Rugby union in Germany
| Rugby union in Germany | |
|---|---|
 Germany playing Belgium | |
| Country | Germany |
| Governing body | German Rugby Federation |
| National team(s) | Germany |
| First played | 1850 |
| Registered players | 11,656 |
| Clubs | 108 |
Rugby union in Germany is a minor sport. The German Rugby Federation had 108 member clubs and 11,656 members.
Governing body
The German Rugby Federation (German: Deutscher Rugby-Verband or DRV) is the governing body for rugby union in Germany. There are 12 regional unions (Landesverbände).
The DRV is a founding member of FIRA - Association of European Rugby (1934), and became affiliated to the International Rugby Board in 1999. Moreover, it is member of the German Olympic Sport Federation (Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund).
History
Rugby union reached Germany through affluent British students who attended renowned private grammar schools in the German Confederation or studied in Heidelberg; others completed their military service in Hanover and played rugby in their spare time. This has influenced German rugby to this day: Heidelberg and Hanover are the centres of the sport in Germany.
The first German rugby team existed at Neuenheim College - now called Heidelberg College - in Heidelberg. Around 1850, the game started to attract the attention of the students. Students under the guidance of the teacher Edward Hill Ullrich were the ones who then founded the rugby department of the Heidelberger Ruderklub von 1872/Heidelberger Flaggenklub' was established. (HRK 1872) in 1891, which today claims to be the oldest German rugby club.[1]
The oldest still existing rugby department within a club is that of DSV 78 Hannover, formed in 1878 by Ferdinand-Wilhelm Fricke.
The first form of competition on national scale was organised in 1900, on 4 November a South versus North game was held, won 11-3 by northern Germany. This annual game became a fixture until 1967, when it was replaced by a state championship. In 1999, the DRV returned to the old north-south game but its importance has not reached former levels.[2]
In 1909, a national club championship was first organised. The champions of the north, FV 1897 Hannover, met southern club FV 1893 Stuttgart and won 6-3 on 14 November 1909.[2]
The German Rugby Federation was set up in 1900, its first chairman being Ferdinand-Wilhelm Fricke. Germany was Olympic silver medallist in rugby union in 1900 and beat France twice in the 1930s.
In 1927, a German national rugby union team was organised. This team debuted on 17 April 1927 in Stade de Colombes in Paris, losing 5-30 to France. In May, Germany won the return match in Frankfurt 17-16 and the 3-14 loss to France in the third international between the two countries on 18 March 1928 set the still valid record for home attendance for the German side, 14,000 spectators.[3]
Long the preserve of the German middle classes, the most prominent German rugby fan/player was the controversial Albert Speer.[1] Indeed, German rugby peaked in the pre-World War II period, when in 1938, Germany beat France 3-0 for the second time.[1] However, during the subsequent years, the war and social upheaval effectively set German rugby back to square one. It was for a period seen as a very English game, which worked against it; as a result it lost its financial support and much of the popularity it had gained in the western and northern cities of Heidelberg, Hanover and Frankfurt.[1]
Like all other German sport federations, the DRV was absorbed in the all-powerful Nazi sports organisation, the Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen, as part of "Department 2", which also served association football and cricket. Hermann Meister, chairman of the DRV, a firm believer in a united Europe and a friend of France, tried to live up to his ideals but rugby by and large offered no more resistance to the Nazis than any other sport.[3]
The sport was decimated by World War II as most of the players were killed. Germany, at its height of performance in 1939, and second only to France in continental Europe, lost virtually its whole national team during the war and never recovered from this.[3]
Of the centres of German rugby, only Heidelberg, future headquarters of the US forces in West Germany, was spared by the bombing raids and the sport of rugby carried low priority in the first post war years. In 1948, the German championship was restored and the golden area of the TSV Victoria Linden begun, the team winning the title six times in a row from 1951 to 1956, an unmatched achievement.[4] As a first English team after the war, the Oxford Greyhounds visited Germany in 1950 and a first international was won against Belgium in 1952. But Germany's national team never reached the strength again it had before the war.[5]
After the Second World War, the DRV was restored on May 14, 1950 in West Germany.
