Ampthill

Paul Turner arrived at Dillingham Park in 2012 as head coach, working alongside Director of Rugby Mark Lavery, and the pair took a club playing East Midlands rugby and carried it into the RFU Championship.

The rise built on foundations laid decades earlier. Ampthill had gone under during the Second World War and came back in 1950 as Ampthill & District Community RUFC, taking company status in 1959 and settling at Dillingham Park the following year after buying the first three acres for £300. The East Midlands Wells Bombardier Cup became something of a habit through the 1990s and 2000s, won six times between 1996 and 2013.

A development link with Saracens has sent players such as James Flynn and Jasper McGuire to Ampthill on loan, while a group of Tongan internationals, among them Aleki Lutui and Soane Tonga'uiha, joined the club in the mid-2010s and gave the Championship squad an experienced core. The youth section, running since 1971 and only formalised into an academy in 2017–18, produced Lewis Ludlow and Josh Bassett, both of whom went on to Leicester Tigers.

Promotion in 2019 has held: Ampthill remain a Championship club, still meeting Bedford Blues in the Battle of Bedfordshire, and still working out of a ground that seats 3,000.