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Rugby in Turkey

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Lá Bombonera

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Hello rugby fans, I'd like to introduce myself, Yiğit "La Bombonera" Özen. Rugby is a sport which is newly-blooming here in Turkey. As Kadıköy Rugby Club, me and my teammates, together we are the future of this sport here in this country because we're the youngest and only the 2nd rugby club ever. (1st as officially founded)

The other Rugby club is Istanbul Ottomans, (www.istanbulottomans.com) formed 4 years ago by a group of close-to-middle-age Turkish, New Zealander and Frenchmen. Most of them are still playing nowadays.

Our club, Kadıköy Rugby is younger, and much more passionate to learn and show every aspect of Rugby play. We're currently on the verge of being connected to the joint-federation of rugby, baseball, softball and American football of Turkey.

Kadıköy Rugby was formed some 7 months ago with 15 young Turkish bravehearts and has expanded its population from then. We're still in search of sponsorships and support. We are keen to make this great sport known nationwide and persuade more people to join this world. When we first began rugby 7 months ago, we didn't even know how to catch the ball or how to pass, but after 7 months, we were very surprised to see that we've improved a lot. Now we smash each other down to the ground with tackles, try to apply passing plays amongst the backs and do professional Rugby drills in training. Although it's quite hard to foresee, we all hope that Turkey will have a national Rugby team that which we'll play for, before we all have to retire. For this kind of improvement to be real, things should be moving really fast, we need to find sponsors, supporting fellow rugby clubs, so all are welcome if you want to have a fellow rugby club that you want to support.

you can contact me from:

MSN: [email protected]
emails: [email protected]

or you can use our forum. (google group) no matter if we speak Turkish in the group, you can send your message in English, and the ones who speak English in the group will translate them for others. Our group is at: http://groups.google.com.tr/group/Kadikoy-...y-Kulubu?lnk=lr


Sincerely,

Yiğit Özen
Kadıköy R.F.C.
Istanbul, Turkey
 
What sort of coverage of Rugby can you get in Turkey? Is there anyway you can watch things like the Six Nations and the Super 14 on TV?
 
Being the youngest... How old are you?? and how many clubs do you have there? I actually play Internationals for a formerly non-rugby playing country! it's great to see more and more nation playing this beautiful sport!
 
Thank you for your replies. Well I said we're the youngest compared to the other team, Istanbul Ottomans. We only have 2 teams here in Turkey, Istanbul Ottomans R.F.C. and Kadıköy R.F.C. that I'm playing for. I'm 22 years old, and we have and age range of 15-27 years in our team. In fact the only 27 year old guy is our club founder and the rest is like mostly 20-23 years old, and a couple of kids of 15-16 years of age, yet to become tough rugby players.
 
Well, I'm going to sit back and wait till the turks have their first international team! I sure hope we can play against each other sometimes later!
try and get as many support from a rugby playing nation close by as you can! For indonesia, we got the backing of Australia, believe it or not, we got 2 development officer whose salary is paid by the OZ government... how cool is that!?
 
Its always great to hear new countries trying to develop and get into games that they are not recognised in the countries surrounding them...

You guys are pioneers of the sport, and really hope you get things off the ground and get more people playing the game... and Aim to get kids into it, even if you hold a touch rugby fun day thing, just to raise the influence of the sport... ask local schools whether they would consider helping... cos at the end of the day youth is gonna be the key to getting the sport off the ground in your country...
 
Very true, its all about developing and injecting rugby minds to the young ones... being the youngest "imported" Indonesian internationals I was asked to help coach and be key speakers at some introductory rugby events, I visited loads of schools as well as growing clubs in Indonesia. Being able to speak the language (although being laughed at with my accents) is a plus thing!
It's so cool looking at the faces of these kids when they see me do some simple tricks with the rugby ball and learned how to play rugby! Most of them cant differ between rugby and american football!
Being of the same age with them helped a lot!
 
give them a couple more months and there'll be an explosion of rugby over there. and then you can get interviewed by the total rugby podcast! go get a weird hairdo and call urself the hakan shuker (is tt right?) of rugby
 
give them a couple more months and there'll be an explosion of rugby over there. and then you can get interviewed by the total rugby podcast! go get a weird hairdo and call urself the hakan shuker (is tt right?) of rugby [/b]

Or even better the TRF Rugby Podcast...
 
Its always great to hear new countries trying to develop and get into games that they are not recognised in the countries surrounding them...

You guys are pioneers of the sport, and really hope you get things off the ground and get more people playing the game... and Aim to get kids into it, even if you hold a touch rugby fun day thing, just to raise the influence of the sport... ask local schools whether they would consider helping... cos at the end of the day youth is gonna be the key to getting the sport off the ground in your country...
[/b]


Pioneers for sure but regarding the countries surrounding I think Romania and Georgia are not far away from Turkey and are nations where Rugby is known. If you look a bit southern, in Lebanon Rugby League is known, there's a semi-pro League there.
 
<div class='quotemain'> give them a couple more months and there'll be an explosion of rugby over there. and then you can get interviewed by the total rugby podcast! go get a weird hairdo and call urself the hakan shuker (is tt right?) of rugby [/b]

Or even better the TRF Rugby Podcast...
[/b][/quote]

Yes, I know...
 
so... u guys wanna interview me??? YES!!!!!!!!!!! lol :p
anytime boys.. i'd love to spread this brilliant story around! make sure u contact my manager though... lol :p
 
give them a couple more months and there'll be an explosion of rugby over there. and then you can get interviewed by the total rugby podcast! go get a weird hairdo and call urself the hakan shuker (is tt right?) of rugby
[/b]

yeah you know the population of the country is 65 million so no doubt we can start a chain reaction. :) I'd love to be interviewed but I'm no fan of Hakan Sukur. :p I'd better be known as Gavin Henson's Turkish version. :):)





Its always great to hear new countries trying to develop and get into games that they are not recognised in the countries surrounding them...

You guys are pioneers of the sport, and really hope you get things off the ground and get more people playing the game... and Aim to get kids into it, even if you hold a touch rugby fun day thing, just to raise the influence of the sport... ask local schools whether they would consider helping... cos at the end of the day youth is gonna be the key to getting the sport off the ground in your country...
[/b]

I'm afraid to say that there is a league of American Football here in Turkey and there are over 10 teams (all teams are of university teams) so we're aiming to persuade them and promote rugby in universities nationwide. I hope things will work out as soon as possible because I can't wait till I become playing rugby at pro level....

:training1:
 
What sort of coverage of Rugby can you get in Turkey? Is there anyway you can watch things like the Six Nations and the Super 14 on TV?
[/b]


Unfortunately we can't get any good coverage here. I have 2 satellite dishes at home. (Hotbird and Hispasat) Sometimes the sports channels in Hispasat broadcast rugby matches but they are not live.... I'll hang myself if I can't watch Rugby World Cup in 2007. :(:(

There are some Irish & British pubs here that has some satellite to cover up the games so it seems like I'll stick on to them in the upcoming world cup.
 

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