| has gloss | eng: Blackheath Football Club (The Club) is a rugby football club based in Blackheath in south-east London, now playing at the Rectory Field (known as The Rec or The Parsonage). It was founded in 1858 and is the second oldest documented rugby club in England after Guys Hospital Rugby Club which was established in the 1840s (although this is contested). It is the third-oldest rugby club in continuous existence in the world, after Dublin University Football Club and Edinburgh Academical Football Club. The Blackheath club also organised the worlds first rugby international (between England and Scotland in Edinburgh on 27 March 1871) and hosted the first international between England and Wales ten years later - the players meeting and getting changed at the Princess of Wales public house. Blackheath, along with Civil Service FC, is one of the two clubs that can claim to be a founder member of both the Football Association and the Rugby Football Union. |