How Far does your National League Rugby club travel?

Each season as the clubs are promoted and relegated it brings new or different opponents with many club treasurers keen to establish how their travel budgets affect the overall cost of the club in getting to their opponents to play there allocated fixtures. During the close season with limited rugby to watch fans and players alike can be found discussing the relative merits of playing national league rugby. The furthest distance travelled by a National league 1 or 2 club is Plymouth Albion at 4038 and the shortest distance is 1316 from Sale FC. Broadstreet RFC rank 33rd with just over 1700 miles to travel in 2015 .

Time For Regionalisation

The RFU apparently intent on making changes to the structure claiming benefits of more local derbies, better exposure for regional sponsors to reduce their own budgets and revert to a more local rugby fixture list.

Clubs can Afford it, Players Want it

Fans of the Rolling Maul rugby forum can often be found at the end of the season discussing distance travelled with those clubs at the extreme of the country taking the most pain both in cost of travel and time travelling before a game. Then there is the cost to the fans of the club, however the feedback from the majority is that National means national and the clubs playing in these leagues want to play rugby at the highest level possible. The cut off from the RFU is a 500 miles round trip in a day which leaves the clubs like Plymouth Albion, Redruth and Cornish All Blacks in the South, and Blaydon, Wharfdale and Darlington Moden Park.

T he Clubs Want One thing, The RFU Management Committee want another !

The RFU appears keen to implement National 2 at 3 regions, reducing the traveling burden on the clubs and themselves, creating more local fixtures. Longer distances are more prevalent in National 2 South with 32 fixtures > 500 miles if traveled in the 1 day. The North and Midlands only seeing 4 fixtures >500 Miles, however the feeling from the majority of clubs is that they wish to maintain the current structure.

We have put together some tables identifying the distance travelled between each of the clubs for information and reference. This information is extracted from a Google maps database by looking up between the two postcodes published for the clubs, collated and totaled.

Who Travels the Longest Distances throughout the season ?

• National League 1
• National League 2 North
• National League 2 South

• National League 1
• National League 2 North
• National League 2 South

National League 1

National League 1 2015

		Blaydon	Blackheath	Cinderford	Darlington Moden Park	Coventry	Wharfdale	Esher	Ampthill & District	Fylde	Loughborough Students	Hull Ionians	Hartpury College	Plymouth Albion	Richmond	Rosslyn Park	Henley Hawks
	Postcode
Blaydon	-	293	288	51	221	122	309	244	160	186	136	273	408	306	309	293
Blackheath	293	-	189	254	136	268	67	85	271	148	212	175	271	66	59	97
Cinderford	286	183	-	247	96	231	144	151	199	123	203	29	167	140	143	121
Darlington Moden Park	53	255	250	-	184	84	272	206	127	148	98	235	371	269	272	255
Coventry	222	148	95	183	-	182	115	72	151	51	139	80	216	111	115	87
Wharfdale	123	267	236	84	185	-	282	218	87	159	110	221	357	278	281	254
Esher	310	65	147	272	115	281	-	78	250	142	230	133	232	29	30	55
Ampthill &District	244	94	152	206	71	219	78	-	205	82	163	138	268	74	78	78
Fylde	162	281	204	126	153	85	250	205	-	148	134	189	325	246	249	222
Loughborough Students	186	157	125	148	49	162	141	80	147	-	104	111	246	137	140	121
Hull Ionians	136	211	204	97	138	110	229	162	133	103	-	190	325	225	229	210
HartpuryCollege	273	171	31	235	84	218	131	138	187	111	191	-	165	127	130	108
PlymouthAlbion	PL14NE	406	270	168	367	216	351	231	266	319	243	323	161	-	228	238	219
Richmond	305	66	140	267	109	275	31	73	243	136	225	126	230	-	11	48
Rosslyn Park	309	59	145	270	113	279	31	77	248	140	228	130	239	12	-	53
Henley Hawks	RG92JA	292	92	122	253	85	252	52	74	220	121	209	107	220	48	51	-
	Totals	3,600	2,611	2,495	3,060	1,956	3,118	2,363	2,128	2,946	2,042	2,705	2,298	4,039	2,294	2,335	2,220

