Garnock Rugby Club is an amateur

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 its m ...

club based in

Glengarnock Glengarnock (Gaelic: ''Gleann Gairneig'') is a small village in North Ayrshire that lies near the west coast of Scotland. It forms part of the Garnock Valley area and is about from Glasgow, the nearest city. The Barony of Glengarnock is one of ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. They currently play in .

History

The club was formed in 1972 as the result of a merger of the Old Spierians and Dalry High School FP clubs. This was a response to the amalgamation of feeder schools Spier's and Dalry High (along with Kilbirnie Central and Beith Academy) to form Garnock Academy, which happened around the same time. The Old Spierians club had been founded in the early years of the 20th century and joined the

Scottish Rugby Union The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU; gd, Aonadh Rugbaidh na h-Alba) is the governing body of rugby union in Scotland. Styled as Scottish Rugby, it is the second oldest Rugby Union, having been founded in 1873. The SRU oversees the national league s ...

in 1911. National league competitions were introduced in Scotland in season 1973–74 and Garnock had some initial success, being promoted to Division 3. However, this was followed by a period of decline and in 1986 they were relegated to the Glasgow District League. During most of this early period, the club did not have a permanent home and played matches in Beith, Dalry and Kilbirnie. In 1985, a new clubhouse and playing fields were built on the site of the former Glengarnock steelworks next to

Kilbirnie Loch Kilbirnie Loch (NS 330 543), is a freshwater Loch situated in the floodplain between Kilbirnie, Glengarnock and Beith, North Ayrshire, Scotland. It runs south-west to north-east for almost , is about wide for the most part and has an area ...

. After only eight years, the clubhouse was condemned by the local council as being fundamentally unsound and the club had to resort to using Portakabins for changing facilities. Despite this setback, the 1990s were a period of success for the club, going from National League Division 7 to National League Division 3 in consecutive seasons. In 1999, Garnock were runners-up in the national Bowl competition. Success continued into the next decade, with the team gaining promotion to Premiership Division 3, being runners-up in the Shield in 2007 and winning the same competition in 2008. In August 2009, the club announced plans to build a new clubhouse at Lochshore. In June 2021, work began at Lochshore to build a new community hub which will include a café area as well as changing facilities to be used by the rugby clubs and other groups. It is hoped that this will be ready to open in Autumn 2022.

Notable players

Centre Ian McInroy played for the club in the 1990s before going on to captain Scotland under-21s and win several caps for the Scotland 7s team. Winger David Shedden, who played for Old Spierians in the 1960s, won 15 caps for

while playing for West of Scotland.

Honours

*Arran Sevens ** Champions: 2023

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Garnock Rfc Rugby union teams in Scotland Rugby union in North Ayrshire Garnock Valley Rugby clubs established in 1972 1972 establishments in Scotland