Doncaster Knights
English rugby union club
Doncaster Knights Rugby Football Club (formerly, Doncaster RFC) are a professional rugby union club representing the city of Doncaster, England. The club play in the 2nd division of English rugby, Champ Rugby. Being the most promoted side in English history has led to huge changes at the Castle Park ground and within the team structure.
Castle Park Conference and Function centre is a multimillion-pound development and is among the top conference venues in Doncaster, while remaining a supportive place for amateur rugby union in the city. The club motto "rugby for all" sees amateur side Doncaster Phoenix compete at the same ground, as well as the ladies side Doncaster Demons and every age group from under-7 to under-17s.
History
The rise to National League One, from amateur status led to the rebranding of Doncaster RFC to Doncaster Knights for the 2006–07 season, and that season saw their highest placed finish to date under Clive Griffiths as Director of Rugby. In the same season, Doncaster also won the Yorkshire Cup.
After the departure of Griffiths to Worcester, the former Director of Rugby, Lynn Howells joined the club on the eve of the 2007–08 season. Justin Bishop, signed from London Irish, had acted as DOR during the pre-season.
Howells inspired the Knights to almost repeat the 3rd-place finish in his first season in charge, and has moulded the squad in his own image for the 2008–09 season.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Doncaster Knights” as english rugby union club. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as english rugby union club. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3036238. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006, 2007 and 2008.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Doncaster Knights” 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.