Our History

Situated on the coast of the Vale of Glamorgan, Llantwit Major RFC is a rugby club with a rich history dating back to the early 1880’s. Whilst there is speculation that the club were playing fixtures in the early part of the 1880’s the first recorded match took place on the 20th November 1889 between local rivals Cowbridge. Despite the defeat this match created an appetite for rugby in the town and it wasn’t long before they started to boast some well-known rugby names. 

In 1895 a local masonry worker Ernie George played for the club with George later going on to get capped for Wales. By the turn of the 20th century Hugh Hughes and David William Evans had also represented the blood and blacks whilst going on to establish international reputations. 

With the club growing in stature it based itself in the local inns with The Old Swan and The Cross Keys being the initial meeting places. Having no home ground to speak of rugby was played at various sites throughout the town with the Pound Field and Crooked Shord Field being sites for home matches.  

In 1962 the club gained full membership of the WRU and with this the club settled into their new home of the Recreation Ground. Buoyed by what was becoming a growing endeavour Llantwit celebrated its most successful era claiming the Silver Ball Trophy in both 1963 and 1964.  With a fine playing record the club claimed both titles losing very few games in a 2 year period. 

The club continued to grow and after almost 90 years club stalwart Jim Griffiths started the very first official junior section in the club in the early 1980’s. This would prove to be the catalyst to encapsulate the home grown community feel that club had long embodied. Local junior players now had a clear pathway and it wasn’t long before junior boys were representing the first XV. Almost 40 years later the section is still going strong with over 200 kids playing over 10 age groups on a Sunday morning. The junior sides have also established an exciting tradition of touring with teams having gone to Spain, Holland, France, Ireland and Sweden in recent years.
Having established a junior section it wasn’t long before the club had a youth section up and running. In the early 80’s the club’s youth section merged with local youth set ups to form Llantwit Major Youth. The youth have had success in the early part of the 21st century with the 2003-2005 era one that the club is especially proud of. 

In the 2014-15 season Llantwit Major reached the final of the SWALEC Bowl, unfortunately they narrowly lost out to Cymru Caerdydd at the Millennium Stadium. In recent years the club has looked to develop is community connections with the bulk of the first team squad having played age grade rugby in Llantwit Major. In 2019-20 the club were not only on the brink of promotion but had also qualified for the both the Silber Ball and Mid Glamorgan district cup semi-finals. Unfortunately the COVID-19 crisis brought a premature end to the season depriving the club of those opportunities. As they look forward to the next decade they hope to build on this success and continue to boast a club that the community can be proud of.