Northampton Saints
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| Full name | Northampton Rugby Football Club |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Jimmies Saints |
| Founded | 1880 |
| Location | Northampton, England |
| Ground(s) | Franklin's Gardens (Capacity: 15,500) |
| Chairman | Tony Hewitt |
| Director of Rugby | Jim Mallinder |
| Captain(s) | Tom Wood |
| Most caps | Ron Jacobs (470) |
| Top scorer | Paul Grayson (2,786) |
| Most tries | Teddy Cook (219) |
| League(s) | English Premiership |
| 2015–16 | 5th |
| Official website | |
| www |
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Northampton Saints are a professional rugby union club from Northampton, England. They were formed in 1880, and play in black, green, and gold colours. The team play their home games at Franklin's Gardens, which has a capacity of 15,500. Their biggest rivals are Leicester Tigers. "The East Midlands Derby" is one of the fiercest rivalries in English Rugby Union.
The club has won the English Premiership, the RFU Championship three times, the Anglo-Welsh Cup, the EDF Energy Trophy, the European Rugby Champions Cup, and are twice winners of the European Rugby Challenge Cup.
The club was established in 1880 under the original title of Northampton St. James (Saints) by Rev Samuel Wathen Wigg, a local clergyman and curate of St. James Church who was a resident of the nearby village of Milton Malsor in the house known as "Mortimers". This is how the club got its two nicknames of The Saints or Jimmies. His original concept was to promote "order" to his younger parish members by creating a youth rugby club, with the philosophy of a "hooligan sport designed to turn them into gentlemen".
It was not long before Northampton had one of the major rugby union teams in the country. Twenty years after its establishment, the first Saints player, local farmer Harry Weston, was awarded an England cap.
As the club progressed through the early years of the 20th century one player dominated this era for the club, Edgar Mobbs. Edgar was a hero throughout the town. He was the first Northampton player to captain his country but is best remembered for his exploits in World War I. After initially being turned down as too old, Edgar raised his own "Sportsman's" battalion otherwise known as Mobbs Own. Edgar was killed in battle, leading his battalion over the top by kicking a rugby ball into no man's land on 29 July 1917 attacking a machine gun post and his body was never found. The club arranged the Mobbs Memorial Match as a tribute. It had been played every year since 1921 and the fixture took place between the Barbarians and East Midlands at Franklin's Gardens until the Barbarians withdrew their support in 2008. The match was saved by the efforts of former Northampton player Bob Taylor and former Northampton chairman Keith Barwell, and since 2012 it has been played alternately at Bedford Blues' Goldington Road ground and Franklin's Gardens, with the host club facing the British Army team.
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