England's 2003 Rugby World Cup-winning side gathers at The Dorchester on Friday 20 November 2026, with a member of the squad seated at every table.
England won the Rugby World Cup in November 2003, with a drop goal in the last minute of extra time in Sydney, and the squad that did it has stayed together as a group in a way few winning teams manage. The Champions 2003 Foundation is what that became: a body set up by those players, in collaboration with the Switch the Play Foundation, to fund the transition of professional players into life after the game. Switch the Play is the only British charity working solely on that problem.
The problem is a real one and largely invisible. A professional rugby career ends in the early thirties, often abruptly and often through injury, and the people it ends for have spent fifteen years in an institution that organised their week for them. Grants for retraining, course fees and support are what the money buys.
The 2026 dinner is at The Dorchester on Friday 20 November, and the conceit of the evening is that a member of the 2003 squad sits at every table. David Flatman hosts, with live entertainment and a charity auction. Tables of ten start at £8,000, and the money funds the Evolve and Thrive rugby programme and its player support grants. Every trophy photograph from 2003 has a life after it that nobody photographed, and the squad in the room has spent two decades noticing that.