Old Alleynian F.C.
English rugby union club, based in London
The Old Alleynian Football Club is an open rugby union club founded as a team for the old boys of Dulwich College, themselves known as Old Alleynians. Founded in 1898, it is one of the oldest clubs in London and was the last of London's old boys clubs to become a fully open club. It is notable not only for its longevity, but also for the prominence it once attained on the club circuit and for the number of eminent players that have been members of the club, some of whom gained their international caps whilst at the club.
The club runs four senior sides and have a flourishing junior set up with many players going onto to play 1st team rugby. After winning London 3 South West in 2011–12 the 1st XV had been competing at Level 7 until 2022–23 when they finished champions of Counties 1 Kent, promoting them to Level 6 Regional 2 South East where they won consecutive league championships in the 2023–24 season for the first time in their history, promoting them to Level 5 Regional 1 South Central for the 2024–25 season. As part of a league structure revamp the RFU allowed 2nd and 3rd teams compete in the leagues from the 2022–23 season onwards. OA's entered a 2nd XV at level 9 Counties 3 Kent, and won promotion to Counties 2 Kent during the 2023–24 season for finishing runner- up. The 3rd team were successful in winning Kent Metropolitan League A during the 2023–24 season and entered the league system at Level 11 Counties 5 Kent for the 2024–25 season. The 4th XV play in the Kent Metropolitan Leagues, winning the league in 2022–23 and finishing runner-up in 2023–24.
History
Dulwich College had been playing football using Rugby School rules since 1858 and the school had been playing against scratch sides of old boys since the 1890s.
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This entry incorporates text from “Old Alleynian F.C.” 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.