Harry "Stasher" Murray set about introducing rugby football to the uninitiated of Irvine.

In the early sixties some senior pupils at the school suggested that it was time that Irvine should have a team of its own and a meeting was held.

By late 1962 Irvine Royal Academicals had been constituted with Bill Inglis, a history teacher at the school, as its first president.

Players at the club in 1969 included Jimmy Williamson, Bill Nolan, Jimmy McDowell, Bill McCulloch, Alastair Kennedy, Ronnie Alexander, George Blackie, Alan Stirling, William Kerr, David Grier, John McHarg, John Paton, Harry Fox, Alasdair Camlin, Peter Coull, Bill Browning, Campbell Cunningham, Jim Gemmell, John Shearer, Joe Hobson and George McDowall.

[2] This Sevens tournament was peripatetic around the new towns of Scotland:- East Kilbride, Glenrothes, Cumbernauld, Livingston and Irvine.