South London Storm


South London Storm is a rugby league club who play and train at Archbishop Lanfranc School in the London Borough of Croydon, they currently compete in the London and South East Merit League.
Founded in 1997, Storm have been voted Rugby League Conference "Club of the Year" three times, in 2002, 2005 and 2006.
In 2013 South London Storm merged with West London Sharks to form South West London Chargers.

Club Details & Personnel

Club honours

Coaches

To mark Storm's 10th Anniversary the club announced their 1997–2007 Dream Team.
  1. Tane Kingi
  2. Corey Simms
  3. Keri Ryan
  4. Carl Zacharow
  5. Gavin Calloo
  6. Michael Walker
  7. Terry Reader
  8. Gavin Hill
  9. Mark Nesbitt
  10. Koben Katipa
  11. Alan Emerson
  12. Louis Neethling
  13. Paul Rice
  14. Andrew Hames
  15. Nick Byram
  16. John Ferguson
  17. Julian Critchley
  18. Jack Kendall
Up to and including 2 July 2011.
CompetitionYearsPldWDLFA
Rugby League Conference2000–20023460285211757
Rugby League Conference Play Offs2002660017966
Rugby League Conference Cup20038413229143
National League 32003–20043314118764862
Rugby League Conference Premier2005–2011805412532341854
Rugby League Conference Premier Play Offs2005–200912804400188
Challenge Cup2004, 2005, 2007410370164
Total2000 - 20111779338153874934

OpponentsPldWDLFA
Aberavon Fighting Irish11004410
Bedford Swifts32018646
Bedford Tigers110010212
Birmingham Bulldogs22005646
Bradford Dudley Hill21011857
Bramley Buffaloes21014452
Bridgend Blue Bulls21015046
Carlisle Centurions11003616
Castleford Lock Lane10012450
Coventry Bears6303142162
Crawley Jets600648456
Crewe Wolves32016666
East Lancashire Lions1100300
Elmbridge Eagles 141103612262
Essex Eels330017638
Gateshead Storm11003220
Greenwich Admirals440020030
Hainault Bulldogs430118494
Haringey Hornets22006858
Hammersmith Hillhoists300356118
Hemel Stags420266116
Huddersfield Underbank Rangers21104840
Ipswich Rhinos/Eastern Rhinos161006526307
Kent Ravens22001402
Luton Vipers1100684
Manchester Knights22007014
London Skolars2110110665670
Oxford Cavaliers6204112248
Portsmouth Navy Seahawks5401278118
St Albans Centurions174013324546
Sheffield Hillsborough Hawks410390119
Sunderland Nissan220014810
Teesside Steelers10013236
Thornhill Trojans10011858
Woolston Rovers 20021876
West Bowling1001436
West London Sharks2812115712903

Second Grade Playing Record - 2003 to 2011

Up to and including 2 July 2011.
CompetitionYearsPldWDLFA
Rugby League Conference2003–2005, 20102610253421401
London League2006–2009, 2011351611811311167
London League Play Offs2006–20095203154142
Total2003–2009631814415092618

OpponentsPldWDLFA
Bedford Tigers32018646
Crawley Jets20026176
Elmbridge Eagles 700772429
Farnborough Falcons10012840
Feltham YOI11006452
Gosport Vikings400450172
Greenwich Admirals610562270
Guildford Giants320280104
Hammersmith Hills Hoists300340178
Haringey Hornets20023098
Hemel Stags5203146128
Kent Ravens4301188112
Kentish Tigers11003324
London Griffins10012238
London Skolars200224138
Luton Vipers21015874
Met Police10012634
Mudchute Uncles1001028
Oxford Cavaliers11004024
Phantoms RL1100704
Smallford Saints21018058
Southampton Spitfires320110876
Southend Seaxes11004014
Southgate Skolars310248113
Swindon St George1100980
St Albans Centurions410310088
Sussex Merlins4202156146
West London Sharks142111348670

Club history

The South London area has a strong rugby league tradition, and many of London’s most successful amateur clubs have come from this part of the capital. For nearly three decades clubs such as Streatham Celtic, Peckham Pumas and South London Warriors dominated the London League, and between them they won the title over twenty times. The mid-1990s heralded the demise of these once dominant clubs leaving the league without a club south of the Thames.
To fill this void the current South London club was formed on 21 July 1997 by Jed Donnelly, Graeme Harker and Julian Critchley in a bar after ' World Club Championship victory against Canberra Raiders on 21 July 1997. Initially nicknamed 'the Saints', as one of the founder members was a supporter of St Helens, the fledgling club recruited many of its players from the recently defunct east London, Bexleyheath and Peckham outfits, and they approached the local rugby union club, Streatham-Croydon, about basing themselves at their Frant Road ground. Storm's original colours were red and black.

