Legendary German football club branches out into rugby

Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the club’s only Bundesliga title, iconic German football club, TSV 1860 Munich, has launched its first rugby team.

1860 have long been in the shadow of Bayern Munich and are currently languishing in the German 3rd Division. But in the mid-1960s, the club reigned supreme, reaching the final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1965 before lifting the Bundesliga title the following year. Four 1860 players made it into Germany squad for the 1966 World Cup.

The rugby division is the brainchild of Timo Seidel – a 31 year old, 1860 season ticket holder, who fell in love with rugby whilst working in New Zealand in 2013. Having previously never played rugby before, Seidel turned out for Stokes Valley RFC, near Wellington, and got to experience an All Blacks Test vs France.

Seidel played for various rugby clubs in and around Munich on his return to Germany 11 years ago. During a visit to Wales, he was asked by a friend from New Zealand whether 1860 had a rugby club, and that conversation started the process of getting one up and running.

“That’s where it all started and, also, things weren’t really working out at my old club,  Freimann Dragons, I was a little bit frustrated, so I decided to build something new,” Seidel told RugbyPass.

“I think the only other major football clubs in Germany to have a rugby team are Eintracht Frankurt and FC St. Pauli, near Hamburg.”

Even so, Munich has a proud rugby history – Bayern Munich had a rugby team leading up to the outbreak of World War Two, and the Bavarian city has hosted a World Rugby Challenger Sevens Series event.

And looking into the future, 1860’s 15,000-capacity ground, Grünwalder Stadion, has been selected as the venue for the rugby sevens tournament if Munich is successful in hosting the 2036 Olympic Games.

Munich is currently home to five other clubs, StuSta (Studentenstadt) München-Freimann, München RFC, RC Unterföhring, Freimann Dragons and Munich Monks, an inclusive rugby club based in the south-east of the city, along with 1860.

The 1860 rugby division will be headed by Seidel and initially forms part of the football division of the club, with plans to eventually become a full division in its own right.

The rugby team will not share the same colours of the football team, though (blue and white), instead they have opted for dark green and gold, the colours of 1860’s other sporting teams. “The first designs I made, people were like’ ‘it looks 100 per cent like a Springboks jersey’, so I was like, ‘okay, we might need to change that a bit!'”

The club applied to be a member of the Bavarian Rugby Union in May, and having been accepted will begin training on August 11th.

Attracted by the 1860 brand and Seidel’s passion for rugby, the initial response has been very good.

“So far we have 45 people signed up for training and we haven’t really advertised it that much yet,” Seidel said.

“And we have some sponsors who have come from the football department.

“We had our launch event in the clubhouse bar whilst the Lions game vs Australia was on. It was packed out. The feedback has been amazing.”

1860 team will initially run two men’s sides. One will play as part of a combined team with the 2nd XV of Bundesliga 2 side StuSta Rugby in the Bavaria Landesliga (4th tier of German Rugby). A 2nd side will play in the Verbandsliga (5th tier) – this division is aimed at getting experience for players new to the game and clubs who can’t field a XV alone.

The club will share StuSta’s facilities to begin with for training whilst they are on the look out for their own pitch, as 1860 can’t accommodate them, and the plan is to be standalone operation by 2026/27. Once established they plan to set up women’s and youth teams as well.