History of Old Boys Praha

The first of them took place in autumn 1988 in the south of England, against Crewkerne RFC (lost 8:10). Let us recall that historic first OBP touring side: Slavia’s Mach, Falbr, Krejčí and Plecitý, Říha and J. Mansfeld from Motorlet, Tonda Frydrych from Říčany, Slávek Petras from Tatra, the Sparta pair Zadák and Suchánek and the Praga trio Brejla, Parkos and Dosoudil – that was the historic first OBP line-up, the first of many that followed over the years…

We won for the first time a year later, on 17. 8. 1989 in Petrovice, against Brtostav – the company of Jirka Brt, under whose banner he had gathered a strong team of former league players, mostly from Sparta – 18:10 (match no. 3), and soon after, in August 1989, in an international match against a Normandy select side, 58:12 (match no. 4). We won match no. 10 in June 1990 in Normandy against RC Caen 18:4; in our 20th match, on the other hand, we lost at Tatra to the Tatra Smíchov old guard 16:20, but we won again in our 50th match on 17.6.1994 at Pragovka – against Polizei Hamburg (Germany), 38:5.

We played our historic match no. 100 in Hanover, Germany, against Willenhall RFC (England) at the 5th Oldies but Goldies series on 25. 5. 1997 – we lost 3:26 in the play-off for 3rd place at the tournament. Match no. 150 was then a benefit match for the 70th birthday of the club’s doyen Milan Bělohlávek: on 12. 5. 2000 at Slavia in Troja we beat the Slavia Praha veterans 12:0.

Our milestone 200th match, by contrast, did not go so well: on 21.9.2002 in Vyškov we lost 0:21 to the Vyškov veterans at the 15th Vyškovská tlačenka and the 8th Memoriál Džonka Navrátila. We even played our historic match no. 250 overseas: on 20. 5. 2005, at the 15th World Veterans’ Festival in San Diego, USA, we lost 25:30 to the home side, San Diego Care Unit.

In 2008 we reached the milestone of 300 matches in the opening game of the 4th Old Golden Prague tournament, which we hosted to mark the club’s 20th anniversary, on 30. 5. 2008 in Říčany – and we won that match, beating Old Baroudeurs (France) 14:7.

In 2010 we reached another landmark, our 350th match, at the Tatra Smíchov ground. There, on 15 May 2010, we beat the English side Macclesfield RFC Vets 20:10.

In 2012 we reached the milestone 400th match at the end of the 12th European Veterans’ Festival in Trieste, Italy: on 17. 6. 2012 we lost 0:5, by a single try, to the 2nd select side of the northern Italian region of Friuli – Venezia – Giulia (Selezione F.V.G. 2).

So in autumn 2012 we are starting on the fifth hundred matches in OBP history.

Over the years Old Boys Praha have achieved a great deal – above all, the historic overseas tours are unforgettable: to Canada in 1997, to Australia and New Zealand in 1999 (combined with “healing our wounds” in Tahiti), to South Africa in 2001, to the USA and the Bahamas in 2005, and to Argentina and Brazil in 2006 – in every one of those places OBP were the first Czech rugby team ever to play. The second tour to New Zealand, in 2011, included matches in Hong Kong and the Cook Islands, where OBP were again the first Czech rugby team to play.

Our very first overseas tour took place in 1997, to Canada, and these are the lads who were the first to cross the pond in the turtle shirt: from Petrovice Valášek, Jadrníček, Žáček, Martin Veselý and Říha; from Praga Livers, Kodytek, Šťastný and Pošík; from Tatra Petras, Žitný, Jersák, Čížek, Olič, Denke, Sekyra, Kapetanovič and Polach; from Humanita Hronec; from Slavia Bešta, Světlý, Miřácký, Jirka Veselý and Svoboda; from Sparta Škvor, Zadák, Mičke, Jágr, Borovian and Sluše; from Říčany Němeček, Matějka and Havlíček; from Moravia Fiala, Caudr and Goldbach; from Pragis Brožek; and joining us on the spot from the USA, Vít Laškutín and Daniela Slušová.

