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Newcastle Ravens Rugby Football Club is a
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 ...
team located in
Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The current Chairman : Robin Davies


History

The team was organised to help encourage
gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
people to take part in the sport. The team was founded on 1 May 2006 by Dave Burke who was the first Chairman and Captain, and it is run by a committee of eight elected members. The Ravens were admitted as members of the
International Gay Rugby Association and Board International Gay Rugby (IGR), formerly known as the International Gay Rugby Association and Board (IGRAB), is the umbrella organisation for the world's gay and inclusive rugby clubs. Based in London, UK, IGR is recognised by World Rugby as the ...
in 2006. The Ravens played at
Novocastrians Rugby Football Club Novocastrians Rugby Football Club is a rugby union team that is situated in the North East of England and currently play their rugby football, rugby in Durham/Northumberland 1. The club is more generally known as Novos. Novos were formed in Sept ...
from 2006–14, they have resided at Percy Park since 2014.


Union Cup

The Ravens sent players to the 2007
Union Cup The Union Cup is a biennial European, non-professional, gay rugby union tournament, bringing together teams and joint teams from all over Europe. It is held every odd-numbered year. History Montpellier 2005 The first edition was held in May 2005 i ...
tournament in
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
and played as part of the
Cardiff Lions __NOTOC__ The Cardiff Lions RFC ( cy, Clwb Rygbi Llewod Caerdydd) is a gay and inclusive rugby union football club based in Cardiff, Wales. The club was founded in 2004 and is the first of two gay and inclusive rugby clubs in Wales. The Lions wer ...
team. The combined squad recorded victories over NOP Amsterdam Rugby Club (35-5), Malmö Devilants (30-5 and 35-0) and the Caledonian Thebans RFC (5-25), drawing with the Emerald Warriors 10-10 on the way. The squad missed out in a tense final in Copenhagen to the Emerald Warriors RFC (10-5) after extra time. In May 2009 the club participated in the
Union Cup The Union Cup is a biennial European, non-professional, gay rugby union tournament, bringing together teams and joint teams from all over Europe. It is held every odd-numbered year. History Montpellier 2005 The first edition was held in May 2005 i ...
tournament in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, hosted by the
Kings Cross Steelers The Kings Cross Steelers are a United Kingdom, British rugby team, based in London. Founded in 1995 it was the world's first gay-inclusive rugby union club. Its founding sparked the beginning of a much larger gay-inclusive rugby movement which ...
. In 2013 the Club entered the competition which was held in Bristol and also entered again in 2015, travelling to Brussels and again in 2017 at the tournament which was held in Madrid. The 2019 tournament was held in Dublin and the Ravens were proud to win the Union Plate Trophy beating Le Gaillard from Paris in the Final 35 - 7


Newcastle Falcons Corporate Rugby

The club participated in the 2007
Newcastle Falcons Newcastle Falcons is a rugby union team that play in Premiership Rugby, England's highest division of rugby union. The club was established in 1877 as the Gosforth Football Club. Around 1882 the club merged with the Northumberland Football Cl ...
Corporate Rugby Tournament. The Ravens had Falcons and England rugby team player
Mathew Tait Mathew James Murray Tait (born 6 February 1986) is a retired English rugby union player who gained 38 caps for between 2005–2010, including starting in the 2007 Rugby World Cup Final; and played 279 club games for Newcastle Falcons, Sal ...
in their squad for the event, during which they achieved a draw and two losses.


Caledonian Thebans Rugby Clinic

The Ravens attended the Caledonian Thebans RFC rugby clinic in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The 2007 tournament was capped with a mini 7s tournament and 15s game. The Ravens achieved a 3-1 win over the Thebans and a 0-0 draw with the Cardiff Lions. The 2008 and 2009 clinics finished with a 10s tournament, both of which were won by the Ravens.


The Bingham Cup

The Ravens teamed up with the Caledonian Thebans RFC to attend the 2008 Mark Kendall Bingham Memorial Tournament in
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
under the joint team name of Northern Stags. The Stags entered the tournament at the Shield level but were promoted to the Bowl where they finished as Quarter Finalists. The Newcastle Ravens entered their own team into the Bingham Cup 2012 in Manchester where they won the Hoagland Cup. The Ravens entered a team into the 2018 Amsterdam tournament and walked away with the Alice Hoagland shield. The Ravens were drawn against Kings Cross Steelers 3rd, Northampton Outlaws and Stockholm Berserkers in the second tier pool. Northampton Outlaws was the opening match, followed by Stockholm. Both were evenly matched close games of rugby. Both resulted in defeat on the first day. Day two, Kingscross Steelers were the final group opponents. Steelers scored a penalty early on in the game which motivated the Londoner's support. However, the Ravens responded with a second half try, silencing the Londoner's support. The game finished 5 v 3 to the Ravens.


The Hadrian Cup

The club hosts an annual tournament, the Hadrian Cup,Newcastle Ravens RFC
/ref> during February. The Hadrian Cup was named after the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was known to have had a homosexual lover and who also built the famous Hadrian's Wall which stretches across England from Newcastle to Carlisle. The first tournament welcomed teams from Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester and Belfast. The tournament was changed to a 10's format in 2017 and the competition which was held in February 2018 was won for the second year running by the Emerald Warriors from Dublin. Other teams entered from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Reading, Brighton, Liverpool, Leeds and of course Newcastle. The tournament in 2019 was another huge success with 11 teams attending and it was won by the Ravens.


Northumberland League

The club started competing in the Northumberland League in the 2013/14 season.


Northern IGR League

International Gay Rugby introduced a Northern League for the 2017/18 Season with 4 teams taking part. Liverpool Tritons, Leeds Hunters, Manchester Village Spartans and of course Newcastle Ravens. The Ravens were League Champions in this inaugural year. in 2018 / 19 the number of teams increased to 7 and the Ravens were successful in retaining the league championship for a second year winning 12 out of 12 of their games.


Enfys 7s

The Ravens entered the Enfys 7s competition in Cardiff in August 2018 and were winners in the 2nd tier bringing home the Plate Trophy.


Ladies Team

In 2018 the Ravens became the first IGR Club in the UK to form a ladies team. Whilst this is still developing the ladies have entered a couple of Touch Rugby Tournaments so far.


See also

* LGBT community


References


External links

* {{Gay Rugby Clubs English rugby union teams International Gay Rugby member clubs