King's College Hospital RFC is an open rugby union club founded in the 19th century as a football club whose representatives were made up of medics from King's College Hospital. In its original form it was one of the twenty-one founding members of the Rugby Football Union, and produced a number of international players in the sport's early international fixtures. The merging of King's College Hospital medical department in 1999 with the already merged Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital led to the creation of Guy's, Kings and St. Thomas' Rugby Football Club, an amalgam of three formerly distinct hospital rugby clubs each with a long history. King's College Hospital Rugby Football Club opted to remain a separate entity in so doing became an open rugby club that no longer represented the Hospital medics. History In 1869, 90 members from King's College formed a football club representing faculties including the Medical Department. The club played football using a modified form of the Rugby School code. On 26 January 1871, they sent representation in the form of CM Madden and CE Pope to a meeting of twenty-one London and suburban football clubs that followed Rugby School rules assembled at the Pall Mall Restaurant in Regent Street. E.C. Holmes, captain of the Richmond Club assumed the presidency. It was resolved unanimously that the formation of a Rugby Football Society was desirable and thus the Rugby Football Union was formed. A president, a secretary and treasurer, and a committee of thirteen were elected, to whom was entrusted the drawing-up of the laws of the game upon the basis of the code in use at Rugby School. Although King's College was considered prominent enough to have been invited, they did not gain any of the thirteen places on the original committee. The team entered the Inter-Hospital Challenge Cup (aka the United Hospitals Challenge Cup) from 1874. The team played in every competition until they became an open club in the mid-1990s, and although they reached the final four times, they never once lifted the trophy. The club's move away from its direct association with the Hospital means that it is no longer eligible to enter the tournament. The early twentieth century saw the club in a period of demise. A report from the 1903 season goes towards explaining why the club found itself in that predicament: "This season, more than ever before, the difficulty