The 12 original Premiership teams: Where are they now?

During the nineties, despite thrilling displays under Paul Turner, and his successor John Mitchell, both club and ground struggled to keep a grip on the demanding commercial and financial realities of running a professional rugby club.

Sale took 20,000 fans to Twickenham for the 1997 Pilkington Cup Final but Leicester won a mistake-ridden match 9–3. This interest quickly faded and the anticipated increased crowds never materialised and relegation from the Premier Division loomed until rugby union-playing local businessman Brian Kennedy came to the rescue late in the 1999–2000 season.

Since then, the club has been on a sound financial footing, and despite often being a mit-table club, won the Premiership title in 2006.

Wasps now own and play at the Ricoh Arena. Prior to the move to the midlands Wasps had several homes; from 1923 to 1996 they were based at Repton Avenue in Sudbury, London, from 1996 to 2002 they played at Loftus Road in Shepherd’s Bush and from 2002 to 2014 they played at Adams Park in High Wycombe.

Wasps has won 12 major titles. They were European Champions twice, in 2004 and 2007; have won six English Championships including three in a row from 2003–05; and won three Anglo-Welsh Cups. They have also won the 2003 European Rugby Challenge Cup.

Once a powerhouse of the English rugby union game, the men’s 1st XV now play in North 1 West at the sixth level of English rugby union system, following their relegation from National League 3 North at the end of the 2016-17 season.

They competed in the top division of English rugby for the first two seasons after the league structure was introduced but were relegated in 1989.

In Season 2003/04 the 1st XV gained promotion to National League Division 2, reached the final of the Powergen Shield at Twickenham and was Rugby World Magazine ‘Team of the Year’. Two years later in 2005/06 they secured promotion to National League Division 1.