When most of us think about rugby we think about countries such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the U.K. most of us would never think about just how popular Rugby is in a place like Thailand. Rugby in Thailand started at the beginning of this century as rich Thais began attending British run private schools. Soon after prestigious Thai schools were built such as Vajiravudh and Kings college which were modeled after British private schools. The The Thai Rugby union was founded in 1937 and is the main governing body. And so was the beginning of Rugby in Thailand.
Is wasn’t long into the development of rugby in Thailand that it was interrupted by WW2. Rugby was revived some years later the armed forces started to play it during the 70-80s. General Wimol Pongpanich was largely responsible for breathing life back into Thailands rugby movement. He used rugby as a tool to strengthen his troops. Not too long after rugby was starting to be televised more often. This is due in part to the celebration of the first world cup.
Since Thailand does not have a history of european colonialism it has given them a relatively late start and they will probably not see a world cup day betting they are going to make it to the finals for a long time. However the progress is steady and Thailand participates regularly to gain a spot in the World Cup qualifiers. Just recently a school in Surin beat the team at Vajiravudh. This was seen as a major upset. And is evidence that rugby is growing in Thailand.
In 2011 the Thailand Rugby league was formed as a way to guide the development of the game in the Kingdom of Thailand. Not only by means of being able to provide local competition and bring the game to an international stage. They also support the development of Rugby in Thai schools and universities.
The stars of the 2014 Thailand Rugby league competition the Pattaya sharks will host the North Luzon headhunters in Bangkok in june for the first ever Rugby League Asian Club Challenge. North Luzon will represent the Philippine National Rugby League. This will be the first time that two local Asian based teams will compete in a domestic competition. The idea being that it will serve as an example to other asian nations and lead to the creation of other national teams by 2016. It is worth mentioning that gambling in Thailand is illegal and this may be a factor in the overall popularity however there are many ex-patriots living in Thailand who would be willing to make an educated guess on a 2015 world cup bet involving Thailand if they were to qualify.
Rugby in Thailand has seen some ups and downs however the sport is alive and well in the land of smiles. Thailand is still far away from contending in international events such as the 2015 world cup. Odds are if they keep this progress up they will someday be a force to be reckoned with.
