Rugby in the Czech Republic is an unpopular sport. There were 5,172 professional rugby players in the country and 21 rugby clubs at the time of the 2011 World Championships [1] . The Czech Republic national team ranks 38th in the World Rugby rating on May 6, 2019 [2] . Czech rugby is considered a middle class game, popular in Prague and Brno . The rugby division is managed by the Czech Rugby Union , the co-founder of FIRA (now the successor is Rugby of Europe ) in 1934 and a member of the IRB (now World Rugby since 1988 [3] .
Content
History
In 1895, in the Czech Republic, which was then part of Austria-Hungary , Joseph Rössler-Orzhovsky, who developed skiing and tennis, made his first attempt to develop rugby. In 1895, after traveling to England, he brought rugby balls and equipment, organizing attempts to hold matches involving the Czech Yacht Club, but the public strongly opposed [4] . Czechoslovakian writer Ondrej Sekora , who returned from France in 1926, managed to achieve great success, bringing back the rugby ball and rulebook [3] [5] [6] . Brno , the main city of Moravia , is considered the cradle of Czechoslovak rugby - the first rugby match was held there between the teams " Moravska Slavie " ( Brno-Pisarki ) and "Zizka" (Brno), which was coached by Sekora, who also translated all the terminology into Czech [3 ] .
The Czechoslovak debut meeting was held in 1927, losing to the Romanians (6:23) - the backbone of the legionnaires from the Austrian club Wiener Amator and Bratislava's Slavia [7] . In 1928, the Czechoslovak Rugby Union was formed, the successor of which is considered the Czech Rugby Union. The first captain of the team was a close friend of Ondřej Sekora Frantisek Ruber [8] .
In 1934, the International Federation of Amateur Rugby was founded, later transformed into the Association of European Rugby and now Rugby of Europe : Czechoslovakia, France , Italy , Spain , Catalonia , Romania and Germany became founders. After World War II, Czechoslovak rugby was developed by Zdenek Barhenek, Edward Krutsner and Bruno Kudrn, who had previously played in matches against the Poles and the Germans [3] . Krützner served as president of the Czech Rugby Union, and Kudrna became the best Czech player six times. In 1956, the Czechoslovak national team played with the French in Toulouse and lost 3:28 [9] . This result was a milestone in the development of the game in the country, since the Second World War had a very negative impact on the whole Czechoslovak sport. In addition, against the Czechoslovak national team six matches were held by the USSR national team - five matches in the framework of the "Socialist Industry" tournament and one match of the 1985 European Championship.
The collapse of Czechoslovakia led to the formation of individual teams of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which compete in the European Nations Cup (he is the European Rugby Championship), but have not yet entered the world championships. In April 2009 in the Czech Republic, more than half of the registered players were children and teenagers. Among the Czech rugby players, some were noted for performances in the French Championship (Top-14) - Martin Jagr and Martin Kafka .
See also
- Czech Republic Women's Rugby Team
- Czech national rugby-7 team
- Czechoslovak national team in rugby-7
- Czech Rugby Championship
- Czech National Rugby League
Notes
- ↑ Archived copy . Circulation date October 1, 2011. Archived October 1, 2011.
- World World Rugby Rating (Eng.)
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Bath, 1997 , p. 66
- ↑ Rugby Club Bystrc (Czech)
- ↑ Významné události českého ragby v bodech (Czech) . Czech rugby union . The appeal date is July 24, 2009. Archived January 9, 2009.
- ↑ Richards, 2007 , p. 129.
- ↑ (Czech) Významné události českého ragby v bodech Archived on January 9, 2009.
- ↑ (Czech) Archived copy (inaccessible link) . The appeal date is January 8, 2010. Archived April 15, 2009.
- ↑ Statistics
Literature
- Huw Richards. A Game for Hooligans: The History of Rugby Union. - Edinburgh : Mainstream Publishing , 2007. - ISBN 978-1-84596-255-5 .
- Richard Bath. The Complete Book of Rugby. - Seven Oaks Ltd, 1997. - ISBN 1-86200-013-1 .