How many Rugby Union clubs are there in England?

Question

Final numbers should include all Rugby Union clubs currently registered with the Rugby Football Union.

Answer 1

It all depends if you want to count all the town clubs as well? Those in amateur and county leagues, but registered with the RFU. I would say in the 1000's

Answer 2

Having checked the statistics then uoptiger is bang on . I will not repeat it but from the books he is correct.

Answer 3

Not sure - uoptiger seems to have covered this, but you may be interested to know that there are 1,457,734 players registered with the RFU in England out of a population of 50.4 million.

Answer 4

The English rugby union league pyramid is topped by the Premiership.

Below the Premiership are National 1, National 2 and two National 3 leagues, South and North. Below National 3, the structure is split geographically into four regions: London and South East, Midlands, South West and North.

The London and South East and South West promotion candidates go into National 3 South, and the Midlands and North promotion candidates go into National 3 North. Each of the geographical regions has either two or four divisions (e.g. London 1, London 2 South/North, London 3 South-East/North-East/South-West/North-W... London 4 South-East..etc) which may again e geographically separated.

Below these regional leagues are county leagues (e.g. Sussex, Kent, Hampshire). The county leagues are the lowest levels in the English game.

However, the Midlands region has phased out county leagues and instead have regionalisation down to division 6.

Premership

Bath

Bristol

Gloucester

NEC Harlequins

Leicester Tigers

London Irish

Newcastle Falcons (Formerly Gosforth)

Northampton Saints

Sale Sharks

Saracens

London Wasps

Worcester Warriors

National Division 1

Bedford Blues

Cornish Pirates (formerly Penzance and Newlyn)

Coventry

Doncaster

Exeter Chiefs

Leeds Tykes

London Welsh

Moseley

Newbury

Nottingham

Otley

Pertemps Bees

Plymouth Albion

Earth Titans (formerly Rotherham)

Sedgley Park

Waterloo

National Division 2

Barking

Blackheath

Bradford & Bingley

Cambridge

Esher

Halifax

Harrogate

Henley

Launceston

Manchester

Nuneaton

Redruth

Stourbridge

Wharfedale

National Division 3 North

Blaydon

Cleckheaton

Darlington

Darlington Mowden Park

Fylde

Hull Ionians

Leicester Lions

Macclesfield

Morley

Orrell

Preston Grasshoppers

Rugby Lions

Tynedale

West Park St Helens

National Division 3 South

Bridgwater & Albion

Canterbury

Chinnor

Cinderford

Clifton

Dings Crusaders

Havant

Hertford

Lydney

North Walsham

Old Patesians

Rosslyn Park

Southend

Westcombe Park

Defunct league teams

Wakefield RFC

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_En...

Answer 5

Oh yeah  Hang on it's on the tip of my tongue!!  No don't tell me i'll get it in a minute!