Bingham Cup

According to Jon Barrett of The Advocate, he is generally accepted to be one of a group of passengers who fought with the hijackers aboard the flight, which eventually led to the hijackers crashing the plane into a vacant field in Pennsylvania instead of targets in Washington, D.C.[2] At the time of his death, there were around eight gay-inclusive rugby clubs worldwide, and he was helping[citation needed] to create others.

Eight teams traveled to San Francisco during gay pride weekend of June 28–29, 2002 to compete over two days with the Fog coming out on top as the Cup’s first winners.

The event was sponsored by Nike and Guinness and was covered by press from around the world[citation needed], including ESPN.

[3] On December 1, 2006, IGRAB announced the success of the bid of Emerald Warriors to host the 2008 competition in Dublin Ireland.

In addition, Las Vegas, Nevada, Seattle, Washington, Cardiff, Wales, and Toronto, Ontario, Canada also considered bidding to host the 2008 tournament.

On January 21, 2009, IGRAB announced that the hosting rights for the 2010 Mark Kendall Bingham Memorial Tournament had been awarded to the Minneapolis Mayhem.

[4] The Cup returned to US soil as the 2006 tourney hosts, the Gotham Knights pulled an upset win over the reigning champions, the Sydney Convicts.

It was announced on September 29, 2010, that the Manchester Village Spartans RUFC, England, would host the 2012 Bingham Cup, beating the Sydney Convicts' bid by 6 votes.

Notably, Manchester's bid was actively supported by straight professional English rugby player Ben Cohen.

[5] The competition was held at Broughton Park RUFC, Manchester, June 1–3 and boasted the largest number of inclusive teams in the tournament's history.

Twenty-four teams traveled to New South Wales, Australia for three rainy days of competition at the home of the Woollahra Colleagues RFC.

Hosting of the eighth Bingham Cup[7] was awarded to Tennessee's Nashville Grizzlies, marking the first time the tournament would be held in the American South.

The tournament was held on Memorial Day weekend at Nashville's Ted Rhodes Park with players housed at Vanderbilt University.