Wasps Rugby Club

The London WASPS RUGBY CLUB or London Wasps Holding Limited is of English origin and has indulged in emerging victorious in atleast one of each of the major European tournaments or knockouts within the span of the last ten years. The London WASPS RUGBY CLUB nicknamed Waspies participates in the English Club Competition, The Anglo-Welsh Competition and the European Knock Out Competition. Some of their noteworthy achievements include winning the Heineken Cup twice, once in 2003–04 and the second time in 2006–07; also they bagged the Anglo-Welsh Cup in 2006 and the Aviva Premiership in the years 1990, 1997, 2003–2005 and 2008.

Tracing the history of this rugby club we see that the London WASPS RUGBY CLUB was the result of the Hampstead Football Club being split into two, the Harlequin Football Club and the Wasps, in the year 1867. The name wasp was attributed to this rugby club because the names of animals, insects and birds were quite in fashion during the Victorian Era.

An interesting piece of history attached to the Wasps Rugby Club is that they were eligible to be founder members of the Rugby Football Union. The meeting for the inauguration was supposed to be held on the 26^th of January, 1871 but due to some misunderstanding the representative was not present at the inauguration ceremony and hence the Wasps lost their right to be tagged as the Foundation Members.

The most formidable opponent of the WASPS RUGBY CLUB was the Bath Rugby Club. In the John Player Knockout Competition in 1986 the Wasps were defeated by Bath who emerged as the winners. In 1987 the Wasps sustained their success in the knock-out competition till they encountered Bath in the finals. In what turned out to be a close game the Wasps were defeated by the Bath. The Wasps consistently placed in the top three of the Courage League Title but just did not have the skill or endurance to overcome the Bath.

The Wasps Football Club is the amateur component of the Wasps rugby union club which came into existence in 1867.For the need of professionalism the men’s first team was drawn from Wasps Football Club for the season in 1996-97, to become the Wasps RFC owned by Chris Wright, and it later in the summer of 1999 came to be known as the London Wasps. Currently playing their rugby in London 3 North West, the Wasps Football Club owns the Twyford Avenue Sports Ground that is also used as a ground for training by the London Wasps professional team.

The current playing 34 of the London Wasps Rugby Club consists of Bob Blaker, Chris Bell, Nic Berry, Richard Birkett, Ben Broster, James Cannon, Jeremy Castex, Alex Cheeseman, Charlie Davies, Ryan Davis, Ross Filipo, Riki Flutey, John Hart, Richard Hughton, Charlie Ingall, Tom Lindsay, Chris Mayor, Simon McIntyre, Tim Payne, Jonathan Poff, Tom Rees, Guillermo Roan, Nick Robinson, Joe Simpson, Hugo Southwell, Sakaria Taulafo, Steve Thompson, Tom Varndell, Christian Wade, Dominic Waldouck, Jack Wallace, Rob Webber, Marco Wetzel, Joe Worsley.