Articles

Aug

2025

Cardiff’ British Lions

By David Allen

Cardiff Rugby Museum has mounted a special exhibition this summer to celebrate Cardiff’s British Lions. Our timing was poor, in that this was the first tour since 1993 not to feature a Cardiff player, though Tomos Williams made the cut just a year after graduating from our ranks and so we can lay a partial claim to representation!

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Jan

2023

Can we have our ball back?

By David Allen

On Thursday November 1st, 1923, England and Wales met Ireland and Scotland in a match at Rugby school to commemorate the centenary of the moment when William Web Ellis, ‘with a fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it’, thereby founding the sport of rugby.

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Tom Johnson

Oct

2022

The 1893 Triple Crown and the Triumph of the "Cardiff Game"

By Sally Carter

In 1893 Wales won their first ever Triple Crown, a triumph that, in the words of JBG Thomas, “set the Welsh believing that rugby football could be their national game.” It was also a vindication of the four three-quarter system devised at Cardiff, proving that it could work on an international level, and after this other teams started to see the benefits and gradually adopt the system that is used today.

Dec

2020

The Eventful Life of Georges Mergault

By .

The Stade Français and Cardiff RFC Wing Three-Quarter

With Cardiff Blues drawing Stade Français in this year’s European Challenge Cup, this is perhaps an appropriate time to highlight a couple of recent additions to the Museum. These relate to a Stade Français and Stade Nantais player, Georges Mergault, who led an eventful life and who wrote about his experiences with Cardiff RFC before the First World War.

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The Bleddyn Williams Collection Online

By Simon Baker

22nd February 2020

Today would have been the 97^th birthday of Cardiff rugby legend Bleddyn Williams. Playing centre for the city team, he made 283 appearances over the course of ten seasons, bagging 185 tries in the process. He also established a club try scoring record of 41 for the season 1947-8, a record that stood for almost fifty years before being surpassed by Steve Ford. Bleddyn also gained twenty-two Welsh and five Lions caps.

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Oral History

Bleddyn Williams

Feb

2019

The Earliest Photograph of a Women’s Team?

By Gwyn Prescott

Objects from the online Cardiff Rugby Museum #6

The now-famous photograph of the Cardiff Ladies XV in the Cardiff clubhouse is believed to be the oldest known image of a women’s rugby team. It can be dated precisely, because it was taken on 15^th December 1917, just before the players went out to meet their Newport rivals at the Arms Park. The encounter between Cardiff and Newport that day was therefore a significant event and it has long enjoyed a strong claim to being the first genuine game of women’s rugby played in the public arena.

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First World War

Dec

2018

Rugby “Football or Life in Cardiff”

By Gwyn Prescott

Objects from the online Cardiff Rugby Museum #5

The popular play, “Alone It Stands”, was a highly successful theatrical re-enactment of Munster’s historic 1978 victory over the All Blacks. It was first performed in 1999 but that was not the first occasion on which rugby was portrayed on the stage. Not by a long way. It is always risky to claim to be the “first” or the “earliest” in anything associated with the game, but there is strong evidence that rugby made its theatrical debut as long ago as 1886 in Cardiff.

Aug

2018

One Thousand and Counting

By David Allen

Objects from the online Cardiff Rugby Museum #4

Over the summer the Cardiff Rugby Museum website has had a re-vamp including the creation of a new grid view, making it easier to browse objects and the site is also now much more mobile friendly. Many new objects have been added to the collection which can be viewed in the newly added Recent Objects section, also a number of the existing objects have had new photographs or scans uploaded.

Jul

2018

The Cardiff Game

By Viv Jones

Objects from the online Cardiff Rugby Museum #2

Over the past few months a great deal of work has been going on to catalogue all the artefacts in the Hubert Johnson room. Some of the items have been temporarily packed away and put into safe storage whilst other items have been rearranged into the current display. Choosing a favourite from the items we have is difficult, but I think of all the items of Memorabilia from Cardiff and the international Rugby world that one of my favourite items is actually sited in the members' bar. Many of you may not even have noticed it, or barely given it a second glance whilst others may have seen it but not realised it’s significance.

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Cap

Jun

2018

A Moment in Time

By David Allen

Objects from the online Cardiff Rugby Museum #1

This is the first in a series of monthly blogs highlighting various objects, both old and new, from the online Cardiff Rugby Museum. In the year in which we are celebrating the centenary of the Royal Air Force, it seems fitting that we start with two items that form a small part of the RAF story. These are an RAF cap from 1919-1920 and an RAF tie, both of which are shown below:

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Cap

RAF