Sedgley Park RUFC are a team based in Manchester who were formed 1932 at a public meeting in a Temperance Hotel, of all places. The club’s first ground was on a farmer’s field in Whitefield and despite their name, the club have never played in Sedgely Park itself. A clubhouse had been built and three sides were being fielded before World War Two began in 1939. After the war the club lost their rented ground and for two years all of their fixtures were played on their opponents grounds, with the club having hardly enough players to field two sides.
In 1955 Park moved to their present ground in Park Lane, Whitefield, and in the next twenty years they built up a reputation as a successful and respected junior rugby union club. In 1976 work began on a large two-storey clubhouse which was completed in time for the Golden Jubilee of the club in 1982.
When the Courage Leagues began in the late 1980s Park were placed in North West Division Two (level 8) and won promotion to North West One in the first season. They remained in that division for seven years but during the 1990s the club achieved three successive promotions and by 2001 a further promotion had taken them to National League Division Two. Level 3 of the English game. During this period many improvements were made to the Park Lane Ground with a clubhouse extension, floodlights, two pitches made into one large front pitch, more terracing, another field was bought for extra pitches and finally, a covered stand.
Sedgely Park attained League Division One status (level2) in 2004; the junior club which had once played against sides such as Old Salfordians and De La Salle College now had league fixtures against Bristol, Coventry, London Welsh, Northampton and Harlequins. Rags to riches indeed!
After several years the club were relegated back into National Division Two and following another large re-organisation found themselves in the new National League Division Twofor the start of the 2010-11 season but at level four. They have remained there ever since but have twice been promotion runners-up in 2016 and 2018, losing the play-off games on both occasions.
Hull and Sedgely Park Tigers first played each other in season 2013-14 in National Two North and since then have only played each other on four occasions, with Park having won all four of those games as follows;
N2N – 2013-14: Hull 18 – Park 29 Park 32 – Hull 30
N2N – 2014-15: Park 47 – Hull 15 Hull 21 – Park 28
It is high time we posted our first win of the series, perhaps it may be this coming Saturday.
HULL RUGBY UNION FOOTBALL CLUB 