| Full name | Montreal Wanderers RFC | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Union | Rugby Quebec (FRQ) | ||
| Founded | 1957 | ||
| Location | Montreal, Quebec | ||
| Ground(s) | Douglas Hospital, Verdun | ||
| Chairman | Matthew Kerr | ||
| Coach(es) | Alexandre Chanéac | ||
| Captain(s) | Elliot Goussanou | ||
| League(s) | FRQ, Provincial 2 | ||
| |||
| Official website | |||
| montrealwanderers | |||
The Montreal Wanderers Rugby Football Club is a rugby union club based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 1957, and is based on the grounds of the Douglas Hospital in Verdun.
The Montreal Wanderers Rugby Club was conceived in the Spring of 1957. The Barbarians, the legendary touring allstar team from the UK, had just beaten a team of Quebec select players 41-3 [1] at Delormier stadium in front of 5000 fans. Cliff Morgan, legendary fly half for the Barbarians, was reported to have told his Quebec hosts was that what Canada needed was more clubs. Present at that meeting were several members of the Montreal Scottish RFC (now known as Westmount Rugby Club).[ citation needed ]
Due to an influx of players, the Montreal Scottish had adopted a Scots-only policy in order to manage their numbers. This left many players from other rugby nations without a home, and Cliff Morgan's suggestion was just the prompting they needed. Players from the Montreal Scottish founded two new clubs; the Montreal Barbarians RFC and the Montreal Wanderers RFC. [2]
The Wanderers played their first match against the Montreal Scottish in the Fall of 1957, and the first tour was held that Thanksgiving to Deep River, 200 km northwest of Ottawa.[ citation needed ]
Over the first few years of the club's existence, Wanderers' recruitment benefited from the Scots-only policy of the Montreal Scottish RFC. The Wanderers saw their ranks swell to three full squads, which continued through to the mid 60's. With the end of Expo '67, many southern hemisphere Wanderers left Montreal and returned home. The Wanderers dropped from three sides to two in 1968, where they remained until a brief thirds revival in 2006. [3]
The Montreal Wanderers were one of the founding clubs of Rugby Quebec (FRQ in French). Other founding clubs included Montreal Irish Rugby Football Club, Barbarians, Westmount Rugby Club and Town of Mount Royal (TMR). Every one of these clubs continues to this day, fielding teams across multiple levels of the FRQ league. [4]
The Montreal Wanderers are the club of origin for several members of the Canadian Senior Men's Team.
The Wanderers currently field two teams in the FRQ men's league, competing against teams from Eastern Ontario and the rest of Quebec.
Nikyta Witkowski is a rugby centre for the Canadian national rugby team and for Coventry R.F.C. in England. He grew up in Montreal and played his rugby for the Montreal Wanderers RFC. He currently resides in Vancouver.
Edinburgh University Rugby Football Club is a leading rugby union side based in Edinburgh, Scotland which currently plays its fixtures in the Edinburgh Regional Shield competition and the British Universities Premiership. It is one of the eight founder members of the Scottish Rugby Union. In the years prior to the SRU's introduction of club leagues in 1973 and the advent of professionalism in the 1990s, EURFC was a major club power and it won the 'unofficial' Scottish Club championship several times. It remains a club with an all-student committee, and is only open to students of the University of Edinburgh. The club runs a men's team and a women's team; both playing in the university leagues.
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The Westmount Rugby Football Club is a Canadian rugby club based in Westmount, Quebec.
Craig James Smith is a Scottish professional rugby union player, currently in the French second-level Rugby Pro D2. club Narbonne. Previously, he had spent nine seasons in Scotland with Edinburgh Rugby and also played for Racing Métro.
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Rugby Québec is the popular name of the Fédération de Rugby du Québec which is the provincial governing body for the sport of rugby union in the Canadian province of Québec. The Fédération de Rugby du Québec is affiliated with the Canadian Rugby Union.
Gordon Herbert Waddell (12 April 1937 – 13 August 2012, born Glasgow, died London, was a Scottish rugby union player, a South African politician, and the son of Herbert Waddell. He played for Scotland, the Barbarians and on two British and Irish Lions tours. In fact he is the only Scottish stand off to be a double Lion. He had 18 caps between 1957 and 1962 - this record for a Scotland fly-half was only later broken by John Rutherford. He played 12 times for the Barbarians between 1957 and 1960, scoring in three matches including their 1958 match against East Africa in Nairobi on 28 May 1958. In 1962 he was the controlling influence in Scotland's first win in Wales since the 1930s, a feat not repeated for another twenty years.
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Karl Franklin Svoboda is a Canadian former rugby union footballer of Czech descent. Svoboda began his rugby career as the Belleville Bulldogs hooker and then played representative rugby with the Ontario Junior XV. In 1981 he scored a try in the final of the Canada Summer Games. He then played with the Ontario Senior Men's Rugby XV, captaining many of the games. Two notable victories came in the national championship over the British Columbia Provincial XV in 1982 and 1995. In 1995, the Ontario Provincial Rugby Team, with Svoboda as captain, was named co-winners of the Ontario Provincial Team of the Year, along with the Toronto Blue Jays.
Robert Francis "Bobbie" Williams was a Welsh international rugby union player. At club level he played for Canton RFC, Cardiff RFC and the Barbarians, and was selected on four occasions for Wales.
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Kevin Hopkins is a retired Welsh International rugby union player. He made seven appearances for his country, as well as representing Cardiff RFC, Swansea RFC and Neath RFC in the top division of Welsh club rugby, and played twice for the Barbarians invitational side. Following his retirement from playing, Hopkins has held numerous coaching positions.
Anthony O'Connor was a Welsh rugby union player who played in the scrum-half position. O'Connor played club rugby with Aberavon RFC, was capped five times for Wales, and was a member of the British Lions team that toured in 1962. He also represented Oxford University RFC, playing in the 1958 Varsity Match.
Donna Kennedy is a Scottish rugby union coach and former international player who played for the national team from 1993 to 2010. She was the world's most-capped women's player from 2004 to 2016 and the first Scottish player — woman or man — to reach 100 international caps. As of November 2017, she remains the most-capped player in Scotland with 115 caps.
Gordon Rimmer was an English rugby union player who played in the scrum-half position. Rimmer played club rugby with Southport RFC and Waterloo FC, represented Lancashire county, was capped 12 times for England, and was a member of the British Lions team that toured in 1950.
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