London League

Saints were immediately accepted into the London League, and in their debut season they finished third in the Second Division behind Kingston and St Albans Centurions. That 1997/98 season culminated in an appearance in the Gordon Anderton Memorial Trophy Final against Reading Raiders at the New River Stadium. The 24–28 was a cruel blow for a team that were considered to have enjoyed the better of the game, but two controversial Raiders’ tries in the closing two minutes sealed Saints’ fate.
The 1998/99 season was one that promised much for Saints but, due to the near collapse of the league, that potential was largely unfulfilled, although South London did eventually emerge from the debris as runners-up to the London Colonials. A second successive appearance in the Gordon Anderton Memorial Trophy Final again ended in defeat, this time at the hands of a strong Metropolitan Police team.
It was in February 1999 that the club launched its junior section, initially at U11 only. The bulk of the youngsters came from the neighbouring Whitehorse Manor School where Saints scrum-half Lee Mason-Ellis was a teacher. They made their competitive debut two months later against Kingston Warriors, at the time the only other junior club in the capital, losing narrowly in an exciting encounter.
For the seniors, with the prospect of winter rugby league looking increasingly forlorn, South's thoughts turned to the new summer competition, the Rugby League Conference. The name of the club was changed to South London Storm as there were two other teams known as 'the Saints' in the Conference. Three months later the club was accepted into the Southern Division of the expanding competition. For the club's switch to summer in 2000 the colours were changed to maroon.

2000

It was a real baptism of fire for Storm in the RLC, as they managed only a single win – away at Kingston – to finish bottom of their group. The season opener at home to Oxford Cavaliers was covered by the Independent newspaper. Despite suffering a number of maulings, enthusiasm never waned and the club did much to raise the profile of the sport in this corner of the capital. Amazingly, Storm's season ended with an appearance in the London League Final against St Albans Centurions. But once again Storm were left frustrated as the Hertfordshire side emerged victorious from a gripping encounter. A member of Storm's team that day, and Man of the Match, was Ryan Jones who went on the play, and captain, the Welsh rugby union team, and who was a member of the 2005 British Lions tour to New Zealand.
The club made sporting history in October when the under-11s played their counterparts from Kingston Warriors in the curtain raiser to the England vs Australia Rugby League World Cup clash at Twickenham. It was the first ever game of rugby league at union's headquarters and Storm's Mark Cole, cousin of England footballer Joe Cole, scored the first ever try at the stadium and Rob Harker scored the first ever hat-trick of tries.
South London Storm was still operating, albeit as a Masters XIII, as recently as 2014, playing 1/2 fixtures a year
In 2017 they moved into Club Langley and played under the moniker of ‘Silverbacks’ for 3 seasons, during which a historic first ever Masters Tour to Canada was undertaken in June 2019
The first ever transatlantic Masters game between a UK Masters team against the Toronto Wolfpack Masters team at the Lamport stadium, followed by a further match against the Ontario Greybeards two days later
As is the nomadic existence of Rugby League in south London, we move onto the next chapter of the South London Storm - the South London Clippers Masters, playing out of Greenwich from 2020

Season's Record

First Grade
Rugby League Conference South
PldWDLFA
Home600650382
Away610556368

2001

2001 was a much improved year for the club and, although they won only three of their matches, Storm were a much more competitive outfit and got better as the year progressed, as narrow losses to the West London Sharks and North London Skolars proved towards the end of the season. The trio of wins, against Bedford Swifts, Crewe Wolves and Kingston Warriors all came in the second half of the season, after an opening sequence of six successive losses including a 6–100 drubbing at the hands of West London.
The season was notable for scrum-half Terry Reader's individual achievement of successfully kicking 29 successive conversions.

