Blackheath

Richmond has stood on the other side of the pitch from Blackheath since the 1863/64 season, when the two sides met for the first time in what has become the oldest continuously played fixture in rugby union.

The club that turned up to those early meetings had grown out of Blackheath Proprietary School, formed by former pupils in 1858 and now the oldest independent rugby club in continuous existence anywhere. It still goes by the plain name The Club, a habit left over from the days when old boys needed a way to mark themselves apart from the current pupils. Blackheath signed on as a founder member of the Football Association in 1863, then walked out within months over the rules on hacking, a dispute that helped push rugby and soccer apart for good. Eight years later it did the same for the Rugby Football Union, and Frederick Stokes, who captained England in its first international that year, went on to serve as RFU President.

The trophies since have stayed close to home. Sixteen Kent Cups between 1891 and 2013 make up the bulk of the cabinet, alongside two Middlesex Sevens wins and a Gala Sevens title from the 1930s to the 1950s. On the league ladder, the club topped National Division Three South in 2004 and National League 2 East in 2023, and this year won the promotion play-off that put it into the Championship. Since 2016 the first team has played at Well Hall in Eltham, a 1,650-capacity ground that replaced the old Rectory Field.

For a club that helped found both the FA and the RFU, the honours board still stops one level short of the professional top flight, the division the promotion run has yet to reach.