Twickenham is an affluent suburban town in south-west London, England. It lies on the River Thames and is 10 miles (16 km) west-southwest of Charing Cross, 2 miles (3.2 km) south-east of Hounslow, and 2.6 miles (4.2 km) north-west of Kingston upon Thames. Historically part of Middlesex, it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames since 1965.
The World Rugby Sevens Series is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. The series, organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season, was formed to develop an elite-level competition series between rugby nations and develop the sevens game into a viable commercial product for World Rugby. The competition was originally known as the IRB World Sevens Series, but has been known officially as the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series since 2014 due to sponsorship from banking group HSBC.
Rugby sevens, and originally known as seven-a-side rugby, is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40 minute halves. Rugby sevens is administered by World Rugby, the body responsible for rugby union worldwide. The game is popular at all levels, with amateur and club tournaments generally held in the summer months. Sevens is one of the most well distributed forms of rugby, and is popular in parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and especially in the South Pacific.
The England national rugby union team competes in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on a total of 28 occasions, 13 times winning the Grand Slam and 25 times winning the Triple Crown, making them the most successful outright winners in the tournament's history. They are ranked third in the world by the International Rugby Board as of 9 September 2019. England are to date the only team from the northern hemisphere to win the Rugby World Cup, when they won the tournament back in 2003. They were also runners-up in 1991 and 2007.
The Middlesex Sevens was a Rugby Sevens tournament held annually at Twickenham stadium in London, England until 2011. It was first held in 1926, and started by Dr J.A. Russell-Cargill, a London-based Scot. The event was held at the end of the rugby union season in May every year for 75 years and moved to August in 2001 due to lack of available stadium dates and players in May. The Middlesex Sevens tournament was last played in 2011, as the new Premiership Rugby 7s Series caused many of the top clubs that previously took part to pull out.
Twickenham Stadium is a rugby union stadium in Twickenham, south west London, England. Owned by the governing body of rugby union in England, the Rugby Football Union, the stadium hosts home test matches for the England national rugby union team. Other rugby union games played at the stadium include the Middlesex Sevens, selected Premiership Rugby fixtures, selected Anglo-Welsh Cup matches, the Varsity Match between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and selected European Rugby Champions Cup matches. The RFU headquarters are in the stadium.
The Harlequin Football Club is an English rugby union team that plays in the top level of English rugby, the English Premiership. Their ground in London is the Twickenham Stoop. They were one of the founding members of the RFU.
Twickenham Stoop Stadium is a sports stadium located in south-west London, England. The stadium is home to Harlequins rugby union team, who play in the Gallagher Premiership. The stadium has a capacity of 14,800 and is situated just across the road from Twickenham Stadium.
Daniel Stuart Care is an English rugby union player who plays for Harlequins in the Premiership as a scrum-half.
The Rugby World Cup for women, historically known as the Women's Rugby World Cup, is the premier international competition in rugby union for women. The tournament is organised by the sport's governing body, World Rugby. The championships are currently held every four years; the event was most recently held in Ireland in 2017. World Rugby has reset the tournament on a new four-year cycle to avoid conflict with the Olympics and Women's World Cup Sevens; World Cups will thus be held every four years after 2017.
The London Sevens is played annually as part of the IRB Sevens World Series for international rugby sevens. The 2008 competition took place 24 May and 25 May at Twickenham in London, England and was the seventh Cup trophy in the 2007-08 IRB Sevens World Series.
Spain's national rugby sevens team is one of 15 core teams participating in all ten tournaments of the World Rugby Sevens Series, having qualified by winning the 2017 Hong Kong Sevens qualifier tournament. Spain participated as a core team in the 2012–13 IRB Sevens World Series, but was relegated the following season.
The 2011–12 Aviva Premiership was the 25th season of the top flight of the English domestic rugby union competitions and the second to be sponsored by Aviva. It began on 3 September with five matches, including the annual London Double Header at Twickenham, and ended with the final on 26 May, also at Twickenham.
The 2012 London Sevens was the sixth edition of the tournament and the ninth tournament of the 2011–12 IRB Sevens World Series. The host stadium was the Twickenham Stadium.
The 2013 London Sevens was the seventh edition of the rugby union tournament and the final stage of the 2012–13 IRB Sevens World Series and was hosted at Twickenham Stadium in London, England.
The 2015 London Women's Sevens was the third edition of the London Women's Sevens, and the first tournament hosted in England to be a part of the Women's World Series. It was held over the weekend of 15–16 May 2015 at Twickenham Stadium and The Stoop in London, as the fifth event of the 2014–15 series.
The 2015 London Sevens was the ninth and final tournament within the 2014–15 Sevens World Series. This edition of the London Sevens was held over the weekend of 16–17 May 2015 at Twickenham in London.
