Rugby Union in Poland
After soccer , ice hockey , handball and volleyball, rugby union is one of the most popular team sports in Poland . Rugby, invented at the beginning of the 19th century, has only been practiced there since 1921. The Polish national team is currently only on the third level worldwide and plays for the Europe Trophy within the Rugby Europe International Championships . The highest division in Poland is the Ekstraliga , which has been organized since 1957 .
History up to the introduction in Poland
Legend has it that William Webb Ellis invented the game of the same name in the English city of rugby in 1823 . The oval ball used today, which makes it easier to carry close to the body, was first made in 1851 by the shoe manufacturer William Gilbert . From 1871 the rules in rugby were finally standardized by the newly founded Rugby Football Union . For more information on the history, see rugby .
According to various contemporary witnesses, the architect Henryk Józef Sienkiewicz , son of the Nobel Prize winner and author Henryk Sienkiewicz , is said to have been the first Pole to come into contact with rugby during a stay of several years in France . In Paris he played as a second-row striker for the Paris rugby clubs Stade Français and Racing Club de France .
Development up to the outbreak of the Second World War
However, after the end of the First World War, French soldiers brought rugby to Poland . In 1921, the Frenchman Louis Amblart founded the rugby club Orzeł Biały (German White Eagle ) in Warsaw , which played the first official game against another team in Lwów that same year . A year later the rugby club already had two teams with 15 players each. Gradually, further rugby clubs were formed in Poland in the 1920s, preferably within the military or academic milieu and above all in Warsaw, but also in the cities of Poznan , Płock and Kattowitz . In 1924, the first international rugby match between Orzeł Biały and the Romanian national team took place, which the Warsaw team lost 0:46.
After the end of the Second World War
In the early 1930s, interest in rugby had declined sharply within Poland. During the Second World War there was also no gaming at all. It was not until 1955 that rugby returned to Poland and, thanks to an initiative of the State Committee for Culture and Sport, it was declared an officially sponsored sport in the People's Republic of Poland .
In 1956, numerous clubs were founded again and the first official games were organized. In 1957 the first Polish championship was held, the first winner of which was the AZS Warsaw . Also in Warsaw, a separate department for rugby was established at the sports university there . In 1958, the newly formed Polish national team appeared for the first time in an international match. In front of around 3,000 spectators, the Poles won against the national squad of the GDR with 9: 8 in Łódź .
Today's development
Today there are around 90 rugby clubs in Poland that regularly play or participate in one of the various leagues. The league system is divided into two national, four regional and several youth league classes. In the top division, the Ekstraliga , nine teams are currently playing for the Polish championship. The stronghold of Polish rugby is the Gdańsk metropolitan area , which is represented by three clubs in the Ekstraliga . The record holder of the Ekstraliga title is AZS Warsaw with 16 championships , followed by RC Lechia Danzig with 13 titles.
In addition to the league operation, a cup championship has been held among all rugby clubs in Poland since 1974. The RC Lechia Danzig is the twelve-time record holder here , followed by the MKS Ogniwo Sopot with nine cup wins .
Although the Polish national rugby team is not very successful internationally, the sport's popularity has been growing steadily within Poland since the late 1950s. In 1968, around 100,000 spectators attended an international match between Poland and France at the Dziesięciolecia stadium in Warsaw . Today, an average of between 5,000 and 30,000 guests are present at international matches, which thanks to sponsorship money are always broadcast on national sports television. Games between the teams of the Ekstraliga are also broadcast on regional legal-public television and internationally important rugby competitions are broadcast on national sports television. All games of major importance generally take place in multifunctional or football stadiums. Since the beginning of 2010, however, there has been a pure rugby stadium on the site of the RC Arka Gdynia with a capacity of around 2,500 seats and 1,500 standing places (see Narodowy Stadium Rugby ).
Women's teams in Poland
Currently, only ten clubs have active women's departments that participate in national games. The Polish rugby players also officially play only the Olympic 7-a-side rugby . Instead of a classic league operation, individual tournaments are played out during the season through which points can be collected for the Polish championship.
In 2012 there were six official tournaments for the first time, spread across the country. The first tournament took place in April, the last in October. The tournaments themselves are divided into a group stage, a semi-final and a final. During the qualifying tournament in Ghent in June 2012 for the women's 7-a-side rugby world championship, the Polish women only achieved sixth place.
Known players
The actors in particular play a decisive role in the development of rugby in Poland. Many rugby talents in Poland play in the leagues of France, where rugby is the most popular sport alongside football and offers optimal opportunities for training young athletes. In recent years, many players of Polish origin from France have been recruited to Poland to play in the Polish national team, for example.
One of the most internationally successful Poles is Grzegorz Kacała , who won the Heineken Cup in 1997 with the French first division club CA Brive . A number of Polish rugby players from the Ekstraliga was also in recent years increasingly advertising contracts with Polish companies are closing and appears regularly in regional media, as originally from Georgia coming second-row players Merab Gabunia . Polish celebrities, such as the former boxing world champion Dariusz Michalczewski or the strongman record holder Mariusz Pudzianowski, are also involved in promoting the sport. The latter played temporarily for the Polish rugby club KS Budowlani Łódź .
Furthermore, many rugby professionals from France and other countries maintain contacts with the rugby scene in Poland. Professional rugby players with Polish roots include Dimitri Szarzewski , Romain Millo-Chluski and Frédéric Michalak , who play in and for France , and South African international Ryan Kankowski . The Welsh Rugby Federation also sent its national players to a Polish rugby training camp several times in the run-up to the 2011 World Cup .
Web links
- Article about rugby in Poland (German)
- Portal to the rugby scene in Poland (Polish)
- Website of the Polish Rugby Federation (Polish)
See also
swell
- Powała-Niedźwiecki, Maciej: ABC Kibica Rugby , Warsaw 1997