Rugby Club Brasov

Everything started in 1985 on a playground in the public park near the Brasov railway train station when Vasile Soporan, a former rugby player, took out his son, Catalin one summer afernoon to have some fun with a rugby ball.

It just happened that on the same ground some kids were playing football (soccer). They were fascinated by the mysterious behaviour of the oval ball and started to play, just for fun at first, but soon, under the coaching of Mr. Vasile Soporan, they started to take it more seriously. During that year, a lot of kids joined this knock up and formed a district team.

In 1986 Rugby Club Brasov was officially registered by Mr. Vasile Soporan as the first private rugby club in Romania, and Mr. Soporan took over all the administrative and training duties. In those times of hardship, Rugby Club Brasov had no training field except for the public park playground; at times, due to the understanding and kindness of the then General Manager of "Tractorul Brasov" factory, we were allowed to use the factory's football (soccer) field for practice.

Over the course of the next 4 years, Rugby Club Brasov competed in the Bucharest Municipality Championship. During each year's championship we shuttled the whole team every week-end to the city of Bucharest, no small feat in those times of financial need. The team's goals were higher every year and eventually, four years after the team was formed, we succeeded to win this Championship Cup. Besides a lot of joy, this result brought Rugby Club Brasov the deserved consideration and the right to play in the National Championship.

This success was also possible because, in the meantime, Rugby Club Brasov had acquired a sports base. Things started to shape up, and the good results which soon followed were predicting a bright future for the Romania's first private rugby club.

The first international experience took place in 1990, at the Junior Tournament in Florence, Italy. While being the only Romanian participant, Rugby Club Brasov placed second of 12 teams!

Afterwards, Rugby Club Brasov won the selection to participate in the juniors' World Tournament held in Dijon, France, and competed in the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 editions. The best performance was obtained in the first year of participation, 1992, when we placed fourth among 42 competitive teams from all over the world. The team which obtained this amazing result was the same team which, in the 1991 Romanian National Championship, had won the most coveted national trophy: the National Championship Cup and Title for Juniors II. It was a time of stellar accomplishments for a team which, just a few years earlier, had started from nothing.

Many players from this great team moved on to playing rugby in college and national leagues, some in the Romanian Rugby League, some in the French and Irish Leagues. Another generation of talented and passionate kids stepped into their place, discovering the joy of playing this wonderful sport. In 1996, they too gave a measure of their value, by winning a well-deserved second in the National Championship.