But even rugby was not immune to the Cold War split, one Burt Weiss, an East German rugby player escaped to West Berlin using a snorkel.[6] The DRV continued to offer the East German DTSB to play a rugby friendly, but this was always declined by the East. After a combined team of Lok and Post Berlin happened to play West German side Berliner SC in a tournament in Olomouc in 1985, a ban on participation in international tournamnts with West German clubs was issued by the DTSB.[7]
A Rugby-Bundesliga was formed in 1971 to replace the previously existing regional championships. The hoped for increase in interest however did not materialise and rugby remains a minor sport in Germany, almost exclusevly played by amateurs.[4]
With German reunification, a number of clubs from former East Germany joined the German league system.
In 2000 the German Rugby Federation celebrated its centenary. Centenary celebrations included a banquet in the Heidelberg Castle and the hosting of the European leg of the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Heidelberg, in which the German team came close to upsetting Ireland, who had Gordon D'Arcy in their line-up. The tournament was won by the Welsh team, which featured Andy Marinos and Arwel Thomas.
The highlight of the Centenary season was the Centenary Match against the famous Barbarians. The Barbarians included a host of Welsh, English, Scottish, Irish and Australian internationals including Scott Hastings, Peter Stringer, Shaun Longstaff, Jeff Probyn, Frankie Sheahan, Russell Earnshaw, Shaun Connor, John Langford and Derwyn Jones and won 47-19 against a determined German team.
The German federation tendered to host the 2010 Women's Rugby World Cup but the event was awarded to England instead.[8] It did however hold the 2008 Hannover Sevens, the European Sevens championship.
An important part of rugby union outside the structures of the German federation is the Army Rugby Union of the British Army in Germany which holds its own "German" championship. The winner of this competition advances to play the UK Army rugby union champion. The British Army also supported development of the sport in the region by a British Army Germany rugby union team playing the national teams of Germany and its neighbouring countries.[9]
The German Rugby Federation suffered a major crisis in 2011, finding itself close to insolvency, being € 200,000 in debt. The situation was brought on by the annual grant of the German federal ministry of the interior, BMI, not being paid in 2010 after the ministry voiced concerns that the DRV was not using the money for the desired purpose, to support the sport. A legal battle that the DRV chairman Claus-Peter Bach fought with the ministry did not bring the desired result but instead worsened the situation. Bach consequently announced he would not stand for another term in July 2011 and was replaced by Ralph Götz. The DRV was able to secure a private loan to survive and hopes to attract sponsors that had withdrawn under Bach as well as to reach a settlement with the BMI.[10][11]
German rugby museum
The history of rugby in Germany is documented in the Deutsche Rugby-Sportmuseum, the German rugby sport museum, which is located at Heidelberg. It was opened 2 May 1997.[12]
National team
The Germany national rugby union team is a third-tier rugby union team. They first played in 1927 and have yet to qualify for the Rugby World Cup.
After the partition East and West Germany fielded separate teams. Naturally, this ended when the two states unified.
National League
There are currently, as of 2011-12, ten teams in the national league, these are:
Popularity
There are 108 rugby union clubs and 11,656 players in Germany,
Rugby union has a small but dedicated following in several university cities.
German players occasionally break through into French or English clubs, such as Robert Mohr at La Rochelle or Sascha Fischer at Périgueux.
The league system
The league system in 2008-09 looks as follows:
Men
|
Level |
League(s)/Division(s) | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Rugby-Bundesliga | ||||||||||||||||||
|
2nd Rugby-Bundesliga North/East |
2nd Rugby-Bundesliga South/West | |||||||||||||||||
|
Regionalliga East-A |
Regionalliga North |
Regionalliga Lower Saxony |
Regionalliga North Rhine-Westphalia |
Regionalliga Rhineland-Palatinate |
Regionalliga Hesse |
Regionalliga Bavaria |
Regionalliga Baden-Württemberg | |||||||||||
|
IV |
Regionalliga East-B |
Verbandsliga North |
Verbandsliga Lower Saxony |
Verbandsliga North Rhine-Westphalia A |
Verbandsliga Bavaria-North |
|||||||||||||
Women
|
Level |
League(s)/Division(s) | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
I |
Rugby-Bundesliga | |||||||||||||||||
|
II |
2nd Rugby-Bundesliga | |||||||||||||||||
|
III |
Regionalliga North |
Regionalliga East |
Regionalliga West |
Regionalliga South 1 | ||||||||||||||
- All leagues on same level run parallel.