In Europe we have played 7 times in France (including 2nd place at the IBM tournament in Montpellier in 1992 and, most recently, in Isle sur la Sorgue near Avignon in 2009), 9 times in Germany (including 1st place at the 1st Pohár Jirky Holka in Konstanz), 5 times in Italy (including tournament wins in Verona in 1995 and at Alpe Adria in Trieste in 1997), 3 times in England, twice in Switzerland (2nd place at the Swiss senior championship in Zurich in 1993 and 2nd place at the 2nd Pohár Jirky Holka in Bern), in Spain (including 2nd place at the 5th Memoriál Jirky Holka in 2007) and in the Netherlands, and once each in Wales, Belgium, Croatia, Portugal and Luxembourg.

The national veterans’ team (built around OBP) played two winning matches against a South German select side: in October 2001 in Konstanz, 39:7, and in June 2002 in Prague, 52:5. It then took part regularly in the Memoriál Jirky Holka, honouring an unforgettable friend who was there at the birth of the first regular Central European contest between national veterans’ teams.

Recently, however, regional and club sides rather than national selections have been competing for the Pohár Jiřího/Georga Holka. We have won it only once – the very first edition, in 2003 in Konstanz; we finished second three times (2004 Bern, 2007 Barcelona and 2010 Olomouc), third twice (2005 Rottweil and 2008 Prague), fifth once (Konstanz 2013), 5th–6th once (Rottweil 2009), and once we took part only through individual players who reinforced the Baden-Württemberg veterans’ team (2006 Kyiv).

We regularly take part in the top events of the world and European veterans’ movement. Of the world festivals, we first took part in the 10th Air New Zealand Golden Oldies World Rugby Festival in Vancouver (Canada) in 1997 – then in the 12th edition of the same festival in Adelaide (Australia) in 1999 and finally in the 15th in San Diego (USA) in 2005.

In 2006 we took part in the Argentina Rugby Festival in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

Since 2002 we have also regularly taken part in the European Golden Oldies Festivals (EGORF): first the VI European Golden Oldies Rugby Festival (EGORF) in Split (Croatia) in May 2002, the VII EGORF in Benidorm (Spain) in May 2004, the IX EGORF in Madeira (Portugal) in May 2008 and the XI EGORF in Trieste (Italy) in June 2012.

We have hosted the international Old Golden Prague tournament four times so far (1994 – eight teams, 1999 – ten, 2003 eight teams and 2008 a record 17 teams), welcoming rugby veterans from England, Russia, Germany, Wales, Belgium, Italy, Ukraine, Lithuania, Israel, France, Canada, Poland, Croatia, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Moravia over the years. We have won this prestigious tournament once (1999) and twice reached the final against English sides, losing after a hard fight both times: in 1994 to Willenhall RFC 0:7 and in 2003 to Mill Hill RFC 5:25. Most recently, in 2008, we finished third.

In 2009 we launched another series of Prague veterans’ tournaments, this time for the Old Prague Ham. The first edition drew 6 teams from the Czech Republic, Italy and Spain. The second, in 2010, had twice as many, i.e. 12 teams, from Italy, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Spain and Germany. We finished 2nd. We managed to win the third edition in 2011, and the victory was all the more precious because that edition had a record 14 teams: from Italy, France, the Czech Republic, England, Belgium and Hungary.

Among our other domestic successes are five wins at the oldest veterans’ tournament in the country – the Vyškovská tlačenka – Memoriál J. Navrátila in Vyškov – in 1994, 1998, 2003, 2004 and 2007, when the Tlačenka was played for the last time for several years, so we remained its last winners for several years…

In 2005 our representatives also took part for the first time in the second most important domestic veterans’ tournament, the Havířovský krocan, reinforcing the Moravia select side. We first appeared at the Krocan as a team in our own right in 2008, and came back in 2009. We achieved a more notable success only on our third appearance, in 2010, when we went through the tournament unbeaten but finished second behind the hosts Havířov and ahead of the Moravskoslezští orli. With points and score level, the hosts’ win was decided by the greater number of tries scored (their 4 to our 3). We then finished second again in 2011.

