Scottish Rugby Union
governing body of rugby union in Scotland
The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU; Scottish Gaelic: Aonadh Rugbaidh na h-Alba) is the governing body of rugby union in Scotland. Now marketed as Scottish Rugby, it is the second-oldest Rugby Union, having been founded in 1873. The SRU oversees the national league system, known as the Scottish League Championship, and the Scottish National teams. The SRU is headed by the President (Keith Wallace) and Chairman (John McGuigan), with Mark Dodson acting as the chief executive officer. Dee Bradbury became the first female president of a Tier 1 rugby nation upon her appointment on 4 August 2018.
History
1873–1920s
The Scottish Football Union was founded on Monday 3 March 1873 at a meeting held at Glasgow Academy, Elmbank Street, Glasgow. Eight clubs were represented at the foundation, Glasgow Academicals; Edinburgh Academical Football Club; West of Scotland F.C.; University of St Andrews Rugby Football Club; Royal High School FP; Merchistonians; Edinburgh University RFC; and Glasgow University. Five of these clubs were, at the time of founding the Scottish Football Union, already members of the previously instituted Rugby Football Union. Although the RFU now represents exclusively English clubs, in its first few years it had members from outside England, there being no other national union. West of Scotland, Glasgow Academicals and Edinburgh University had joined the RFU in 1871 and Edinburgh Academicals and Royal High School FP had joined in 1872.
The public source identifies “Scottish Rugby Union” as governing body of rugby union in Scotland. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Scottish, Rugby and Union.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q594917. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1873, 2018, 1871 and 1872.
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This entry incorporates text from “Scottish Rugby Union” 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.