Season's Record

First Grade
Rugby League Conference South
PldWDLFA
Home620496263
Away6105111292

2002

2002 was the season when South London finally started to fulfil their potential. New Zealander Anthony Lipscombe took up the coaching reins, and brought about a steady improvement to the team's performances on the park.
Storm's pre-season preparation got off to a good start with a surprise success in the prestigious St Albans 9s Festival. Using a squad made up of mainly new players, they defeated their Centurion hosts quite comfortably in the Final.
The regular season saw Storm suffer a succession of frustratingly narrow defeats – most by ten points or less – to finish bottom of the South Division, but it was in the end-of-season Shield Play Offs that saw the team hit form.
Group wins over Kingston Warriors and Oxford Cavaliers, took South London to Cheltenham’s Prince of Wales Stadium for a semi-final clash with Crewe Wolves. It was a tough encounter that for long periods looked to be going Wolves’ way, but Storm dug in to prevail 21–14, courtesy of two late tries from Carl Zacharow and Keri Ryan.
A fortnight later, also at the Prince of Wales Stadium, South London met Bedford Swifts in the Rugby League Conference Shield Final, where they treated the large crowd, and the Sky TV cameras, to an exhilarating display of running rugby. Storm ran in ten tries in a runaway 54–2 victory, Caro Wild led the way with a hat-trick, Daniel Poireaudeau grabbed two, and Terry Reader, Keri Ryan, Nathan Price-Saleh, Aaron Russell and Alun Watkins pitched in with one apiece.
The final whistle sparked terrific celebrations both on the pitch and in the stand where Storm's large traveling support cheered Keri Ryan as he lifted the club's first ever major trophy.
Once again Storm fielded a second team in the London League, and although wins were hard to come by, only one all season, the players showed great enthusiasm with a number graduating to the first team.
The season ended with the club's first overseas tour. A party of 24 travelled to the south of France to play French National One club Realmont XIII. In front of a crowd of 750 – a quarter of the town's population – Storm put up a brave performance, but were eventually downed 18–36.
To round off the club's most successful season ever, Captain Keri Ryan was named at stand-off in the 2002 Rugby League Conference Dream Team, and full-back Corey Simms was named the competition's Young Player Of The Year.
Fittingly, the club was also presented with the award for Rugby League Conference Club of The Year 2002.

Season's Record

First Grade
Rugby League Conference South
PldWDLFA
Home5104122198
Away500586254

RLC Shield Play Offs
PldWDLFA
Home22005616
Away22004834
Neutral22007516

2003

Buoyed by their success in the RLC Shield, Storm were encouraged to apply for membership of the newly formed National League Three. The application was successful, however, following a number of internal meetings the club reluctantly decided against taking the step up and instead remain in the RLC. However, only four weeks before the start of the season local rivals Crawley Jets folded, and Storm accepted the RFL's last minute invitation to participate in NL3. The club also entered a second team in the RLC, and employed the first full-time Rugby League Development Officer in the area, accelerating the junior development program started by volunteers in 2000. Under the South London Storm “umbrella” are the three junior feeder clubs formed – the Croydon Hurricanes, Thornton Heath Tornadoes, and the Brixton Bulls.
Coached by ex-London Broncos player Darryl Pitt, the club opened their league campaign with an against-the-odds 24–16 victory over Huddersfield Underbank Rangers. It was a win that was all the more remarkable for the fact that they were down to 12 men after only 5 seconds; prop Mick Smith having been sent off in the first tackle. Storm registered a further five wins in the season but missed out on the end of season play-offs.
The club made a second tour to France in September, losing 22–48 against a Salses XIII line up containing three ex-French internationals.
In November Storm played a charity match against an Australian Legends of League side including the likes of Jason Hetherington, Trevor Gillmeister, Craig Coleman, Andrew Farrar and Peter Tunks. Both teams served the enthusiastic crowd of three or four hundred with an exciting end-to-end contest played in a manner befitting the occasion. The result was irrelevant; although for the record the score was 24–20 in favour of the Legends.
That same month Storm played their first ever Rugby League Challenge Cup game when they hosted National Conference side West Bowling in the Preliminary Round, losing 4–36.
In 2003 Storm were represented at International level for the first time when U15 player Adam Janowski was selected to play for England U15s against their Welsh counterparts at Easter.

Season's Record

Rugby League Conference Cup
PldWDLFA
Home311110059
Away530212994

First Grade
National League 3
PldWDLFA
Home7403154166
Away7205120198

Second Grade
Rugby League Conference South
PldWDLFA
Home510464190
Away500536406

2004

Storm again participated in National League Three and after victories in their opening three games, against Manchester, Bradford Dudley Hill and Birmingham, they topped the division for the one and only time. However, after the promising start, the season tailed off and once again Storm narrowly missed out on the play-offs. During the year Storm were awarded the Active Sports Club of the Year award from 400 participating sports clubs signed up to the Active Sports program, the biggest sports development programme in London. The club also embarked on a historic tour to Australia – the first British Rugby League team to tour Australia since 1997 – with games against Beerwah Bulldogs and Gympie Devils in Sunshine Coast, Queensland.
The season closed with a second tour of the year, this time to Toulouse, where they drew 22–22 against Villeneuve Tolosane.

