NOT having an S6 franchise in the city was one of the many failings when Super6 was concocted. I am positive having no club input when this failing is rectified is to compound the folly.

Look at the top two clubs in the city. GHA has direct links to two of the top rugby-playing schools in the city: the H in the club's name stands for Hutcheson's Grammar School, while the A stands for St Aloysius College.

Hawks was started as an amalgamation of Glasgow Academicals and GHK, with direct links to Glasgow Academy, The High School of Glasgow and Kelvinside Academy, the three leading rugby-playing schools in the north of the city.

OK, some of the backwoodsmen around Anniesland were never happy with this arrangement, and contrived to get Accies and GHK back climbing through the leagues, weakening Hawks in the process. Then, the SRU stuck the boot in with the bourach they made when they set-up S6.

In short, Glasgow District (now West Regional) rugby has under-performed for too-long – what can be done to end this long history of under-performance?

I have my own ideas on this – which I intend to expand on in part two of this look at Glasgow Rugby.