The North County RFC (San Diego - California) was founded in 1976 by Bill
Matz, as the Escondido Rugby Club. Bill owned the Escondido Athletic Club
at the time, and the Rugby Club still wears the Athletic Club colors (Blue and White). However, since an extremely
muddy game one afternoon in the late '70s, the Rugby Club no longer uses the
Athletic Club facilities. Bill Matz sold the Athletic club in the early '80s,
but is sometimes seen around at Rugby tournaments.
The Club celebrated it's twenty fifth and thirtieth anniversary with banquets attended
by over 100 current and former members. Click here for pictures of the twenty fifth anniversary event.
The Club acquired the Gurkha nickname in 1984 after a club member in the U.S. Marines described training
with that famous British Regiment.
From 1984 to 2004 the Gurkhas hosted a popular 10-a-side tournament every year in October/November. Dramatic cost increases for referees and fields caused this tournament to go into hiatus.
Since the 1986 unbeaten season, the Gurkhas have played in the Division II of the Southern California league. In 2008 and 2009 the Gurkhas qualified and played for Division II National Championships in Austin Texas.
In 1997, Gurkha players Devon Cutrell (head coach and teacher at RBHS) and Ray
Steel (assistant coach) started the Rancho Bernardo HS Barbarians, which is the first High School/U19
Rugby team in Southern California (lasting more than 1 year). The team that was to become the LA Cougars joined us as the second HS/U19 team in 2000/2001.
The Barbarians are now under the North County Rugby Club as the NCRC Barbarians and includes U19 and
U16 teams. The majority of the Barbarian's players come from San Pasqual HS,
Rancho Bernardo HS and Poway HS.
Club members also started two other HS teams, at Torrey Pines HS (2001 and 2002),
and La Costa HS (2001). These were the only HS/U19 teams in San Diego at the
time. Sadly the club was stretched beyond our means to keep these teams going for
more than a few years (coaching resources and geographically).
In 2003 Michelle Chidester (a female player on the Barbarians) started a non
contact (8-12) team called the Flying Penguins in Rancho Bernardo. This team
became a full contact team 2 years later and was So Cal U12 champions in 2007.
This program is now the NCRC San Marcos Penguins and for the 2010
season includes U8 and U10 (non contact), U12 and U14 (contact).
In 2006 Mark Richards (math teacher at BVMS) started a U12 and U14 team at Bear
Valley Middle School in Escondido. These teams are known as NCRC Bears (or bar-bear-ians)
In 2008 Mark included a U14 girls team at BVMS (NCRC Lady Bears) and for 2010 hopes to have a U16 girls team as well.
Here are some testimonials from the principal and two teachers as to how happy they are to have rugby at their school.
In 2004 we incorporated and received our 501 C3 non profit public charity status.
Even before we became an official non profit, it was our policy to require our members
to volunteer at community events. We've been doing this since the mid 1990's.
Since 2000 some of the events we've provided volunteers for are:
Valley Center Western Days
Oceanside parade
Escondido Fun Run
Encinitas 5K (every year)
Encinitas Christmas/Holiday parade (every year)
Vista Viking Festival
Athletic event at Escondido HS
San Marcos Street Fair Beer garden security (every year)
Click Here to see photo's of 25-30 of us helping out at the Witch Creek
Fire Relief Center in Rancho Bernardo, and cleaning up 3 houses burned down at Duenda
and Luz in Rancho Bernardo.
In 2007 we raised funds for two High School boys to attend school and play rugby
for a semester in New Zealand. We have two group home foster kids that our members
include in practices, games and events (by transporting and paying for them etc).
So you can see that we are more than just a bunch of guys who just like to run around
and crash into each other. We like to do that for some reason, but we're more than
that. We are a local longstanding volunteer sporting organization (no-one gets paid)
of Men, Woman and Children that donate our own money, time and skills to other people
and to our community.
Click here for an article written about
the Gurkhas by Brian Lowe (www.esportsmediagroup.com/e-sport) in 1999.
