London City 7s returns with capital crying out for live rugby
Dan James, founder of the London City 7s, pens his first of a new monthly column on short-form rugby in the capital.
Rugby sevens has long been the better looking but somewhat inconsequential younger cousin of the traditional 15s game. If you were lucky enough to be one of the 113,000-plus fans in the record-breaking attendance of the recent Hong Kong Sevens, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a commercial beast.
However, it is no secret that the game has taken a beating in recent years. This, of course, included losing our very own London Sevens in Twickenham. The criticism around sevens and its viability is well documented, but in an ever-changing rugby landscape the short form game is needed more than ever. And the City needs sevens and sevens needs the City.
The London City 7s will return to the City in September 2026, taking place at the famous Honorary Artillery Club. The event debuted in May 2025, when Harlequins edged out Saracens to claim the crown in front of 3,000 corporates on a sunny Thursday afternoon. While the sea of blazers swapping Thursday beers at Leadenhall Market for the HAC proved there is an affinity for sevens in the Square Mile, Sevens and the City have long shared a rich history.
London City 7s heaven
You only have to look at the corporate sector’s famous sevens competitions, traditionally held at Richmond FC in front of a crowd 12,000 strong. These included the Surveyors and Lloyds 7s, which saw some of rugby’s most famous players moonlighting as surveyors or insurers respectively, including Lawrence Dallaglio and Gavin Hastings. At the other end of the spectrum, the Rosslyn Park National School 7s has been a bedrock for nurturing the best in schoolboy talent.
Mike Friday, who joins the City 7s team as general manager, believes that sevens has always formed a vital pillar within rugby’s foundations. Yet, with the loss of Middlesex, the London Sevens, and now the demise of the GB 7s programme, there are fewer and fewer top-tier products that bring together traditional rugby identity, the community game and London’s business landscape.
His aim is to do just this with the creation of the London City 7s, giving traditional clubs a chance to blood new talent, like Noah Caluori, who impressed for Saracens in the 2025 event before making his first XV debut shortly after.
It’s easy to forget just how young the game is in its professional era. That doesn’t excuse some of the well-documented mismanagement throughout all levels of rugby, but it has yet to see its true commercial peak.
Short-form sport has the ability to ignite fan bases. The foundation for sevens to thrive in the UK is already there: it just needs its champion. And if we get that right, sevens won’t be competing with 15s, it’ll be complementing it; holding its small but necessary place in the fabric of the wider game, and earning its spot in the British summer social calendar.