1995–96 National Division 1
sports season
The 1995–96 National Division 1 (sponsored by Courage Brewery) was the ninth season of the top tier of the English rugby union league system, the Courage Clubs Championship, currently known as Premiership Rugby. Leicester were the defending champions and Saracens the promoted team.
Bath finished as champions for the sixth time, beating holders Leicester by just one point. Despite a disastrous season with 18 defeats in as many matches, West Hartlepool kept its place in the first division due to the expansion of the league from 10 teams to 12 the following season.
Structure
Each side played one another twice, in a round robin system, home and away, to make a total of eighteen matches for each team. Due to the number of teams increasing from ten to twelve for the following season there was no relegation.
Participating teams
Table
Results
The Home Team is listed in the left column.
Fixtures & Results
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Round 5
Round 6
Round 7
Round 8
Round 9
Postponed due to spectator falling ill. Game rescheduled to 20 April 1996.
Round 10
Round 11
Postponed.
“1995–96 National Division 1” enters the record as sports season. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what National, Division and sports can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1995–96 National Division 1” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, National, Division and sports provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1342664. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1995 and 1996.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1995–96 National Division 1”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1995–96 National Division 1 primary sources, 1995–96 National Division 1 archive and National research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1995–96 National Division 1”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1995–96 National Division 1” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.