Rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (; Seychellois Creole: ), is an island country and archipelagic state consisting of 155 islands (as per the Constitution) in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, Victoria, ...

is a minor but growing sport.

Governing body

The governing body is a member of the

Confederation of African Rugby Rugby Africa is the administrative body for rugby union within the continent of Africa under the authority of World Rugby, which is the world governing body of rugby union. , Rugby Africa has 37 member nations and runs several rugby tournaments f ...

(CAR) but not of the

International Rugby Board World Rugby is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international competit ...

History

Rugby was first introduced to the Seychelles when it was a British colony. The first games were probably played by British sailors, and for a long while, expatriates and whites dominated the game in the colony. The national ground comprises an area flattened from a massive

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides ...

caused by a heavy rain from a

cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an ant ...

. The Seychelles are a founder member of the

(CAR), which was launched officially in January 1986, in

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

"The Seychelles Affair"

In 1981, Colonel

Mike Hoare Thomas Michael "Mad Mike" Hoare (17 March 1919 – 2 February 2020) was a British-Irish military officer and mercenary who fought during the Simba rebellion and was involved in carrying out the 1981 Seychelles coup d'état attempt. Early life ...

, an anti-Communist warlord from the Congo, attempted to stage a coup d'état, against Communist president

France-Albert René France-Albert René (; 16 November 1935 – 27 February 2019) was a Seychellois lawyer, politician and statesman who served as the second President of Seychelles from 1977 to 2004. He also served as the country's second Prime Minister from its ...

, to try and reinstate

James Mancham Sir James Richard Marie Mancham KBE (11 August 1939 – 8 January 2017) was a Seychellois politician who founded the Seychelles Democratic Party and was the first President of Seychelles from 1976 to 1977. Political career James's father, Ri ...

. Hoare got together a group of white mercenaries, and dubbed them "Ye

Ancient Order of Froth Blowers The Ancient Order of Froth Blowers was a humorous British charitable organisation "to foster the noble Art and gentle and healthy Pastime of froth blowing amongst Gentlemen of-leisure and ex-Soldiers". Running from 1924 to 1931, it was founded by H ...

" (AOFB) after a posh English social club of the 1930s. The mercenaries were to be disguised as South African rugby players taking a holiday. In order for the plan to work, he disguised the mercenaries as a rugby club, and hid

AK-47 The AK-47, officially known as the Avtomat Kalashnikova (; also known as the Kalashnikov or just AK), is an assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian small-arms designer Mikhail Kala ...

s in the bottom of their luggage, as he explained in his book ''The Seychelles Affair'':

We were a
Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...
beer-drinking club. We met formally once a week in our favourite pub in
Braamfontein Braamfontein ( English: ''blackberry spring'', or more prosaicly ''blackberry springs''; also known as Braam) is a central suburb of Johannesburg, in South Africa, seat of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and some of South Africa's major c ...
. We played Rugby. Once a year we organised a holiday for our members. We obtained special charter rates. Last year we went to
Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...
. In the best traditions of the original AOFB we collected toys for underprivileged kids and distributed them to orphanages... I made sure the toys were as bulky as possible and weighed little. Rugger footballs were ideal. These were packed in the special baggage above the false bottom to compensate for the weight of the weapon.Hoare, Mike ''The Seychelles Affair'' (Transworld, London, 1986; ), p67

The plan was foiled when another passenger on their charter flight (uninvolved in the plot), who had boarded on a stop-over, was caught with illegally imported fruit. This meant that the Seychellois customs were going to commence checking every single bag, which was not something the mercenaries could afford. As a result, the AK-47s were removed prematurely, and an armed skirmish ensued, in which the men hijacked an Indian jumbo jet to fly to South Africa.http://www.seychelles-s.info/seychelles-history.php History of the Seychelles, retrieved 24 June 2009 Hoare and the other mercenaries spent several years in South African prisons for their troubles.

External links

CAR

*
Historique

References

{{Africa in topic, Rugby union in

Governing body

History

"The Seychelles Affair"

See also

External links

References