Dear all,

Here is the recruitment poster for this summer.

Please print it in A4 in good quality with colors and spread it everywhere in town!

Thanks,

 The Recruitment Committee

PS: to print it from windows: 

In September 1968 a group of expatriate British rugby players decided to form a club in order to continue playing the sport in the manner in which they were accustomed back home, especially the well known after the match social aspects. Over the next few years things developed rapidly. In 1970, the second XV was born, by 1972 the Belgian National side had been beaten and the Belgian Cup won.

In 1973, the third XV was launched and with a steadily improving fixture list we were playing with credit such sides as Coventry, Blackheath, Newbridge and Public School Wanderers.

In 1974 the Belgian Cup was won again. This halcyon period continued unabated through to the club’s very successful tour of the USA in May 1978, when we played seven matches and the first XV remained unbeaten against the best sides on the East Coast.

Since 1978 the club has continued to remain one of the most active and successful ex-patriate clubs in Europe. During this latter period the standard of Belgian Rugby and the number of clubs has increased significantly.

In 1982 we won the Belgian Cup for the third time and finished off with a successful tour to Canada.

In 1980 we entered the Belgian League division five. During the following years we worked our way through the divisions gaining promotion in successive seasons and took the championship of the Premier Division at our first attempt in 1985.
At the end of that season we celebrated with our third major tour, this time to Colorado, USA. Whilst since then we have failed to emanate winning the championship, we have had successful tours to Spain, Czechoslovakia, Boston, Estonia and Majorca.

The club has also organised International charity rugby matches in 1986-87-90-91. These brought to Belgium many of the most famous rugby players of the 1970s and early 1980’s from the Five Nations to play against a Belgian Select side - which at the same time raised over BF 2.5 million for various deserving charities. The last occasion in 1991 was for the support of the Belgian wife and children of Brussels British’s captain Leslie Joyce following his tragic death in a car crash a few months earlier.

Whilst the majority of players come from Great Britain and Ireland, there are nearly always members from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA plus other neighbouring European countries. We once had all three of the Western Samoan’s Ambassador’s sons playing for us, the oldest Vince Fepuleia going on to play for Western Samoa against Wales at Cardiff Arms Park in 1988.

During the mid 1980s we fielded a first XV with players from 11 different countries. In 2003, the Barbarians had no fewer than 22 nations represented within its ranks.  Despite the British orgins of the club, we are really just an English-speaking club welcoming players of any nationality, and always have a few Belgian players in our membership. Indeed we are very proud that one of our Belgian members and a former player, Freddy Thielemans, is currently Mayor of Brussels.
Since 1995 we have also successfully run a Ladies XV.

Further our symbol, the Manneken-Pis with a rugby ball under his arm is a unique and now famous emblem amongst world rugby clubs.

Whilst we now only field two senior men’s XVs and a Ladies XV and we may at times have to struggle to stay in the first division of the championship, we hope in our own special way that we have helped raise the standard of Belgian rugby in recent years plus publicising the game both here and abroad.

We welcome players of all nationalities to join us, especially Belgians, where we provide an excellent opportunity to learn English, although certain words heard on the field are unlikely to be found in any dictionary. Off the field we continue to contribute in no small measure to Belgium’s position in the top five of the world’s beer drinking nations.