Abertillery RFC
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| Full name | Abertillery Rugby Football Club |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Green and Whites |
| Founded | 1883 |
| Location | Abertillery, Wales |
| Ground(s) | Abertillery Park - capacity 10,000 |
| Coach(es) | Darren Miles |
| League(s) | WRU Division Two East |
| 2015/16 | 1stWRU Division Two East |
| Official website | |
| www |
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Abertillery Rugby Football Club is a Welsh rugby union club based in Abertillery. According to their website, they were founded in 1883, though other sources state 1884. Their team colours are green and white and their home ground is Abertillery Park in Abertillery. The club is a member of the Welsh Rugby Union and is a feeder club for the Newport Gwent Dragons. Their informal nickname is the Green and Whites.
According to the club's official centenary book, Abertillery Rugby Football Club, Abertillery were founded on 21 September 1883 in a local public house, The Prince of Wales. Like many towns and villages in Wales in the late 1880s, Abertillery was home to multiple rugby teams; these included Abertillery Town, Abertillery Harlequins, Abertillery Wednesdays, Heart of Oak and Abertillery Rovers. These clubs had periods of growth and decline until two main teams emerged, Abertillery Town and Harlequins; these two sides merged into a single club known as Abertillery RFC in 1901. The early clubs did not originally own a match pitch of their own, so relied on sympathetic landowners to let them play on vacant fields. These included the Gas Works Field and Old Barn Field. The club also did not possess a club-house, so from 1890 they used Wilkinson's Temperance Hotel.
During the first decade of the clubs' existence, matches were difficult to arrange and games often resulted in on-pitch arguments regarding the interpretation of rules. Abertillery would often arrange for a joint team to face more established clubs, and in 1888 an Abertillery team travelled to Cardiff to face Cardiff Harlequins at Sophia Gardens; the game quickly broke down into a 'violent war' before a lengthy discussion the game was eventually resumed. By 1892, Abertillery Town were facing other local clubs including Aberbeeg, Tredegar and Brynmawr. 1895 saw Abertillery enter the newly formed Monmouthshire League, and in January 1898 Abertillery were top of the league, but fell away in the second half of the season to finish fifth. The same year saw the purchase of the Old Barn Field by the local council, and it was renamed the Park and Recreation Ground. Although not available immediately to the local clubs it would slowly become home to the local teams. The 1890s ended with Abertillery Town, proposing in their annual meeting, that they and the Abertillery Harlequins, whose team numbers had reached 40 during the 1897–98 season should merge as a single team. The offer was declined, but a further suggestion was made to form an athletic club for the mutual benefit of all the town's sporting organisations.
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Wikipedia