Germany: Underwater Rugby

The hard-hitting sport of rugby has been around for generations and has grown to become a popular international game with World Championships and high TV ratings. While that's great for the sport, that's not what this blog is about. We want the strange, odd and just down right bizarre sports. Putting the game of rugby underwater should help spark the, "What the heck is that?" reaction.

First look at the game

German underwater club member Ludwig von Bersuda invented the game in 1961 as a way to condition the divers on his team. He developed the sport based on concepts of French military training. The modern rules and objectives of the game consist of (Shemesh):

• Teams consist of six players with six rolling substitutes
• Played in two 15-minute halves
• For a player to score, they must get the ball into a goal at the bottom of the pool
• Players may be tackled anywhere below the neck (similar to regular rugby)
• The ball can be snatched away or a player held underwater until they are forced to let go of the ball

News Clip

Seeing is believing so check out the clip from the WN Network to give you a better break down of how the game is played. News Clip     

Promoting the Sport
The first organized game took place between DLRG Mulheim and DUC Duisburg on October 4, 1964. The media captured the "premiere" event in the "Essener Tageblatt". It was a half page report with two photos. 

This coverage led to the formation of six German teams who competed in the "Battle of the Golden Ball." This tournament continues to occur every single year. 

The Germans began to promote their sport to neighboring countries through demonstration games and press coverage. It caught on quickly in the Scandinavian countries such as Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Poland (Shemesh). 

In 1978, the CMAS took underwater rugby under their wing as a sport and became their official governing body. They have produced European championships every year since 1980 making the sport a huge success. The "Aachener Sportspiegel" was the first print media to be published about the Championship games (Wiesner). 

The youth is where it's at

With underwater rugby being a young sport it has appealed to that demographic. It especially resides with college-aged students. In fact, Germany developed the Collegiate Underwater Rugby Championships after seeing such an interest among this demographic (Wiesner). 

In order to better reach this target audience. Underwater Rugby and CMAS got involved with social media which is where the majority of these kids focus their free time. 

Click on the image to go to UW Facebook page

Click HERE to see UW on twitter

Goal

References

Shemesh, Maria. (2009, March 13). The History and evolution of underwater Rugby. Retrieved October 27, 2011 from http://www.helium.com/items/1375113-the-history-of-underwater-rugby

Wiesner, Rudi. (2011). Development of UW-Rugby. Retrieved October 27, 2011 from http://www.cmas.org/114-36535.php