As the German bombers flew overhead, the Moss Lane anti-aircraft guns burst into action, firing perhaps in hope rather than any certainty of hitting anything in the pitch-black night sky. Once the war was over, the station was dismantled but the weekly battles commenced, and, despite trials and tribulations, in the colours of St Helens RUFC and now Liverpool St Helens Football Club, they haven’t stopped since.

When Berkshire was a lawless place, the picturesque village of Sonning was a hideaway for the infamous outlaw Dick Turpin and his fabled steed Black Bess. Just under 300 years later, Rams RFC are attempting their own form of highway robbery by stealing the National One title from the rugby aristrocrats of Richmond.

Nine miles north of Leeds, just off the A660 to Otley, is an affluent village called Bramhope. Thousands fly overhead every week from Leeds-Bradford airport, heading to or from sunnier climes, rarely thinking what lies beneath. There’s nothing especially remarkable about this place of roughly 4,000 souls. Aside from the rugby that is. Specifically the local ladies rugby team, who have their sights set high, to be among the big guns of the Tyrells Premier 15s.

Southend RFC’s 150th anniversary is testament to many things. The commitment of volunteers down the generations, fiscal responsibility spanning two centuries, plus the resilience to ride out a pandemic or two. But most of all, it underlines that, in Essex, watching a joy-riding lion taking on a vertical ‘wall of death’ at 50mph isn’t as entertaining for the locals as a simple game of rugby.

He was supposed to be the epitome of a Bath man, finishing his rugby days in the club less than a mile from his home. But as he called bingo numbers in a town hall in France, helping an old lady win a telly, Dave Attwood knew things hadn’t quite gone to plan.

When Silvio Berlusconi’s empire finally began to crumble around him in 2011, The Economist magazine ran a headline which captured the zeitgeist. It read: ‘The man who screwed an entire country’. One of the few exceptions to that statement would be rugby in Amatori Milan, which thrived under his patronage in the 1990s. That is, unless he turned up to watch.

As he lay in the back of the ambulance, with his first concussion, the medics were concerned about Ben John’s nose: clearly broken, they thought. But it wasn’t: just a gift from his father’s side. The head though, that was the start of a different story altogether.

Around the corner from Jeff Stelling’s house, in a town famed for hanging a monkey dressed as a French sailor – a town that, ironically, 200 years later voted for a monkey as mayor – is a rugby side that’s lived quite the life. Almost a decade of being a Premiership yo-yo club, ended in four relegations. They lost their home, their coach, their players, their fans and came close to extinction. And yet, somehow, West Hartlepool are still with us.

In the car journey from Cardiff to Newcastle with team-mate Epi Taione, Vili Ma’asi broke down and couldn’t stop crying. He was 26 and had just said goodbye to Tonga for a professional rugby life. The only problem was, he didn’t have a club yet.

Amid the smoke-billowing industrial landscape of Port Talbot, where the core ingredients of steel are blasted at 1,200°C to produce five million tonnes of the hard stuff every year, a ‘mother’s boy’ called Richard Hibbard was kicked into shape.

In a town of one coffee shop and one pub in the South Island of New Zealand, the man with the greatest scrum brain on the planet is giving out advice to the rugby world. He used biomechanics, ballet dancers, and cage fighters to perfect the All Black scrum and now, at the request of forwards coaches the world over, Mike Cron is on Zoom. Listen up.

At 39, and after 115 England appearances, four Rugby World Cup campaigns and fourteen years playing for Darlington Mowden Park, Tamara Taylor felt she was being forced out of top-flight English rugby before her time. But then she fired up her Twitter account.

The tallest nation in the world, whose people fill Springbok halls of fame, are climbing the world rankings. Built on foundations laid by a chicken farmer from Botswana, the Netherlands have rebuilt their pathway and paved it with quality players of orange, including a boy named Wolf.

A greatest XV. No.2 The Hooker

This dad of four girls never quite replaced playing rugby in his life, he struggles with it still. But he does suggest solutions for many of its ills, and women are at the heart of many of them. Once he’s done fixing rugby, then it’s time for something else. House of Lords, maybe?

She was the first woman to earn level 3 and level 4 coaching badges. The first woman to lead a men’s side on a three-promotion, double-Twickenham victory, 62-game unbeaten run. The first woman to get a full-time coaching post at a Premiership club. But to coach the country she helped to two World Cup finals? Not even an interview. And that, is what ‘almost’ broke Giselle Mather.

“Zoe Aldcroft is powerful, athletic and hard to tackle. An intelligent rugby player, from playing in the backline, her understanding of ball carrying in space and running lines is excellent. Zoe hasn’t reached anywhere near the potential she has, and is already playing for England. She can keep getting better and better. There is much more to come.” – Tamara Taylor, 115 caps, England

Armand Vaquerin left the bar, returned to his car and came back with a gun. He challenged the bar to a game of Russian roulette and, when there were no takers, he decided to play anyway. Moments later he was dead. At least, that’s one version of events.

Driving home from the Olympics that was supposed to be her sporting finale, Non Evans MBE started to cry. She was shattered. A career traversing international rugby, judo, wrestling and weightlifting was over, and there was nothing she could do about it. Life was also set to get worse before it got better, and she could enjoy the daffodils once again.

Catapulting sweets at sixth-formers, letting in goals ‘left, right and centre’ at football, running riot against Colston’s and the sight of Lesley Vainikolo have all played a role in the shaping of Ellis Genge. But, key to it all, was Leicester’s shit night life.