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England Rugby 10th Birthday

Barney Burnham
By Barney Burham 27-1-06
February 1 2006
Unofficial England Rugby's UK Reporter Barney Burnham has been dropping into Twickenham HQ quite a bit over the last couple of weeks. One of the occasions for his visit was for the Museum of Rugby's 10th Birthday.

 

Barney was invited to a full day of celebrations, which included various guided tours, lunch in the President's room but he missed the champagne reception in the Twickenham Cellar due to a greater cause - he had to go off to Portsmouth with the Wasps A team.  Shame eh!

A Museum of International Rugby History

Click Here for RFU Museum

 

Here is Barney's report:-

We began in the ERIC room, where Bill Treadwell, current secretary, gave us the whole history of how the club was founded and how it came to have its current base, which is a very comfortable lounge in the West Stand. ERIC is the England Rugby Internationals Club. Bill is a fellow Waspie, who played twice for England in 1966. He's also the RFU dentist, so he gave us an interesting insight into the medical operation for match days at Twickenham.

We then moved on to the England dressing room, where we were given a very entertaining talk about how it came to be the way it is, with many insights into things that have gone on in there. Our host was none other than Jason Leonard, who was just fantastic. He told us a hilarious story about how he once tried to nick one of the famous baths, while the West Stand was being rebuilt.

From there, it was up to lunch in the President's room, with Leroy Angel himself.   He gave us a short speech about what goes on there on match days, as well as giving us a lot of information about the South Stand development. He's an architect by profession, so he brought extra insight to it all.

At this point, I had to leave. I believe the rest of the day included talks with the groundsman and the stadium architect.   The finale, which I was most disappointed to miss, was a champagne reception at the Twickenham Cellar.

South Stand news, direct from the President - at least 5,500 seats should be in place for the Wales game. For Ireland, it should be 9,000 - subject, in both cases, to the issue of safety certificates.

Some figures on the Museum and the tours.

In the first year, visitor numbers were 22,000. Last year, it was 32,000. Total number over ten years is nearly 120,000.

The South Stand redevelopment plan involves relocating the museum to there. The main Twickenham Store will be there, and everything should benefit from being right on Whitton Road.

 

 

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