A short history of the York Acorn Rugby League Club

York Acorn A.R.L.F.C. was formed in August 1973 from a public house in the centre of the city.

It moved to its present location in 1990, following strenuous fundraising efforts from the Acorn players and volunteers, to start and build there own club house. This was achieved on January 19th 1991 when the doors opened for the first time, with a main room, bar area, 4 changing rooms, two pitches and an all weather pitch and two open age sides.

With the building of our own club house complete we set about encouraging juniors to the club. After seven years we achieved our aim of fielding junior teams at every age group. We now offer recreational rugby from six years of age all the way up to Open age. All the teams are playing at the relevant level and entered into Local, regional and national competitions.

Our ever improving success meant that we were fast out growing our facilities and in 2003 we extended the changing room area of the club house to now have seven changing rooms, a large equipped gym, storage area, physio room, referees changing room and a kit washing room.

As well as having a number of players join the professional ranks, the club has a proud tradition of achieving International and County honours at open age Youth and junior level in both the male and female sections of the game.

Our club constitution is formatted to ensure that the rugby section will always be in total control of the day to day running of the club and it is protected from being taken over by any other sporting section although we do encourage the playing of other sports and now have a running club and football team based at the club.

Our aim is now to strengthen each age group by increasing the number of teams and therefore increase club membership and participation by way of a five year plan. This will see us form better links with local schools and colleges and hopefully see them playing finals, rallies at the club etc which will further foster a good working relationship.

We are continually looking to use our club to the full, providing facilities that will encourage more people into sport. The club was awarded Club Mark Gold accreditation for a child friendly club in 2011 and with this behind us the only way is to keep going forward.