Rotterdam Student Rugby Club is a student rugby club in Rotterdam. The club colors are red-green, from the colors of Rotterdam (green-white), and those of the borough of Kralingen-Crooswijk (red-yellow). The club’s logo consists of 2 bear cubs that hold the sacred oval ball.
Since 2008, the RSRC has its own clubhouse, the Bears Cave, at Lucie Vuylstekeweg 40. In addition to its own clubhouse, the RSRC has three men’s teams and a sevensteam. A Young Dogs team is also set up every year, a team exclusively for new inexperienced members. This team plays a number of (very entertaining) matches against other inexperienced players from student clubs in the Netherlands.
At RSRC there is room for all kinds of rugby players: whether you want to play performance-oriented rugby or just play a game of rugby just for fun, it’s all possible. You indicate what you want, and we join in with that.
There is always a relaxed atmosphere within the RSRC. This is reflected in the many activities that are on the schedule every year: Trip, the Dies Natalis (birthday of the club), the Christmas dinner, the New Year’s drink and much more. These activities are still being visited by former members and of course the new members are also here.
There is training on Tuesday and Thursday, at 7:00 PM. Come along, rugby experience certainly isn’t a requirement! After the training there is always a delicious meal, prepared by our CB.
Matches are played on Sundays. When all teams play at home there is a Super Sunday, whose third halves are always (or never) rembered.
History
The RSRC was founded on May 2, 1968 as a port of the RSC, and has since been exclusively for students. Despite the fact that the association was only founded in 1968, a competition of Rotterdam students against DSR-C (the student team from Delft) was mentioned in a Rotterdam newspaper about the first world war:
“On the field of Sparta in Spangen we saw a rugby match yesterday between the fifteen of the Rotterdam and Delft students. The field was hard and covered with a thin layer of snow. However, this was no problem for these young people to play their game. Rugby appears to be a nice, hefty and really masculine game. Those who are touchy, stay off the pitch! It is sometimes rough and the game is certainly not good for those who can not take a beating. Imagine that when a football match was so smothered, pulled and pushed! The players would tear each other apart, and the referee’s body was found the next morning in a nearby ditch! At rugby, however, the most horrible things happen in the fullest of kindness and the attacker, who with the ball under the arm almost scorestry, but has his leg lifted just before the line, stands up, laughs and compliments his opponent with his brave effort. We have followed quite a bit of the Rotterdam-Delft game yesterday and firmly believe that this game has a future in the Netherlands. We advise the leaders of the rugby movement, however, to make the rules a bit more known. (…) “
Despite this piece of early history, rugby in Rotterdam has not been able to get foothold, which it managed to do in 1968.
The 1970 team.
After 40 years of history of renting at other sports clubs, the club finally has its own clubhouse at the Prinsenlaan 906 in the borough of Kralingen-Crooswijk in Rotterdam during the lustrum year 2008. With this, a long-awaited wish has been fulfilled, and the club also has has the lowest rugby pitch in the world (5.94 meters below sea level).
Somewhere in the ’10s of the 21st century, from 2011 to 2014 to be specific, the Rotterdam Student Rugby Club went through life as Erasmus RSRC. This meaningless piece of identity loss has been reversed in consultation with all parties after the Club for matches received “three cheers voor Erasmus”.
In 2023, the RSRC celebrates its fifty-fifth anniversary, or its eleventh lustrum. A milestone in the history of the RSRC.
Interested in rugby? Get in touch with our secretary today!
Huub Loderichs
Secretary
For questions regarding the membership of the club
Important members
Of course RSRC is nothing without its members, and we want to thank them for making our club possible.
Ereleden
- Henk van Yperen
- Jack Jacobs
- Meindert Osinga
Leden van verdienste
- Jan Doornbos
- Paul Roszbach
- Richard van Ravenstein
- Marius van Noort
- Sander Kempen
- Niels Alkemade
- Robbert Gorris
- Winfred Damler
- Gijs Spijkers
- Dirk Heuff
- Pieter Joosse
- Eduard Jansen