Birkenhead Park Football Club is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

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 based in

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liv ...

, Wirral. The club operates five senior teams, a ladies team (Birkenhead Park Panthers) and six junior sides. The men's senior team play in North 1 West at the sixth level of the

English rugby union system Men's Rugby union in England consists of 106 leagues, which includes professional leagues at the highest level, down to amateur regional leagues. Promotion and relegation are in place throughout the system. Women's Rugby union in England c ...

, Following their relegation from

North Premier North Premier was a level five league in the English rugby union system, with the fourteen teams drawn from across Northern England. The other leagues at this level were London & South East Premier, Midlands Premier and South West Premier. Th ...

at the end of the 2017-18 season.

Club history

Birkenhead Park was formed in 1871, the same year as the

Rugby Football Union The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the national governing body for rugby union in England. It was founded in 1871, and was the sport's international governing body prior to the formation of what is now known as World Rugby (WR) in 1886. It pro ...

, from the amalgamation of two smaller clubs, Claughton and Birkenhead Wanderers during the 1871/72 season. After an initial period where the club failed to find any form, the season of 1877/78 saw the team losing only two matches from 19. The club was central to the formation of the Cheshire County Union, and in 1887 Birkenhead Park was chosen as the venue for the Home Nations clash between Wales and Ireland; the first time a Home Nations Championship game had ever been played on neutral soil. The club has a rich history and have hosted the

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

All Blacks team on four occasions most recently in

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd government). * January 6 ...

and in 1984 they hosted the North of England's match against

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. The club has won two promotions in the 25 years of club rugby - winning South Lancashire and Cheshire Division One and North 2 West in consecutive seasons in the early 2000s.Club website history page
/ref> The first team now plays at the sixth level - North 1 West.

Club honours

* Cheshire Cup winners (4): 1878, 1879, 1881, 2008 * Euromanx South Lancs/Cheshire 1 champions: 2000–01 * North 1 West champions (2): 2001–02, 2014–15 * Cheshire Vase winners: 2016 * North 1 (east v west) promotion playoff winners: 2016–17

Notable former players

British Lions

Paul Robert Clauss Paul Robert Clauss (22 June 1868 – 21 April 1945) was a German-born rugby union three-quarter who played club rugby for Oxford and Birkenhead Park. Clauss was a member of the first official British Isles tour in 1891 and also represented Scotl ...

1891 Events January–March * January 1 ** Paying of old age pensions begins in Germany. ** A strike of 500 Hungarian steel workers occurs; 3,000 men are out of work as a consequence. ** Germany takes formal possession of its new Af ...

* Elliot Nicholson ( 1899) * George Edward Hancock (

1936 British Lions tour to Argentina The 1936 British Lions tour of Argentina was a series of rugby union matches arranged between the British Lions and various Argentine teams. The tourists played ten matches, nine of which were against club and combined teams while one match to ...

) * Frank Croft Hulme (

1904 Events January * January 7 – The distress signal ''CQD'' is established, only to be replaced 2 years later by ''SOS''. * January 8 – The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library syst ...

) * R. B. Maxwell (

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China hold ...

) *

Thomas Knowles Thomas Knowles (30 May 1824 – 3 December 1883) was an English businessman and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1874 to 1883. Knowles was born at Ince-in-Makerfield, the son of a colliery underlooker. According to hi ...

(

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will b ...

)

International players while at Birkenhead Park

* Harry Alexander * James Baxter *

* Wilfrid Lowry * C. S. Edgar * Frank Croft Hulme * P. D. Kendall * J. C. Marquis * B. B. Middleton * Elliot Nicholson * John Paterson * C. Phillips * J. J. Ravenscroft * J. Feldman

Other notable players

Ian Buckett Ian Martin Buckett (born 23 December 1967 near Holywell in Flintshire) is a former international rugby union front row forward who played for Swansea and London Welsh and played county rugby for North Wales. He was a championship winning player ...

Austin Healey Austin Sean Healey (born 26 October 1973 in Wallasey (now part of Merseyside, formerly Cheshire), is a former English rugby union player who played as a utility back for Leicester Tigers, and represented both England and the British & Irish Li ...

* Richard Downend (a notable cricketer)

References

External links

Birkenhead Park website
{{Rugby union in England English rugby union teams Sport in Birkenhead Rugby clubs established in 1871 1871 establishments in England