Blast from the past – Doug Langley

Season(s) with Canterbury RFC

1992/93 and 1993/94

Position(s) played

Wing and Full-back

Superb fun on and off the pitch with a great mix of people and personalities.

After the 1993/94 season Doug moved to Denmark to follow his now wife (Mette) who he met whilst studying at Loughborough. Doug taught PE at high schools in Denmark for about 10 years in the Aalborg area of North Jutland. At this time, he coached and played for Aalborg Rugby Club and eventually played for Denmark against the Netherlands. Immediately after this match he was appointed as Denmark National Coach for XV’s & 7s from about 1997, he then went on to be the Technical Director of the Danish Rugby Union until working for the then IRB (now World Rugby) as the Regional Development Manager – Europe.

In 2015, he changed roles with World Rugby, and is now the Competitions Operations Manager – Sevens. With this role, he manages events such as the HSBC World Sevens Series as the Series Director, RWC Sevens as Tournament Director and Olympic / Commonwealth Games as IF Technical Delegate. He also had the fortune to have done some XV’s Match Commissioner work on behalf of World Rugby and at RWC 2019 had the honour of this role at the Bronze Medal match between New Zealand and Wales and also Match Commissioned the Final of the RWC 2017 for women, England v New Zealand.

Doug still lives in Denmark,  but commutes (pre-Covid) for some periods of work at World Rugby’s HQ in Dublin and is still happily married and has 2 children Lawrence (19) and Sophia (18).