1872 Cup


The 1872 Cup – also known as the 1872 Challenge Cup – is a men's rugby union tournament contested every year between the two Scottish professional clubs Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh Rugby.
Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh Rugby use their Pro14 league matches against one another to decide the Cup winners. The highest aggregate score in the home and away ties decides the 1872 Champions.
Not only is the Glasgow – Edinburgh fixture the oldest inter-district rugby match in the world, but the derby is classed as one of the biggest in world rugby. Former Edinburgh coach, the South African Alan Solomons states: "These games are massive. For me, this is one of the big derbies of world rugby."

History

The 1872 Cup marks the history of the world's oldest representative match. On 23 November 1872 a Glasgow District side met an Edinburgh District side at Burnbank Park, the home ground of Glasgow Academicals. Rugby Union was 20 a side in those days. Edinburgh won the first match. However, there was no cup to be won – and no cup was won until 1995.

District sides

Scotland was to have 4 District Sides: North and Midlands; South; Glasgow District and Edinburgh District. These sides would regularly play each other and a Scottish Inter-District Championship was introduced in 1953. A Scottish Exiles side was also introduced in the later McEwans District Championship.

Professionalism and the Inter-City Cup

The 4 District Sides North and Midlands, South, Glasgow and Edinburgh were to become Caledonia Reds, Border Reivers, Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh Rugby with professionalism. These teams challenged in the Inter-District Championship for European qualification to the Heineken Cup. A Cup was offered by the Sponsors, the estate agents Slater, Hogg and Howison in 1995. In 1997–98 the competition received a new sponsor: Inter-City Trains – and the Cup became known as the Inter-City Cup.
When Caledonia Reds and Border Reivers were merged into the Glasgow and Edinburgh sides, Glasgow and Edinburgh played one-off matches for the Inter-City Cup from 1998 to 2002. The Cup became the Virgin Trains Cup with sponsorship in 2001–02 with the Welsh-Scottish League matches between the pair being used to determine the winner.
When the Border Reivers were revived in 2002 the Inter-City Cup was forgotten about and it sat in the old Glasgow & District Rugby Union office in Somerset Place, Glasgow for a few years. Unfortunately the Reivers folded again in 2007.

1872 Cup begins

The Cup was revived and rebranded by Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh Rugby as the 1872 Cup in season 2007–08. 1872 thus marking the date of the oldest derby match in rugby union history between the original Glasgow and Edinburgh amateur district sides on which the professional clubs were founded.

Format of the Challenge Cup

Previously, the two league encounters of the Pro12 were used to decide the winner of the 1872 Challenge Cup. Usually, these fixtures were scheduled as double-headers; home/away to rival one week and away/home to rival the next. These double-headers were often scheduled around the weekends of Christmas and New Year. The 2016-17 season's 1872 Cup matches did not follow the double header format.
The aggregate score of Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh Rugby in the fixtures is taken into account in deciding the winner.
Where the aggregate score is tied the holder retains the trophy.
The format of the 1872 Cup for the 2017-18 season will be over 3 Pro14 matches.

Sponsorship

The cup was originally sponsored by Greaves Sports. Crabbie's have been announced as the sponsor of the 2016-17 season's 1872 Cup.

List of results

Two-match format (2007–08 to 2016–17)

Three-match format (2017–18 onwards)

With the introduction of South African teams to the Pro14, Glasgow and Edinburgh were designated to different conferences, resulting in one meeting during the season. As well as this, two additional derby matches were scheduled by the league, resulting in a three-game format for the Cup. The winner of the Cup will be the team that wins most matches, with the previous format of aggregate scores now being the first tie-break criteria.
YearDateVenueHomeScoreAwayTrophy Winner
2017–1823 December 2017Murrayfield Stadium, EdinburghEdinburgh18–17GlasgowEdinburgh
2–1
2017–1830 December 2017Scotstoun Stadium, GlasgowGlasgow17–0EdinburghEdinburgh
2–1
2017–1828 April 2018Murrayfield Stadium, EdinburghEdinburgh24–19GlasgowEdinburgh
2–1
2018–1922 December 2018Murrayfield Stadium, EdinburghEdinburgh23–7GlasgowEdinburgh
2–1
2018–1929 December 2018Scotstoun Stadium, GlasgowGlasgow8–16EdinburghEdinburgh
2–1
2018–1927 April 2019Scotstoun Stadium, GlasgowGlasgow34–10EdinburghEdinburgh
2–1
2019–2021 December 2019Scotstoun Stadium, GlasgowGlasgow20–16Edinburgh
2019–2028 December 2019Murrayfield Stadium, EdinburghEdinburgh29-19Glasgow
2019–2022 August 2020Murrayfield Stadium, EdinburghEdinburghGlasgow
2019–2028 August 2020Murrayfield Stadium, EdinburghGlasgowEdinburgh

Other celtic derbies