bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

ON February 16, 1886, the following notice appeared in Hong Kong's only English newspaper, The Daily Express: There will be a 'pick-up' football match at 4.15 today on the Race Course. All members are particularly requested to attend, as the team to represent the 'All Comers' v 'The Garrison' will be selected from the form shown in this match.

  Obviously an All Comers team was picked. Because a couple of days later, The Daily Express reported that the game was ''evenly contested throughout with the only fault being a tendency to dispute by the players and usurp the functions of the umpires''.

 That game, 108 years ago, was the first organised rugby match between the regiment stationed in Hong Kong - at the time it was the 2nd Battalion The Northamptonshire Regiment - and the All Comers, a civilian side which was the forerunner to the present Hong Kong Football Club.

 Yesterday at Stanley Fort, the two teams' ''descendants'' met for the last time, bringing to an end a memorable chapter of Hong Kong history.

 The Hong Kong Football Club and the Black Watch regiment played their part in a tradition which has been unbroken since 1886.

 The regiment lost yesterday's valedictory match 25-15.

 The Scottish regiment's quartermaster Mike Smith went so far as to describe the moment as ''the end of the empire''.

 He is not far off the mark, as it will be the last rugby game the ''Garrison'' plays in Hong Kong against their old rivals Football Club, represented by a Secretary's XV.

 The Black Watch, the last British regiment to be stationed in Hong Kong, will return to the Mother country by the end of September. No one will replace them.

 ''It is very sad that no one else can come here and enjoy all the aspects of a tour in Hong Kong . . . the people, the place and the rugby. Hong Kong was the last great posting the British Army had. Sadly we are losing it,'' said Major Smith.

 Politics and the demands of modern times decree that Major Smith, the Black Watch and indeed the entire British Army are now no longer welcome in Hong Kong.

 But that was not the case over a century ago. The Cheung Chau pirates' threat to the Jardine Matheson trade routes in the early 1840s saw the Taipan demand protection from the Crown.

 He got it in the form of the British Navy. The first infantry regiment to be stationed in Hong Kong, in 1841, were the 55th Westmoreland Regiment of Foot. Following in their footsteps, over the years, has been an endless stream of soldiers posted to this barren rock, who brought along the games they grew up with back in England - among them rugby.

 On the other hand, as trade and commerce flourished here, a new breed of enterprising Englishmen made the brave journey to the exotic East, to make their fortune. They, too, needed recreation.

 The civilians - bankers, traders etc - formed the nucleus of the Hong Kong Football Club. And thus began a rivalry on the playing fields of Hong Kong, between the ''Garrison'' and Club.

 Early records show that while these two parties were involved in the first organised game of rugby, the Royal Navy soon joined in.

 A triangular tournament was played from 1910 to 1940. The Army won this tournament three times, the Navy on 12 occasions and Club nine times. No tournament was played during the War years (First and Second WWs).

 After the Second World War, rugby was revived in 1947. The tournament became a pentangular event. From 1947 to 1978, Club won the event on 16 occasions and the Army nine times.

 The present league system came into existence during the 1969-70 season. That year the Army won the league. It was the last time they triumphed. Club started to monopolise the tournament.

 In 1974-75 the format of rugby was discussed at great length and it was decided that the Army would reorganise their rugby into four approximately equal sides. They would only put out a representative side (the British Forces) for special occasions.

 In recent times, the Army has come to mean the Stanley Fort regiment outfit. The strength of the team depended on whether the regiment was a rugby playing outfit or not. The closest an Army outfit has come to lifting the league in the past few years was in 1990/91 when the Royal Regiment of Wales were narrowly edged out by Valley for the blue riband of local rugby.

 Football Club's secretary of the rugby section last season, Jeremy Summers quoted Churchill to sum up the occasion yesterday.

 ''This is not the end; it is not the beginning of the end but it may just be the end of the beginning,'' said Summers.

 ''Whilst Hong Kong rugby is going into new and exciting times it is important to remember how it all began.'' 



Historic rivalry ends as Forces team beat retreat