Karachi Rugby Football Club

The Karachi Rugby Football Club is the oldest club in Pakistan and was formed in 1926. The game was exclusively an expatriate sport at the time, with the Karachi club active in the All-India circuit up until the late fifties. The sixties saw a decrease in the expatriate population and travel to India was becoming more regulated, therefore the club became more reliant on playing fixtures with visiting British Navy Ships, at a time when Karachi had become a regular port of call for R&R and picking up supplies.

In the sixties some local players got inducted and in the nineties more and more local players picked up the sport. Other rugby teams sprung up locally in Lahore and later in Islamabad and from 1992 onwards Karachi has played regular domestic fixtures. Karachi has hosted the national championship on a number of occasions, a tournament it has also been successful in winning a few times.

By the mid-nineties the clubs consisting mainly of local players and currently the club has core of 30 senior players and another 10-15 social members.

Karachi still occasionally hosts visiting ships and last year there was a very exciting match with a French naval ship.

Karachi R.F.C. is a full member of the Sind Rugby Association and in conjunction with the Pakistan Rugby Union there are big plans for the development of rugby in the province and especially in Karachi; the city having been selected as a locale for one of the six Rugby Development Centres in the country.

Text and images courtesy: Khuram Haroon