Glasgow Warriors: Encyclopedia II - Glasgow Warriors - History

Glasgow Warriors - History

Glasgow Rugby were created to compete in the Heineken Cup as the SRU did not think that Scottish club sides could compete against the best teams from France and England. Glasgow, however, did not compete in the Heineken Cup until the 1997-98 season.

Due to the SRU's high debt, partly as a result of the redevelopment of Murrayfield - called for retrenchment. After two seasons, Glasgow merged with Caledonian to form a team to be known as Glasgow Caledonian. From the 2002-03 season the Caledonian label was dropped and the team were simply known as Glasgow Rugby. Starting with the 2005-06 season, the team were yet again rebranded as the Glasgow Warriors.

The enforced merger came just after Glasgow had shown some signs of progress by qualifying for the Heineken quarter-final play-offs, in which they lost heavily to Leicester. The combined strength of the new teams was supposed to build on such modest progress, but it did not happen.

The issue of crowd sizes returned at the 1999 World Cup, by which time a Welsh/Scottish League had been established - essentially the Welsh First Division with the two Scottish sides tacked on.

The Celtic League, begun in the autumn of 2001, has been a more attractive competition for players and public alike. Glasgow reached the semi-finals of the inaugural competition but have struggled since. In 2004-5 they were fifth, the best of the three Scottish teams.

Following a disagreement with the owners of Hughenden (Hillhead Sports Club) the Glasgow Warriors moved to Firhill Stadium, home of Partick Thistle Football Club.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki