It’s a Rough Game but Good Sport: The Life, Times and Personalities of the Shanghai Rugby Football Club

Personally I’m more old Shanghai than rugger buggar but still Simon Drakeford’s history of rugby in old Shanghai is now available and sheds some further light on those old Shanghailanders and there goings-on….I wonder if rugby players then were as generally obnoxious then as they invariably are now?

This book provides the full history of rugby in Shanghai from the 1860s through to today. The path to the creation of the Shanghai Rugby Football Club was winding. Rugby football and association football were played in each of the four different Shanghai Football Clubs established in 1867, 1881, 1889 and 1892. In 1904, the rugby players broke away from the fourth Shanghai Football Club and so at last a standalone rugby club was formed which remained in existence until 1950. Forty-five years later, foreigners once again established a rugby club in Shanghai. This book tells the story…