Bangor RFC is a

Northern Irish Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

club from

Bangor, County Down Bangor ( ; ) is a city and seaside resort in County Down, Northern Ireland, on the southern side of Belfast Lough. It is within the Belfast metropolitan area and is 13 miles (22 km) east of Belfast city centre, to which it is linke ...

, playing in Division 2C of the All-Ireland League.

History

The club was founded in 1885 and enjoyed senior status between 1924 and the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. The club returned to junior rugby after the war. Historically having played at Ward Park, leased from Bangor Borough Council, in 1968 the club purchased eleven acres of land on the southern outskirts of Bangor and opened a new ground named Upritchard Park (after chairman Joe Upritchard) in September 1969, coinciding with the regaining of senior status. Over the next 20 years, Bangor became one of the top senior clubs in Ulster, culminating in the 1981-82 season, when it won the treble of Ulster Senior League,

Ulster Senior Cup The Ulster Senior Cup is a knock-out competition for senior rugby union teams in the province of Ulster. It is administered by Ulster Rugby. The most successful club is Queen's University with 23 wins. The current holders are City of Armagh RF ...

and its own floodlit competition, the Boston Cup. Bangor were inaugural members of the All-Ireland League in 1990, but the club went into decline and was relegated back into junior rugby in 2002. In 2016, however, the club regained senior status on promotion back to the All-Ireland League. Since 1972, the club has been joined with

Bangor Cricket Club Bangor Cricket Club is a cricket club in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. There are 4 adult weekend XI's, all of which play in league and cup competitions within the Northern Cricket Union of Ireland. In 2013 the 1st XI were promoted to N ...

as Bangor Rugby Football and Cricket Club.

Notable players

;

British and Irish Lions The British & Irish Lions is a rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The Lions are a test side and most often select players who have already played for their national ...

* Richard Milliken ; Three Bangor players –

Roger Clegg Roger Clegg is a member of the board of directors of the Center for Equal Opportunity, where he previously served as president and general counsel. Prior to joining the CEO, Clegg served in a variety of capacities within both the Reagan and George ...

, Billy McCombe and Richard Milliken – represented Ireland in the

1975 Five Nations Championship The 1975 Five Nations Championship was the forty-sixth series of the rugby union Five Nations Championship. Including the previous incarnations as the Home Nations and Five Nations, this was the eighty-first series of the northern hemisphere rugby ...

. ; * Joeli Veitayaki

Honours

: 3 ** 1979-80, 1981–82, 1985–86 * Ulster Senior League: 7 ** 1929-30, 1974–75, 1976–77, 1980–81, 1981–82, 1982–83, 1987–88 *

Ulster Towns Cup The Ulster Towns Cup is a rugby union competition organized by the Ulster branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union. It is confined to teams outside of Belfast. Since the resumption of play after World War II, where a town is represented by a seni ...

: 13 ** 1903-04, 1905–06, 1908–09, 1919–20, 1922–23, 1929–30, 1945–46, 1955–56, 1967–68, 1968–69, †1971-72, †1974-75, 2015–16 *

Ulster Junior Cup The Ulster Junior Cup is a rugby union competition for clubs in the Irish province of Ulster that are not considered strong enough to play in the Ulster Senior Cup. It also includes the second teams of the senior clubs. The perpetual trophy that ...

: 1 ** 2015-16 † Won by 2nd XV

References

External links

Club web site
Rugby union clubs in County Down All-Ireland League rugby union clubs Ulster Senior League (rugby union) teams Sport in Bangor, County Down {{Ireland-rugbyunion-team-stub