Rugby - London Italian RFC

A new rugby club was formed by Lorenzo Belpassi and Marco Attanasio. The team was started in March of 2007. They were both born here of Italian parents. Marco lives in North London and Lorenzo in South London/Surrey. They met at a University match Kings College and UCL, and decided to start the team from there.

To get all the players together, they started a group on Facebook (social networking site) called London Italians Rugby. There was a great interest, so they decided to play sevens rugby (a shorter, faster version of the game) over the summer. They played in the Slough 7's, after holding a few training sessions. It was a great success winning a few games and loosing some too. Lots of interest was generated in the team and so Lorenzo, Marco and the rest of the team decided to make the step up to 15-a-side rugby. The team have been training regularly with Chiswick RFC who were kind enough to allow them to join their sessions on tuesdays from 7.30 and then the group run its own sessions most sundays from 10.30 in Battersea park.

The club is made up of 95% Italians - split between Italians born here and Italians who have moved here from Italy.

The first game is on Saturday November 17th against Old Streetonians 2nd XV in Hackney Marshes at 2pm.

The team has also been in contact with the Italian supporters club here in London, which is run by Vincent Dallaglio (father of former England captain Lawrence Dallaglio) and Aldo Bevaqua and they have agreed to support the team in any way possible, with the potential to become one club/organisation.

So far, their sponsors have been Cafe Mario, Regents Street (Marco Giannitti) and The Wintson Group (John Losi).