Season's Record

First Grade
National League 3
PldWDLFA
Home9*504244208
Away10316246290

Second Grade
Rugby League Conference South
PldWDLFA
Home400454196
Away400434194

2005

As the cost of travelling to places as far afield as Carlisle and Gateshead began to spiral, Storm took the decision to apply for, and were admitted to, the newly created RLC South Premier for the 2005 season and appointed Rob Powell as Director of Coaching. The season proved to be a success with the club winning its first round Rugby League Challenge Cup match against West London Sharks in front of a crowd of 1,000. However, the Powergen Challenge Cup run came to an end in the second round when they were beaten 50–24 at Castleford Lock Lane, despite having surprising led at half-time.
During the RLC South Premier campaign the first team dominated the group and won all but one game during the season. The team lost in the national semi-final against Bridgend Blue Bulls, the competition's eventual winners, but the season ended on a high by beating the other 85 clubs to the RLC Club of the Year award for the 2nd time in 4 years.

Season's Record

First Grade
Rugby League Conference Premier South
PldWDLFA
Home5*50034630
Away650131874

RLC Premier Play Offs
PldWDLFA
Home22009414
Neutral10011834

Second Grade
Rugby League Conference South
PldWDLFA
Home400488236
Away400466179

2006

The 2006 summer season was to be the most successful for South London Storm as a club, with both senior teams winning their leagues, successes for the 4 Storm youth clubs, and the first team being crowned RLC National Champions.
Despite pressure from the Ipswich Rhinos, Storm once again won the South division of the RLC Premier. After disposing of the Bridgend team in the semi-final, they crushed the East Lancashire Lions in the final at Broadstreet RUFC by 30 points to nil.
This rounded off a successful season that included the London League title for the second team who defeated Luton Vipers in the Final.

Season's Record

First Grade
Rugby League Conference Premier South
PldWDLFA
Home6600290108
Away5302172130

RLC Premier Play Offs
PldWDLFA
Home11005210
Neutral22006212

Second Grade
London League
PldWDLFA
Home220010448
Away7313197222

London League Play Offs
PldWDLFA
Home22009634

2007

After the success of the previous season, 2007 was always going to be a tough year. Coach Rob Powell moved on to Super League's Harlequins RL, and was replaced by Andy Gilvary and Dave Wilson. Meanwhile, ten of the Grand Final winning team moved on to pastures new.
The season kicked off with a Challenge Cup First Round game away to Thornhill Trojans, but playing out of season the Londoners were no match for the National Conference League Premier Division side and lost 18–58.

Season's Record

First Grade
Rugby League Conference Premier South
PldWDLFA
Home7511264123
Away6402236127

RLC Premier Play Offs
PldWDLFA
Home11004824
Neutral10011018

Second Grade
London League
PldWDLFA
Home5203190119
Away410378186

London League Play Offs
PldWDLFA
Away10012240

2008

Storm once again reached the RLC Premier South Grand Final but were defeated 20–24 by West London Sharks, with the game-breaking try coming two minutes from the end of the match.

Season's Record

First Grade
Rugby League Conference Premier South
PldWDLFA
Home6501272108
Away6204138158

RLC Premier Play Offs
PldWDLFA
Home11002014
Away10012224

Second Grade
London League
PldWDLFA
Home4202132124
Away5203148194

London League Play Offs
PldWDLFA
Away10012044

2009

Storm will again participate in the Premier South Division of the RLC. Their opposing teams will be Bedford Tigers, Elmbridge, Hainault Bulldogs, Ipswich Rhinos, London Skolars A, St Albans Centurions, Portsmouth Navy Seahawks and West London Sharks.

Season's Record

First Grade
Rugby League Conference Premier South
PldWDLFA
Home6*60038084
Away6*600286114

RLC Premier Play Offs
PldWDLFA
Home21017438

Second Grade
London League
PldWDLFA
Home3201120102
Away5203166170

London League Play Offs
PldWDLFA
Away10011624

Academy Grade
PldWDLFA
Home22008022
Away32019466

2010

Season's Record

First Grade
Rugby League Conference Premier South
PldWDLFA
Home7*403232256
Away5*005108170

Second Grade
Rugby League Conference
PldWDLFA
Home6402242194
Away520392240

2011

Season's Record

First Grade
Rugby League Conference Premier South
PldWDLFA
Home6204144196
Away510488164
Neutral10012232

Second Grade
London League
PldWDLFA
Home20021864
Away4103116144
Neutral10011016

Challenge Cup Record