Does the future look bleak for recreational rugby union in England?

Nothing lasts forever, as numerous proud old English rugby clubs can testify. Orrell, West Hartlepool, Wakefield, Waterloo, Rugby Lions, London Welsh … all of them have been in the top two leagues in the country in the past 25 years before disappearing off the radar when financial reality struck. The downward spiral, once it commences, can be desperately hard to arrest.

Which begs a question: how will English domestic club rugby look 10 or 20 years from now? Here’s a fun piece of trivia for you: a time capsule was buried in Twickenham’s South Stand in 2006-07 containing, among other things, predictions of the future made by Rugby Football Union officials of the day. It is tempting to be flippant – will blazers really be back in fashion by 2042? – but futuristic change could yet arrive sooner than many people imagine.

Inside the past week, two of England’s more knowledgeable club officials, independently of each other, have shared the same opinion with me: that rugby union, participation-wise, will have morphed into something akin to American football within a decade. If you are any good you will play professionally, semi-professionally or at a good level at university or college. Otherwise recreational men’s rugby will largely be limited to touch, tag and sevens.

For many clubs from the Championship downwards this is an apocalyptic scenario. Some of them have been going for 150 years or longer. That is a hell of a lot of history to watch float down the local river. But check out the damage that Covid-19 continues to do to finances and participation numbers, and the loss of some long-standing pillars of the club community looks increasingly probable.

It is increasingly hard, certainly, to argue with the view of an