Records in the form of photographs and written requests to the Liverpool Referee’s Society to provide match officials indicate the origins of police rugby on Merseyside go as far back as the 1930’s and prevailed until the outbreak of World War II in 1939 and then afterwards until about 1950 when, because of lack of support, the team folded.

It could be argued that the current era of Police Rugby on Merseyside was initiated by the Liverpool City Police Cadets for it was in 1956 they started playing, at first Rugby League but soon after changing to the 15 aside game. During that time three cadets were selected to play for the England Boys Youth (under 18’s) Clubs Team and inevitably there soon followed an influx of committed rugby playing recruits to the Service. Such influx augmented the already serving policemen who wanted to play rugby and so it was, on 9th April 1960, the then Liverpool City Police played against the Liverpool College of Building on the Corporation playing fields in Dwerryhouse Lane.

It was this latter date (April 1960) rather than the year 1956, which is acknowledged as the date of the re-establishment of Police Rugby on Merseyside and accordingly in October 2010, a celebratory dinner was held at Liverpool’s Crowne Plaza Hotel, marking over 50 years of continuous Police Rugby on Merseyside. This was truly a magnificent and memorable occasion with an attendance of 120 past and present players, some of whom had travelled from overseas for the event, with representation from each of the Club’s five decades.

The Club have not always had a home ground to play on and certainly in the early days suffered a nomadic existence, initially sharing the ground at the Mather Avenue Police Training School with the Dog Section and the Mounted Department and later, the Liverpool Passenger Transport Ground at Dovecot with about eight Football Teams.

There were times when the Club did not even have a home pitch at all and they would travel away for each game, that is with the exception of midweek fixtures and important cup matches when, the likes of Sefton, Birkenhead Park and Liverpool Saint Helens would allow the use of their grounds. It was not until 1985 that Riversdale Road became the Club’s home ground by which time, the Force had progressed through the two amalgamations in 1967 and 1974 to become Merseyside Police.

It was in the 70’s consequent upon the second amalgamation, the Club were able to field a second team. This proved to be the start of a prolonged successful period lasting until the mid 90’s in which time, gor a couple of seasons, the Club were able to field four teams. The ever improving standard of play led to our twice winning the Liverpool Cup in 1982 and 1983, and there were also successes in the more widely publicised County Cup games where we were invariably eliminated by one of the senior clubs in the county, twice then going on to ein the Plate competition in 1988 and 1993.