Rare Antique English Four Panel Leather Herlequins Rugby Football Club Ball 12"

Description

Rare antique early four panel leather rugby ball with cotton laces. Marked Harlequins Rugby Club.

Harlequins (officially Harlequin Football Club) is a professional rugby union club that plays in Premiership Rugby, the top level of English rugby union. Their home ground is the Twickenham Stoop, located in Twickenham, south-west London.

The club, which was founded in 1866 as "Hampstead Football Club", split the following year with some of the membership forming Wasps RFC. Three years later Hampstead renamed itself Harlequins and became one of the founding members of the Rugby Football Union in 1871. For more than a hundred years, Harlequins had been one of the top UK teams during the amateur era and this continued with the introduction of professionalism in 1995. The club has been champions of England twice, winning the title in 2012 and most recently in 2021. They won the European Challenge Cup in 2001, 2004 and 2011,[1] and the domestic cup in 1988, 1991 and 2013.

The current club captain is Stephan Lewies, with Billy Millard Director of Rugby for the 2023–24 season.[2]

History
Formation and early years

A Harlequin F.C. team c. 1881
The Hampstead Football Club was founded in 1866 and the first recorded game took place in 1867. A disagreement between Club Secretary William Titchener and William Alford in 1867 resulted in Alford leaving with half of the membership to form the club now known as Wasps.[3] The club was renamed Harlequin Rugby Football Club in 1870, supposedly because the membership was no longer purely local and to retain the previously-created "HFC" monogram mark. The word 'Harlequin' (Arlecchino, a comic servant from the commedia dell'arte) was found in a dictionary and all present agreed to the new name.[4][5]

During its first 40 years the club played at a total of 15 venues. Since 1909, they have only played at three.[citation needed]

In 1906, the club was invited by the Rugby Football Union to use the new national stadium in Twickenham. In those early days, only one or two internationals were played there during the season, and before long Twickenham became the headquarters of the Harlequin Football Club.

Condition

Good Overall - Gentle wear/peeling to surface of leather

Dimensions

11.75" x 7.5" x 7.5" (Width x Depth x Height)