Rugby union in the Netherlands is a growing sport. The sport is governed by the Rugby Nederland, which organizes the

Netherlands national rugby union team The Netherlands national rugby union team ( nl, Nederlands nationaal rugby team) represents Netherlands in men's international rugby union competitions. Nicknamed The Oranges (''Oranje''), is considered one of the stronger tier 3 teams in Europ ...

Governing body

The Rugby Nederland was founded on 7 September 1920 but ceased to exist in 1923 due to a lack of clubs. They reorganized on 1 October 1932, as

Dutch Rugby Union The Dutch Rugby Union ( nl, Rugby Nederland) is the governing body for rugby union in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1932 and became affiliated to the International Rugby Football Board, in 1988 known as the International Rugby Board and now a ...

(

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

: "Nederlandse Rugby Bond"), two years after the

played their first match against Belgium. The union is affiliated to the IRB in 1988 Bath, Richard (ed.) ''The Complete Book of Rugby'' (Seven Oaks Ltd, 1997 ) p67 and has 15,000 registered players (in 2017).

History

The first rugby club was HFC, established on 15 September 1879 by the 14-year-old Pim Mulier, who first encountered the sport in 1870. However, HFC switched to association football in 1883. The ''Delftsche Studenten Rugby - Club (DSR-C)'' was the first official rugby club on 24 September 1918. Dutch rugby started setting down roots in the pre-World War II period. The subsequent German occupation and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

disrupted its growth, and it took years for the Dutch game to return to its pre-war state. Then in the post-war years, the massive growth and stifling influence of Dutch

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

on other sports also hindered further development. The first Dutch international was in 1932, against

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. Nonetheless, the Netherlands' proximity to the European rugby heartland of the British Isles and France, has ensured a fairly healthy stream of touring sides from these areas. Given the low profile of the game in the Netherlands, Dutch rugby still manages to support over a hundred clubs, and has 7–8,000 players, which is a larger number than some

Rugby World Cup The Rugby World Cup is a men's rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams. The tournament is administered by World Rugby, the sport's international governing body. The winners are awarded the Webb E ...

entrants. Women's rugby in the Netherlands started at Rugbyclub Wageningen in 1975. At their first 5-year anniversary the Wageningen rugby men organized a rugby match for the girlfriends against the girlfriends of the befriended Eindhoven Students rugby team The Elephants. The Wageningen women won this game with 4-0 and the seed for Dutch women rugby was planted. It took until 1981 when the first official women rugby competition round was played. In the 1978–79 season, the Dutch leagues were affected by a severe winter, which prevented teams from playing on grass rugby pitches.Cotton, p21 The season managed to finish on time, mainly because the matches were transferred onto beaches to avoid snow and ice. Dutch rugby received a boost in 1996 when they beat a full-strength team from

Moseley RFC Birmingham Moseley Rugby Club is an English rugby union club, based in Birmingham, that compete in the third tier of English rugby. They were historically the premier rugby club in Birmingham, reaching the final of the John Player Cup three ti ...

Notable Dutch players

Michiel van der Loos Michiel is a Dutch masculine given name equivalent to Michael and a Venetian surname. Given name *Michiel Andrieszoon (died 1684), Dutch pirate *Michiel Bartman (born 1967), Dutch rower * Michiel Borstlap (born 1966), Dutch pianist and compos ...

, a lock from

the Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

. Van der Loos played successfully in Wales and France and was twice asked to consider naturalization in order to play for one of their national sides. * Marcel Bierman, a fly half. Tragically, Bierman broke his neck in the 1988

Hong Kong Sevens The Hong Kong Sevens () is an rugby sevens tournament held annually in Hong Kong on a weekend in late March or early April. Considered the premier tournament on the World Rugby Sevens Series competition, the Hong Kong Sevens is currently the s ...

, and this gave the sport a bad image in the Netherlands at the time. * Yves Kummer * Paul Bloom, winger. * Fabian Holland, Dutch lock playing for in New Zealand. * Visser family. **

Tim Visser Tim Visser ( born 29 May 1987) is a Dutch rugby union player, who played as a winger for the Scotland national team and for English club Harlequins. Early life Visser was born in De Bilt, Netherlands. He was brought up in Maartensdijk and pla ...

, player for Dutch club

RC Hilversum R&C, RC, R/C, Rc, or rc may refer to: Science and technology Computing * rc, the default Command line interface in Version 10 Unix and Plan 9 from Bell Labs * .rc (for "run commands"), a filename extension for configuration files in UNIX-like ...

Newcastle Falcons Newcastle Falcons is a rugby union team that play in Premiership Rugby, England's highest division of rugby union. The club was established in 1877 as the Gosforth Football Club. Around 1882 the club merged with the Northumberland Football Cl ...

and

Edinburgh Rugby Edinburgh Rugby (formerly Edinburgh Reivers, Edinburgh Gunners) is one of the two professional rugby union teams from Scotland. The club competes in the United Rugby Championship, along with the Glasgow Warriors, its oldest rival. Edinburgh play ...

, and Scotland international. **

Marc Visser Marc or MARC may refer to: People * Marc (given name), people with the first name * Marc (surname), people with the family name Acronyms * MARC standards, a data format used for library cataloging, * MARC Train, a regional commuter rail system o ...

, father of Tim, no. 8 and most capped player for the Netherlands. **

Sep Visser Sep Visser (born in Zeewolde, 14 December 1990) is a Netherlands international rugby union player. He most recently played as a dual player for Boroughmuir RFC and Edinburgh Rugby, playing as a centre and a wing. Early career He joined the Newc ...

, younger brother of Tim, RC Hilversum and

, and Dutch international. * Marcker brothers ** Andre Marcker ** Hans Marcker ** Mats Marcker. ** Peter Marcker *Zeno Kieft, back rower of La Rochelle, in the French Top 14. *Women ** Kelly van Harskamp - Female rugby sevens player who was the IRB Sevens Women's Player of the Year in 2010-11

References

* Cotton, Fran (Ed.) (1984) ''The Book of Rugby Disasters & Bizarre Records''. Compiled by Chris Rhys. London. Century Publishing. * McLaren, Bill ''A Visit to Hong Kong'' in Starmer-Smith, Nigel & Robertson, Ian (eds) ''The Whitbread Rugby World '90'' (Lennard Books, 1989) * Richards, Huw ''A Game for Hooligans: The History of Rugby Union'' (

Mainstream Publishing Mainstream Publishing was a publishing company in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded in 1978, it ceased trading in December 2013.Charlotte WilliamsMainstream to cease publishing 1 March 2013, The Bookseller.com' (Retrieved 30 December 2016) It was ass ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, 2007, )

Governing body

History

Notable Dutch players

See also

References

External links