Scottish Rugby Union

The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) is the federation charged to organize and manage the Rugby with XV in Scotland.

The SRU directs the Scottish national teams, and chapeaute the competitions of clubs (242 are affiliated for him) in the men, the women and the young people (approximately 25.000 bachelors and 1.300 referees). It manages also the referees and of the formations for the trainers. It also has the stage of Murrayfield of Edinburgh where the national team plays almost all her meetings in residence.

History

The Scottish federation of Rugby is founded in 1873 by six clubs: Edinburgh Academicals FC, West off Scotland FC, Royal High School FP, Glasgow Academicals, Merchistonians and Edinburgh University. Its official name is then Scottish Football Union , Rugby not being whereas one of the multiple “codes” of football.

In 1886, the SFU joint with its counterparts of Wales and Ireland to form the International Rugby Football Board, which always governs Rugby with the international level.

In 1924, the federation adopts its current name of Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) .

Between 1899 and 1925, the team of Scotland plays Inverleith, then moves for Murrayfield.

Until 1972-73, there was no organized championship, as in France for example. The fear of seeing the purity of Rugby with XV dissolving in confrontations increasingly rougher and ethics amateur to disappear because of teams ready with to do everything to gain or not to lose, like discharging very players of another club even to pay them, returned the leaders being wary. The clubs Scot took part however in a semi-official championship. Like their Welsh and English counterparts, they played a number of matches varying of one year on the other and club to another, with the annual traditional confrontations, some facing best, some having calendars weaker than the others. At the end of the season, the newspapers established a classification difficult to include/understand and which hardly had value.

The Scottish federation (Scottish Rugby Union, SRU) then decided to reorganize the operation of its competitions, becoming thus the first of the British Isles to create an official championship. As from the season 1973-74, the clubs were distributed in six divisions with a system of promotion and relegation between the levels. This new plan was appropriate for the “civil” clubs, but the teams representing of the clubs of former students (many names of clubs comprise initial the FP, i.e. Former Pupils or “former students”), very widespread in Scotland, had to give up their mode of exclusive recruitment to open them also in order to remain competitive. Those which resisted declined unrelentingly.

Recent organization and reform

To the beginning of the year 1990, the SRU added to its calendar a competition with direct elimination opened with all its clubs. After 4 editions of the Risk Brewery Cup or Cup Risk, it launched the true national cut in 1995, whose first edition was gained by Hawick.

The other great reform occurs after the passage to professionalism, in 1996. Understanding that its clubs would have evil to exist in Coupe of Europe, the SRU decides to form a supranational level by gathering the clubs and the players inside four zones, from which a professional frankness ready would result to be competitive in the European competition and the Celtic League which puts at the catches Welsh clubs, Irish and Scottish. That was to also make it possible the national team to draw from a fish pond of better quality.

Like WRU in Wales, the SRU builds a plan of “regional Rugby” around four franknesses based out of the four traditional areas: To border Reivers (area of the Borders, in the south), Edinburgh Rugby, Glasgow Rugby and the Caledonia Reds (northern and centers). At the end of two years, the players evolved/moved almost exclusively within the franknesses, even if they were obligatorily laid off in a club.

In 1998, serious financial problems obliged the federation to gather the franknesses in only two teams, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The fault in particular with a colossal debt due to the restoration of the stage of Murrayfield. Borders were reformed in 2002, so that three Scottish franknesses take part in international competitions from now on.

The current president of the SRU is the old back of the team of Scotland of the Seventies and Eighties Andy Irvine.

See too

Team of Scotland of Rugby to XV
Scottish Premiership Division 1
National Scottish Cup
Celtic League
Scottish List of clubs of Rugby to XV

External bonds

Official site of the Scottish federation

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