Another regular domestic destination for us became Olomouc, where we started going for occasional get-togethers with our friends there to celebrate their milestone birthdays (first in 2005, then in 2009). In 2010 Olomouc hosted the 8th international tournament for the Pohár Jiřího Holka, where we made it all the way to the final and finished 2nd out of 6 teams.

In 2011 we won the inaugural Přeloučský bizon tournament in Přelouč.

In September 2009 Slávek Petras saddened us all when he decided to step down as president of Old Boys Praha, the club he himself had founded in 1988… This means that throughout that time, right up to November 2009, he led Old Boys Praha as president – and earlier also as captain – through a remarkable 340 matches against opponents from a total of 37 countries in Europe, the Americas, Oceania and Asia. No other Czech rugby club has that kind of reach. Of those 340 matches we won 157, drew 21 and lost 153, with a positive overall score of 5653:5409.

Since we played another 25 matches in 2010, the final count at the end of 2010 stopped at the number of days in a year: 365 matches since 1988. By mid-2012 we had then managed to round the number of matches up to 400.

We played the most matches in OBP history in 2002 and then in 2009 – a full 26. We played one match fewer in 2010. In recent years we have generally been playing more than 20 matches a year.

By contrast, we played the fewest matches in our very first year: in 1988 we played only two.

As for results, the most successful years were those in the 2nd half of the 1990s, then 2003 and, surprisingly after many years, 2010. In 1997 we won 15 matches out of 22, which we repeated in 2010, but out of 25; in 2003 we won 13 out of 17, in 1995 12 out of 17 and in 1996 12 out of 19, and so on.

Our best record for a year (+9) came in 1997 and 2003: in 2003 we won 13 of 17 matches and lost only 4, and similarly in 1997 we won 15 of 22 and lost 6, with one result not recorded. We reached +8 in 1995 (12 wins and 5 defeats from 17 matches), and +7 in 1994 (10 wins, 3 defeats and two unknown results from 15 matches), 1995 (12 wins and 5 defeats from 17 matches), 1998 (10 wins, 2 draws and 3 defeats from 15 matches) and finally 2010 (15 wins, 2 draws and 8 defeats from 25 matches).

Conversely, we suffered the most defeats in 2002, when we lost 19 of 26 matches. That year also saw our longest losing run (12).

In 2013 we have lost 18 matches so far.

The longest run without a win came in 2012 and 2013: 29 matches, 23 of them defeats and 6 draws. It was framed by a 25:0 win over the Italian side Old Rugby Viterbo at the Old Prague Ham in Říčany on 19.5.2012 and the next win only a year later, on 16.6.2013, at the 12th European Festival, also in Říčany, over Gibraltar Bay Buccaneers from Gibraltar, 10:5. Only the occasional draw stopped the record run of 12 defeats from 2002 being beaten at the time – fortunately, the losing runs in both 2012 and 2013 were halted twice, both times at 8.

1998 – 1999 14 wins and 2 draws in a row, including on a tour in England, at the Vyškovská tlačenka and at the 2nd Old Golden Prague.

1. Polizei Hannover (Germany) 17:12 2. Tatra Smíchov old guard 25:10 3. Realspektrum Brno veterans 26:0 4. Ostrava veterans 31:5 5. Vyškov veterans 0:0 6. Havířov veterans 7:0 7. Slavia Praha Oldies 33:14 8. t´GOOI Naarden (Netherlands) 26:7 9. Folkestone RFC (England) 48:0 10. Moore RFC (England) 29:19 11. Kyiv (Ukraine) 31:12 12. combined team of Padova (Italy) and Potsdam (Germany) 10:0 13. Moravia select 5:5 14. Tatra veterans 30:26 15. Říčany veterans 51:39 16. Slavia veterans 20:10.

2010 7 wins and 1 draw in a row, including at the 2nd Pohár G. Holka in Olomouc.

1. Tatra veterans 10:10 2. Petrovice veterans 20:5 3. Moravskoslezští Orli 10:0 4. Odessa Rugby Brotherhood (Ukraine) 5:0 5. Old Boys Morava 25:0 6. Baden-Württemberg Oldies (Germany) 15:0 7. Grey Lions Lvov (Ukraine) 5:0 8. Moravskoslezští Orli 15:0

1997 6 wins in a row: on the tour to Canada (Toronto) and at the tournament in Trieste (Italy).

