History of the Club
The "Attica Springboks" club was established in October 2000 when players from the Athens Spartans Rugby Football team concluded that the development of the sport and competition requires the establishment of new clubs. The club's name is a combination of the nick-name of the South African National Rugby Team "Springboks" (a kind of gazelle) and the place of foundation (Attica), since many of the founding members originate from South Africa. At the beginning of 2001, the Hellenic Rugby Union Youth Development Academy was founded by Nick Clark and George Psaromatis (a qualified Level 2 coach from Australia). The Springboks team has been fortunate to receive a number of young players. The club secured access to Glyka Nera Athletic ground, where games and training sessions take place every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. At the same place, the Youth Rugby Academy runs teaching and coaching sessions every Saturday morning for boys and girls aged between 7 and 18. The Springboks Team participates in the Hellenic Rugby Championship which started in 2005-06 season.; Furthermore, the Club regularly organises friendly games with other Greek teams, as well as foreign teams that are visiting or on tour in Greece. The Team had a successful Tour in Romania in 2004 where it played against local teams. Every year the Team participates in the annual "Sevens" International Tournament in Salonica.
Rugby in Greece and around the World
Rugby is the game with the most players in each team (15 players in each team) and is characterised by a lot of physical contact. Players require specialised technical training and physical preparation in order to compete, enjoy and play the game safely.
Did you know?
•Rugby is the the 3rd most popular sport in the world after football and basketball.
•Rugby is played by more than 3 million athletes in about 100 countries.
•More than 3 billion TV viewers watched the Rugby World Cup 2004.
Where and how is rugby played?
The dimensions of the pitch are very similar to that of soccer (80m x 120m). This allows both sports to share the same field.
Rugby is played by 15 players per team with matches that last 2 x 40 minutes but the Sevens variation is played by 7 players per team, on the same pitch with the duration of the two halves being 7 minutes each way. This allows tournaments with more than 16 teams to be played in only a weekend.
Touch Rugby is a ‘light’ variation of the game used to warm up and keep fit while improving the handling abilities. In this variation the tackling is replaced by touching the opponent.
Rugby makes its way in Greece
• 1982 - Creation of the first Greek rugby club
• 2000 - Foundation of Attica Springboks Club.
• 2001 - Foundation of Youth Development Academy by members of Springboks.
• 2001 - Recognition of the Hellenic Rugby Union (HRU) by First Court of Athens.
• End of 2004 - Establishment of the Hellenic Federation of Rugby (HFR) and Recognition by the Hellenic General Secretariat of Sports.
• June 2005 - Greece becomes an official member of FIRA / AER (International Federation of Amateur Rugby / European Rugby Federation). Greece starts in Group 3D.
• September 2005 - First Seminar for Rugby Referees and Coaches (organized by HFR).
• September 2005 - First trials for the National Rugby Team.
• October 2005 - First international game for the National Team against Austrian XV.
• End 2005 - Opening of the first national championship with eight participating teams (three in Athens, one in Rhodes, three in Salonica, one in Trikala).
• May 2006 - First ever TV broadcast (by Supersport channel) of a rugby game - Greece v Finland for the European Rugby Championship.
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