In the Bricklayers Arms they flicked a coin to see which way they would go, to a man committed to the result. Heads, amateur dramatics. Tails, rugby. The Queen landed face down and the Shoreditch creatives headed for Hackney Marshes.

In the City of London, in the shadow of the financial world’s buildings, amid the thick-set urbanity of the metropolis, is an oasis of pristine green, complete with what looks like a castle and, more importantly, a pair of rugby goalposts. This is the Honourable Artillery Company.

One of Charles Windsor’s early jobs as King was to head north to Doncaster and give it a fresh new title of its own. After 800 or so years as a town, it was now a city. All it needs now, is for the local rugby club to gain the premier status it so richly deserves.

Over the years, the players and members of one London merit table club have helped Rugby World Cups happen, captained and coached their country, and had games attended by politicians, Lords and dignitaries. But for London Japanese all that matters is one thing: ‘tasty beers’.

Beneath the pylons, on a sun-burnt field, with the dull drone of the A13 in the distance, you’ll find a side that has long threatened the women’s rugby elite. Dominating the second tier, and with a travelling support, Thurrock would give every top side a scare. If only they got the chance.

A farm in Gloucestershire has become the most prolific breeding ground for professional rugby players. Coupled with a Championship model that could be the blueprint for the future and complete with a meerkat garden and llama and emu orchard, Hartpury College has truly completed rugby education.

In the farming lands of north Norfolk, where Sirs Benjamin Britten and James Dyson went to school, in a town that was once burnt to cinders, a 91-year-old former boxer has found a home unlike any he’s ever known, at Holt RFC.

In a forest where the trees can stop a foreign invasion and not even dancing bears can walk safely, Tykes and Titans continue to be slain, and it’s all down to the rugby men of Cinderford, refusing to know their place.

The reverend had just wanted to try and keep youngsters on the straight and narrow, but using a pitch near a monkey house, bandstand and a bear pit, in a town perfumed by beer, he instead started a rugby club that would go on to conquer Europe.

A meadow of bulls where a thousand years has seen two battles with the barbarians, the birth of Bram Stoker, and lots of rugby silverware. Welcome to the Parish. Welcome to Clontarf.

Merthyr Tydfil was once a global capital of industry, a master of steel, iron and coal, the envy of the world. And then, it wasn’t. New industries came, but then went. Television shows even began to mock them. But, the people of Merthyr are made of stronger stuff, and, through rugby, a new generation has been inspired, with the help of Sir Stanley and a man known as ‘Chief’.

It was a rugby team that brought together rival players, embraced those that felt they were ‘a little bit shit’, that advised sports ministers, that beat Test nations, that confronted punky Beth Ditto lookalikes in McDonalds and would pave the way for the women’s Barbarians. This was the Nomads: gone and only partially forgotten.

The village of Caldy hadn’t seen crowds like it since the big dances of the 1960s. Three thousand people descended on Paton Field, filling the grassy slope that gives the best view. Could a small club unknown to many, reach English rugby’s second tier?

Two years after beating the All Blacks, the legendary 1971 British & Irish Lions decided to get together for one last hurrah. The men who’d faced down the haka now headed for Penryn, an ancient Cornish borough on a river where pirates once hid, men hauled granite and Spanish ships were sent fleeing by the townsfolk.

In the kind of town you’ve driven through a thousand times, Viking chiefs once roamed, a shop-keeping British & Irish Lion was raised, Russian KGB agents were snubbed and ‘the Wasps’ were given an almighty fright by the rugby kings of Cumbria.

To celebrate the launch of Rugby Towns, a celebration of the rugby and communities telling stories of clubs and the towns in which they’re based across Britain and Ireland, we’ve got a bespoke Canterbury kit including jersey, shorts and socks for a squad of 23 to be won.

Amid tales of being among the founding fathers of football, rugby, the Barbarians, the Lions, of having Jack the Ripper as a member, and Dr Watson in the pack, to find out about the modern-day Blackheath, we go in search of a crook-catching Scottish wrestler.

It was pig iron and a man called Jeremiah Homfray that changed the fortunes of Ebbw Vale, transforming it from a sleepy farming community into a European giant of steel employing tens of thousands. Until it wasn’t. Now, the only Steelmen left in the valley can be found at Eugene Cross Park every other Saturday.

Prague suffered more than most during the Second World War. Invaded and occupied by the Nazis, it was bombed by Allied forces in an attempt to release Hitler’s stranglehold. But, as the war drew to a close, the RAF began to drop Red Cross supplies. Amid the medical and food parcels was one unique package of a rugby ball and four distinct black and amber jerseys. In less than a year, the finders had formed a rugby club and, 70 or so years later, the club made a pilgrimage to the original owners of those jerseys: Canterbury RFC.

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.