- 1 With the WRC Innsbruck, a club from Austria plays at this level in the German league system.
Rugby positions: German terms
In German, the English terminology for rugby positions is not commonly used. The German equivialent for the English terms are:
| Number | English | German | Translation |
| Forwards | |||
| 1 | Loosehead Prop | Linker Pfeiler | Left-hand Stanchion |
| 2 | Hooker | Hakler | Hooker |
| 3 | Tighthead Prop | Rechter Pfeiler | Right-hand stanchion |
| 4 | Lock | Zweite-Reihe-Stürmer | Second Row Forward |
| 5 | Lock | Zweite-Reihe-Stürmer | Second Row Forward |
| 6 | Blindside Flanker | Linker Flügelstürmer | Left Wing-Forward |
| 7 | Openside Flanker | Rechter Flügelstürmer | Right Wing-Forward |
| 8 | Number 8 | Nummer Acht | Number 8 |
| Backs | |||
| 9 | Scrum Half | Gedrängehalb | Scrum Half |
| 10 | Fly-half | Verbindungshalb | Connecting Half |
| 11 | Left Wing | Kurzer Außendreiviertel | Short Outside Three-quarters |
| 12 | Inside Centre | Erster Innendreiviertel | First Inside Three-quarters |
| 13 | Outside Centre | Zweiter Innendreiviertel | Second Inside Three-quarters |
| 14 | Right Wing | Langer Außendreiviertel | Long Outside Three-quarters |
| 15 | Fullback | Schlussmann | Final Man |
See also
Further reading
- Brockhaus Enzyklopädie (1973 edition), vol 16 ISBN 3 7633 0000 4)
- Template:De icon Claus-Peter Bach (publisher): 100 Jahre Deutscher Rugby-Verband (100 years of the German Rugby Union), Publisher: Gehrden-Leveste (Schroeder-Verlag), Published: 2000
- Cotton, Fran (Ed.) (1984) The Book of Rugby Disasters & Bizarre Records. Compiled by Chris Rhys. London. Century Publishing. ISBN 0-7126-0911-3
- Richards, Huw A Game for Hooligans: The History of Rugby Union (Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 2007, ISBN 9781845962555)
References
- ^ a b c d Bath, Richard (ed.) The Complete Book of Rugby (Seven Oaks Ltd, 1997 ISBN 1 86200 013 3) p67
- ^ a b Die Zeit vor den Länderspielen Template:De icon DRV website - History before the national team, accessed: 26 December 2008
- ^ a b c Rugby zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen Template:De icon DRV website - History between the wars, accessed: 26 December 2008
- ^ a b Wiederaufbau der Vereine und Landesverbände Template:De icon DRV website - Restoration, accessed: 26 December 2008
- ^ Der DRV in Europa und der Welt Template:De icon DRV website - The DRV in Europe and the World, accessed: 26 December 2008
- ^ 1983 German Rugby Player Escapes from East Berlin by Using Snorkel accessed: 26 December 2008
- ^ Post SV Berlin Rugby - Archiv Template:De icon Chronik 30 Jahre - History of Post SV Berlin Rugby, accessed: 11 April 2010
- ^ England to host women's World Cup publisher: BBC, published: 23 September 2008, accessed: 29 December 2008
- ^ British Army (Germany) Rugby History Army rugby union website, accessed: 29 December 2008
- ^ Neue Hoffnung im Überlebenskampf Template:De icon Offenbach-Post, published: 3 August 2011, accessed: 19 August 2011
- ^ DRV: Hoffnungen ruhen auf Götz und Zeiger Template:De icon Offenbach-Post, published: 18 July 2011, accessed: 19 August 2011
- ^ Das Deutsche Rugby-Sportmuseum Heidelberg... Template:De icon DRV website, accessed: 2 March 2010
External links
- DRV website Template:De icon German rugby federation website