Coming soon from St. David’s Press:
WHITE GOLD – Swansea RFC 1872-1887 By David Dow.
St Helen’s Lounge – Monday 27th March from 7:15pm
Available the Swansea RFC Club Shop, all booksellers or direct from the publisher.
As part of our 150th Anniversary celebrations, Swansea RFC is pleased to announce the imminent publication of an original new book on the founding of the famous Swansea Rugby football Club.
The book has been researched and written by David Dow, a member of the Archives Team at St Helen’s.
The book will be launched on Monday 27th March in the St Helen’s Lounge at Swansea RFC. we are pleased to join forces with the Rugby Memorabilia Society, who will also be having a gathering there. The Guest Speaker for the RMS will be Mike Ruddock OBE. Mike will talk and be present for a Q&A session afterwards.
The book presentation for “WHITE GOLD – Swansea RFC 1872-1887” by David Dow will take place at the end of Mike Ruddock’s Q&A. The event will commence with Mike’s talk at 7:15pm. The club will be open from 6:00pm and the bar open. The book WHITE GOLD will be available to purchase on the evening and available in the club shop and online thereafter. Come along and enjoy an evening with the RMS , Mike Ruddock and an exciting new Swansea RFC publication at St Helen’s – Monday 27th March from 7;15pm (bar open at 6:00)
A founder member of the Welsh Rugby Union, Swansea RFC is one of Wales’ oldest and most illustrious rugby clubs. It was the first to beat the ‘big three’ touring teams of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, and produced many internationals and ‘Lions’, over its first 150 years.
Formed in 1872 as an association football team before converting to rugby football in 1874, White Gold tells the fascinating story of the club’s first 15 years, when a group of Swansea cricketers established a football club for winter recreation, found a home at St. Helen’s and how they created a playing tradition known around the rugby world.
Lavishly illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs, White Gold has been meticulously researched by club Archivist David Dow and reveals many remarkable tales from the early years of Swansea’s famous ‘All Whites’, such as:
- When the Swansea team played in mackintoshes
- The Swansea player who turned out both for and against Ireland
- The Swansea forward who raced penny farthings around St Helen’s
- Why Arthur Richardson told the Swansea players to wear socks over their boots?
- Why was the trophy missing from the club’s victorious South Wales Challenge Cup team photo?The early crowd favourites like the innovative brothers Bill and Dai Gwynn, George Bowen, Evan Richards, Teddy Bishop and John Meredith are lovingly brought to life through the pages of White Gold, which also follows the developments in tactics and explains the beginnings of rivalries with other Welsh clubs. David Dow also vividly describes rugby politics both inside and outside of Wales, the social attitudes of the day and how they influenced Welsh rugby and society.The most comprehensive study of the early days of rugby in Swansea ever published, White Gold also contains extensive appendices covering all the players, the club’s first internationals, complete fixture lists, club captains and point-scorers of the period.