Gay rugby players arrive in Australia: NSW Waratahs host massive joint training session

Waratahs Rugby Media Release

Monday August 25, 2014

Gay rugby players arrive in Australia: NSW Waratahs host massive joint training session

Gay rugby teams from around the world have arrived in Australia to try to win the Bingham Cup from three-time world champions, the Sydney Convicts, ahead of the stereotype-smashing world cup of gay rugby, which begins this Friday.

More than 500 international gay rugby players are expected to attend a training session this Wednesday (August 27) with Waratahs players Matt Lucas (Manly), Jed Holloway and Ben Volavola (Southern Districts), plus Wallabies coach (and former Waratah and Wallaby) Andrew Blades.  As long-time supporters of the Sydney Convicts, the Waratahs along with numerous other elite rugby players and teams around the world, are providing significant support to the gay teams as a way of sending a strong message of acceptance of gay athletes.

The Bingham Cup is a gruelling tournament of intense rugby with 24 teams playing six games over three days. Almost 1,000 players and supporters representing 30 gay and inclusive rugby clubs from 15 countries have arrived in Australia for the Biennial event, named after 9/11 hero Mark Bingham.  The event is one of the largest 15-a-side rugby tournaments in the world and while most participants are gay, in the spirit of inclusivity, many teams have straight players.

One of the strong contenders to win the Cup is London’s Kings Cross Steelers, the world’s first gay rugby team. Like many athletes taking part in the tournament, the team’s first grade team captain, Chris Buckmaster, used to believe being gay and playing a tough sport was an impossible combination.

“I grew up in a rugby dominated society where being gay was not even an option, let alone being gay and actually playing competitive sport. This led me to believe that I could not possibly actually be gay myself, given I excelled in sport and was also the school prefect at a private all boys school. All of my misconceptions about myself and gay people were demolished when I went to my first training session with the Kings Cross Steelers, I was very surprised by the high level of rugby and focus on the game.”

There is intense rivalry among the international gay teams, particularly Sydney, London, New York and San Francisco as well as among the three Australian teams from Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Interestingly, Brisbane beat Sydney earlier this year at the Australian Gay Rugby championship.

"Too many people may assume that a bunch of gay guys holding a rugby tournament is just an excuse to have big party with a rugby theme - but nothing could be further from the truth,” says Dany Samreth, captain of the San Francisco Fog RFC, the team Mark Bingham played for before his death.

The San Francisco Fog RFC hosted the first Bingham Cup in 2002, after Mark's death on Flight 93, which he helped crash into the fields of Pennsylvania. “We have been training very hard over the last two years and have received strong support from high level athletes and coaches. We’re very focused on winning our third Bingham Cup and bringing it back to San Francisco where the tournament began.”

Issued by Waratahs Rugby

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Mark Bingham

The Bingham Cup is named in honour of Mark Bingham, a great rugby player and a great guy. He was fundamental in the establishment of two premier gay rugby clubs – the San Francisco Fog and the Gotham Knights. He is also now known internationally as one of the heroes of 9/11. The global gay rugby community are privileged to compete in the Bingham Cup named in his honour.

Mark Bingham, a former University of California, Berkeley rugby star, was instrumental in the establishment of the San Francisco Fog Rugby Football Club. A few months later after the Fog was admitted to the Northern Californian Football Union, Bingham died in the September 11 attacks on board United Airlines Flight 93. He was one of a group of passengers who took amazing measures to attack the hijackers, which eventually led to them crashing the plane into a vacant field in Pennsylvania instead of its targets of Washington, D.C.

At the time of Mark Bingham’s tragic death, only six gay and inclusive rugby clubs existed worldwide. Two of those were co-founded by Mark. Today there are almost 60 clubs. The Bingham Cup is the global event that promotes rugby union as an inclusive non-discriminatory sport.

In an email to the Fog after their acceptance into their local union, Bingham wrote,

“We have the chance to be role models for other gay folks who wanted to play sports, but never felt good enough or strong enough. More importantly, we have the chance to show the other teams in the league that we are as good as they are. Good rugby players. Good partiers. Good sports. Good men.”