|
Established in 1950, The East Africa rugby union team is a multi-national rugby union team drawing players from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, though the vast majority of these came from Kenya which has traditionally been the strongest rugby playing nation in this part of the world. The team has played against incoming international, representative and club touring sides and it conducted seven tours between 1954 and 1982. Though East Africa do play under the ''Tuskers'' nickname it is used exclusively when they are on tour; for all matches played at home they are referred to as ''East Africa''. This tradition has come into being because the team had existed for five years by the time of the first external tour in 1954 when the touring side adopted the Tuskers moniker, as have all subsequent tours. For 30 years the team lay dormant, though the Rugby Football Union of East Africa (RFUEA) continued to exist as the governing body of rugby within the three countries, until (on 9 July 2011 at an event at the RFUEA Ground) the team was re-launched by Mwangi Muthee (Chairman of the Kenya Rugby Football Union), William Blick (President of the Uganda Rugby Union), George Kariuki (Rugby Football Union of East Africa) and John Lloyd (Rugby Patrons Society).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Kenyanstar - Kenyanstar )〕 The team will play its first fixture in almost exactly 30 years against England Counties XV at the RFUEA grounds in early June 2012.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=England Counties head to Africa )〕 ==Early history== The first union in British East Africa was the Rugby Football Union of Kenya (RFU-K), founded in August 1921;〔Campbell (1960) pp 51〕 it was responsible for the administration of the game throughout Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika which it carried out through various district sub-unions throughout the region. Several universities and Royal Navy ships sent teams to tour East Africa during this period. The Combined South African Universities toured in 1929〔Godwin (1981) pp 21〕 and in 1935 Danie Craven captained Stellenbosch University on a tour of the region;〔Godwin (1981) pp 22〕 though none of these encounters included a match against a representative East Africa team. The first representative team called East Africa are recorded facing the Cape Town University team that toured the region in late 1949 early 1950.〔Godwin (1981) pp 23〕 Three matches were played in January 1950, East Africa losing each encounter. At this time, the East Africa team represented the colonies of British East Africa (Kenya Colony, Tanganyika and Uganda Protectorate) and the players were predominantly white settlers.〔Bath, Richard (ed.) ''The Complete Book of Rugby'' (Seven Oaks Ltd, 1997 ISBN 1-86200-013-1) p 70〕 (it was not until the 1960s that rugby's popularity spread and indigenous players started to take up the game; with time the East African team has saw a commensurate increase in the numbers of black players being selected). In 1953 the Rugby Football Union of East Africa (RFUEA) was created in order to take over the mantle as the umbrella organisation for rugby in the region.〔 The creation of the RFUEA allowed for the formation of the Tanganyika Rugby Football Union (TRFU) in 1954 and Uganda Rugby Football Union (URFU) in 1955.〔 Each of these were essentially a sub-union of the RFUEA much as the district unions in Kenya were, so the RFU-K was dissolved in 1956 allowing the already existing district unions to deal directly with the RFUEA.〔 The formation of the RFUEA was just in time for the East Africa representative side's first tour, the First Tuskers Tour of the Copperbelt in 1954. It also gave the team slightly more official status though little, if anything, had changed with regard to the management of the team. Tuskers tours to the Copperbelt became somewhat of a tradition, six of the eight Tuskers tours have been to this rugby stronghold in southern Africa; a region that can provide an appropriate level of opposition and at a distance that does not strain the purse-strings of the players and unions alike. The only Tuskers tours not to the Copperbelt were toEngland (1966) and Ireland (1972). A year after the first tour, East Africa faced the British Lions in the first game played at the recently constructed ''headquarters'' of East African rugby, the RFUEA Ground and during the next six years welcomed other touring sides from the United Kingdom and South Africa including the Barbarians and South Africa and several prestigious university and military teams. The Second Tuskers Tour took place in 1962 and again East Africa's first game at home after returning from a tour was against the British Lions. Between 1963 and 1966 several clubs and universities toured East Africa and played against the full representative side including, in 1964, Wales. Tours from South Africa were no longer welcomed as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda were participating in the boycott protesting the apartheid regime in that country. In the six years between the Third (1966) and Fourth (1972) Tuskers tours fifteen high profile clubs from the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic toured the region and played matches against East Africa, including Richmond FC, Blackheath FC, Harlequins FC and Blackrock College RFC, several touring twice in those years so enamoured were they by the region and their welcome. The fixtures played by East Africa at this time demonstrate clearly that outgoing tours create contacts and the desire amongst foreign clubs to come to East Africa and the converse also, incoming tours then generate invitations to conduct external visits. After the fifth Tuskers tour there was only one more British club to visit East Africa because the Rugby Football Union refused to participate in the anti-apartheid boycott of South Africa, as a result clubs administered by the RFU were no longer welcome. It is during this period that East Africa saw an increase in touring sides from France (including ACBB, Club Sportif Municipal (CSM) Clamart and ASCO ONERA), Italy (Including Rugby Roma Olimpic), Argentina (Old Georgians and various islands in the Indian Ocean (Réunion and Mauritius). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「East Africa rugby union team」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|