Studying the locations of Premiership rugby teams the other day gave me an odd sense of deja vu with reference to “Roses” battles. Both feature a cluster in the midlands, one in the south-west, one in the north and one around the home counties. There are twelve of the former and about fifteen major battles, appropriately enough.
Leicester and Northampton are easy to assign, although Welford Road is a lot more urban than the site of Bosworth, whilst Ludford Bridge, significantly further west, will have to be matched to Wasps in their latest, Coventry, venue.
Saracens, although founded in St. Albans, have a new, artificial, surface in Barnet. Edgecote was fought in Oxfordshire where London Welsh are based although London Irish are a more difficult case.
The north is more problematic in that battles did not take place west of the Pennines. Wakefield was fought furthest west in the region and thus the nearest, Blore Heath excepted, to Sale. Similarly, Hexham roughly equates to Newcastle.
In the south-west, Tewkesbury is convenient for Bath or Gloucester and the latter is a few miles from Mortimer’s Cross. Exeter is almost impossible to assign.
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