National League 2 North

National League 2 North 2015

										Otley		Sale FC	Sandal	Sedgley Park			Tynedale
	Postcode
Broadstreet		-	133	115	142	128	29	105	106	146	132	113	109	122	36	61	224
Caldy	135	-	30	139	98	147	135	72	129	71	59	116	68	153	129	191
Chester	115	30	-	122	81	126	109	55	112	61	41	99	51	132	100	181
Harrogate	142	140	122	-	69	133	227	113	25	89	98	51	83	140	178	113
Huddersfield	128	98	80	67	-	119	185	71	58	69	56	34	41	126	156	151
Leicester Lions	28	144	125	134	120	-	125	111	137	143	124	100	132	10	81	216
Luctonians	103	135	111	224	187	124	-	150	218	167	147	191	157	130	66	287
Macclesfield	107	70	52	114	73	113	148	-	104	68	31	91	47	120	110	188
Otley	147	131	113	24	61	139	218	104	-	86	89	53	74	145	183	123
Preston	132	73	61	86	69	144	166	67	83	-	46	86	39	151	136	130
Sale FC	M333WB	113	60	42	98	57	125	147	33	88	48	-	75	27	132	117	168
Sandal	108	116	98	52	33	99	193	89	54	87	74	-	59	106	144	135
Sedgley Park	123	69	51	82	41	135	156	48	72	40	27	59	-	141	127	160
South Leicester	34	150	131	140	126	10	132	118	144	149	130	107	139	-	87	223
Stourbridge	60	128	101	177	155	79	67	109	181	135	116	144	125	85	-	255
Tynedale	226	192	179	116	154	218	284	186	125	128	165	136	157	224	255	-
	Totals	1,702	1,670	1,411	1,718	1,453	1,738	2,396	1,434	1,676	1,475	1,316	1,449	1,321	1,832	1,930	2,744

National League 2 South

National League 2 South

	Postcode
CAB	-	228	191	71	58	244	231	226	298	108	208	280	275	222	259	281
WorthingRaiders	230	-	102	175	283	76	110	51	154	154	113	112	134	91	116	117
Redingensians	193	104	-	132	245	81	60	63	126	89	42	118	103	50	88	110
Taunton Titans	72	175	130	-	125	186	170	168	236	46	147	223	213	160	198	220
Redruth	58	281	244	125	-	297	285	279	351	161	261	334	328	275	313	335
Old Elthamians	246	78	82	188	298	-	70	45	94	151	93	58	74	65	55	56
Old Albanian	235	115	62	174	288	69	-	72	86	131	55	104	59	59	49	78
Dorking	225	52	61	167	277	44	68	-	122	130	71	80	102	49	84	84
Bury ST Edmunds	301	153	127	239	353	92	88	120	-	196	123	128	39	121	54	98
Clifton	110	155	90	48	162	152	130	134	197	-	107	188	174	121	158	181
Chinnor	212	116	42	151	265	91	56	72	124	108	-	127	101	60	85	107
Canterbury	278	110	114	220	330	55	103	77	127	183	124	-	107	103	89	90
Cambridge	277	133	103	215	329	72	61	100	41	173	100	108	-	99	34	81
Barnes	223	93	50	162	276	66	58	49	123	119	61	105	100	-	85	106
BishopsStortford	265	117	91	203	317	56	52	84	55	161	88	92	35	86	-	66
Southend Saxons	284	116	112	224	336	56	80	83	98	181	108	91	84	105	65	-
	Totals	3,208	2,027	1,599	2,493	3,943	1,637	1,620	1,622	2,231	2,092	1,701	2,150	1,927	1,667	1,733	2,010