RICHMOND, ENGLAND, RFC TOUR

Richmond (England) will tour the US as part of the celebration of its 150th anniversary. They plan to be in Richmond, Virginia for the weekend of May 21 – 22, 2011. This is a great opportunity for us. Richmond, England, is our sister city. The city is near London, on the Thames River, and it is said that the English colonist named our city Richmond because it reminded them of the city in England.

The Richmond Football club has, in their words, “a glorious history.” This is from their website ( RichmondRFC.CO.UK “Richmond, a club rich in history, was formed in 1861 and participated in the world’s very first inter-club fixture in 1864 against Blackheath. It is one of the 8 existing founding clubs to have formed the Rugby Football Union (RFU) in 1871.”

Richmond’s most important match, however, was probably when they played Richmond Rugby FC in 1969, when they last visited us. The match was held at City Stadium, and over 2,000 attended.

The English won that match, but it is noticable that they’ve waited 30 years for a rematch.

This time, we intended to give them three matches: one featuring our current side against theirs; another pitting our old boys against their “heavies;” and a mtach with their women (the English club champions) against a visiting women’s team.

We’ll also offer them Virginian hospitality, which will include a welcome reception, a banquet after the matches, and other social events.

All of this will take a lot of effort on part of the club. We have already formed the beginnings of a hosting committee, but we will need much more help. If you can help us out, please let us know.

Thanks. The Hosting Committe:

Reyn Kinzey
Reynkinzey@aol.com
804 339 2748 (cell)
804 264 8602 (home/office)

Ben Morgan
BRMORGAN@pbs.cbsj.com
804 400 5573

Danny Patterson
PATTERSONDP@qmail.com"
904 201 7887

Legendary Match in City Stadium Fall 69, 2500 people thru the gate

"The English put on quite a show. Richmond USA was really pumped up that evening as we were playing in front of hundreds of people at City Statium. The English took advantage of that. They would flip the ball to the backs who would run right at us. As we tackled them, and we really gave them a pasting, they would turn their back and dish the ball off to someone else. After they had us expecting that, they would dummy the ball to their teammate and run past us as we took the fake. I played right wing forward and they had me running all over the field. We had several former highcaliber football players on the team that night as I recall. We had George Dintiman, who payed pro football for the Baltimore Colts as a defensive back; Bob Johnson, who had captained Duke's football team a couple of years before; and Bob Petkus, who played for Illinois. I'm sure that the English had some bruises to work off.

The best part of the game was the party. My only regret was that I had to go to work at midnight in Hopewell to participate in a plant startup as supervising engineer. As I recall, it was one of the worst nights of my life."