The Scottish Inter-District Championship is a rugby union competition between regional sides in Scotland.
[1] Scotland had four District Sides: Edinburgh, Glasgow, North and Midlands and the South.
Edinburgh and Glasgow were formed in 1872 and played the world's first ever inter-district match in that year.
The Edinburgh, Glasgow, North and Midlands, and South sides would play-off to see which district was best in Scotland.
Usually contested with only the four home-based Scottish districts, this meant that each team only played three matches.
In the last Professional Inter-District Championship, the Bank of Scotland Pro Cup between Border Reivers, Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors in 2002–03, the format was extended.
In 1998, on the mergers of Edinburgh Rugby with the Border Reivers to form the Edinburgh Reivers, and Glasgow Rugby and Caledonia Reds to form Glasgow Caledonians, the death knell was sounded for the Championship.
[4] The professional Inter-District Championship was briefly resurrected in a new form in the 2002–03 season – with the re-establishment of the Border Reivers side – as the Bank of Scotland Pro Cup.
However the Championship's return at professional level only lasted a single season as the expansion of the Celtic League the following season meant that the SRU scrapped the tournament to avoid fixture congestion with the Celtic League and European tournaments.
The Border Reivers subsequent demise in 2007 saw once again Edinburgh and Glasgow as the only remaining Scottish professional sides making any prospect of a return of the Championship – as a Tri-Series again – remote, particularly in the light of fixture congestion.