1987–88 National Division 1

The 1987–88 National Division 1 was the first season of the top tier of the English rugby union league system, the Courage Clubs Championship, and the first to be sponsored by Courage Brewery. It was the first season of a truly national rugby union league, with the top flight currently known as Premiership Rugby.
At the end of the season Leicester finished top of the league table and were crowned as the first ever champions, while Coventry and Sale were relegated to the 1988–89 National Division 2, the latter side having lost all of its eleven matches.

Structure

Each team played one match against each of the other teams, playing a total of eleven matches each. For this first season there was no fixture list; the teams arranged fixtures amongst themselves. Most teams played eleven games, although some played ten due to cancellations and there were unequal home and away fixtures, with some sides playing up to seven games at home, while others as little as four. The bottom two sides were relegated to National Division 2.
The points scheme was such that a team received four points for a win, two for a draw and one point for a loss.

Participating teams

Team	Stadium	Capacity	City/Area
Bath	The Recreation Ground	8,300	Bath, Somerset
Bristol	Memorial Stadium	8,500	Bristol, Avon
Coventry	Coundon Road	10,000	Coventry, West Midlands
Gloucester	Kingsholm	11,100	Gloucester, Gloucestershire
Harlequins	The Stoop	9,000	Twickenham, London
Leicester	Welford Road	14,700	Leicester, Leicestershire
Moseley	The Reddings	9,999	Birmingham, West Midlands
Nottingham	Ireland Avenue	4,990	Beeston, Nottinghamshire
Orrell	Edge Hall Road	5,300	Orrell, Greater Manchester
Sale	Heywood Road	4,000	Sale, Greater Manchester
Wasps	Repton Avenue	3,200	Sudbury, London
Waterloo	St Anthony's Road	9,950	Blundellsands, Merseyside

Results table

The home team is listed in the left column.

Fixtures and results

Clubs had to organise their own fixtures so there was no organised round by round fixture lists and also no equal allocation of home and away matches. Dates of games and results are given below in date order.

September 1987

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October 1987

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November 1987

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December 1987

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January 1988

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February 1988

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March 1988

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April 1988

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League and cup double header. The 1988 John Player Cup final would also count as Harlequins v Bristol Courage League game.