1. Toronto XXLs (Canada) 27:19 2. Vitézek Esztergómi (Hungary) 15:5 3. I Tandoi Trieste (Italy) 20:5 4. Hermes Ljubljana (Slovenia) 20:10 5. Vitézek Esztergómi (Hungary) 10:0 6. I Tandoi Trieste (Italy) 10:0

1995 6 wins in a row, including on the tour to Wales and England and at the Vyškovská tlačenka.

1. RC Visé (Belgium) 29:10 2. Effingham RFC (England) 14:10 3. Zagrebački VRK (Croatia) 44:19 4. Tatra Smíchov 41:21 5. Zlín 26:0 6. Realspektrum Brno 12:7.

1994 5 wins in a row at the tournaments in Chrášťany and the Old Golden Prague.

1. Verdun (France) 17:12 2. Humanita Praha 14:5 3. SLUC Nancy (France) 34:0 4. Les Fossiles Visé (Belgium) 40:0 5. Rhiwbina Grey Squirrels (Wales) 7:0

2011 5 wins in a row at the 3rd Old-Prague Ham tournament.

1. RC Visé (Belgium) 30:0 2. I Cavalieri di San Giorgio (Italy) 25:0 3. Superveterans France/Italy (France/Italy) 5:5 4. XV de l´Hippocampe (France) 5:0 5. Ruines de Cayac Gradignan (France) 5:0

Argentina (2006 Mar del Plata) Australia (1999 Adelaide) Bahamas (2005 Nassau) Belgium (1996 Visé) Brazil (2006 Rio de Janeiro) Canada (1997 Vancouver and Toronto) Cook Islands (2011 Rarotonga) Croatia (2002 Zagreb and Split) England (1988 Crewkerne, 1995 London, 1998 Wolverhampton) France (1990 Caen, 1992 Montpellier, 1993 Nancy, 1996 Grenoble and Lyon, 2004 Lyon, 2007 Toulon, 2009 Avignon) Germany (1997 Hanover, 2000 Munich, 2001 Konstanz, 2003 Konstanz, 2005 Rottweil, 2009 Rottweil, 2013 Konstanz, 2014 Heidelberg, 2022 Dresden, 2024 Hamburg) Hong Kong (2011 Hong Kong) Hungary (2025 Budapest) Italy (1995 Verona, 1997 Trieste, 2009 Perugia, 2012 Trieste, 2023 Muggió) Luxembourg (2010 Walferdange) Netherlands (1991 Utrecht, 2011 Hilversum) New Zealand (1999 Temuka and Hamilton, 2011 Hamilton and Napier) Portugal (2008 Funchal – Madeira) South Africa (2001 Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria) Spain (2004 Benidorm, 2007 Barcelona, 2015 San Sebastian) Switzerland (1993 Zurich, 2004 Bern) USA (2005 San Diego) Wales (1995 Cardiff)

Presidents Vladislav Petras (1988 – 2009) Jiří Livers (2010 – 2012) Vladislav Petras (2012-2015) Vladimír Kodytek (2015-2023) Karel Zeiner (2023-present)

Honorary President for Life Vladislav Petras (since 2009)

Coaches Martin “Dalmoš” Marek (2021-present)

Captains Vladislav Petras (1988 – 1994) Miroslav Němeček (1994 – 1997) Jiří Livers (1997 – 2010) Andrej Hronec (2010 – 2012) Vladimír Kodytek (2012-2015) Vladimír Pošík (2015-present)

Representative on EGORC (European Golden Oldies Rugby Committee) Andrej Hronec – from 2002 to this day

Treasurers formerly Petr Žáček, formerly Slávek Petras now Martin Turek

Other distinguished officials Tonda Vosátka, Daniela Slušová, Ladislav Říha, Jirka Beníšek, Martin Veselý, Karel Zeiner, Karel Trča, Petr Minařík, Láďa Pošík, Martin Löfler, Václav Štrincl, Martin Charvát, Jarda Čížek, Kamil Košina, Saša Dohnal etc. etc.

Doyens Vovka Škvor (1993 – 98) Milan Bělohlávek (1998 – present)