Lostock Rugby Club has its origins in the social and sporting camaraderie of the post World War II era of the late 40's and early 50's, when workers from the then De Havilland Propellers, played rugby on an ad-hoc basis against other factories mainly within the De Havilland group. These games were deemed to have great prestige. Obviously, with a vast amount of the 4,000 workers coming from Wigan and the surrounding area, the teams were full of natural talent and were very successful.
Building on this success, in 1956 the Sports and Social club allowed the players to form a rugby section, and rugby at Lostock took off. Fielding 3 teams a week, many successfull years followed, even with the name changes, firstly to Hawker Siddley and then to British Aerospace.
The frequent name changes prompted the rugby club to adopt the location of the sports grounds at Lostock as the club name. In the mid 80's the name Lostock was lodged with the Rugby Football Union. For all these years the playing members of the club had only to fund the travelling expenses and the laundry bill, with everything else being provided for by the company and the Sports and Social club.
However in the early 90's, with the ending of the "cold war", things at the Lostock factory changed dramatically. British Aerospace reduced its workforce by nearly 3,000. This left the rugby club struggling for a player base and funding. Eventually, in 1997, British Aerospace withdrew all funding and issued a notice to quit the sports grounds stating that they would develop the grounds for building. more......
