Club History

Tthe Exiles were founded in 1991 by a bunch of rugby loving expats with the watchphrase: 'to provide a convivial atmosphere for expats to play rugby in Hungary".

The first season in the Hungarian league, second division, was 1992/3. There were 2 promotion spots and the last game of the season was between the two unbeaten sides: Kispest Elefantok and the Exiles.The Exiles went on to win 23-8 and take the 2nd division title. Hungarians have been welcomed into the team since 2000 and a youth team was created in 2005/2006 and this season a vets team was created.

In 2008, the Club won the NB1 final a secured promotion to the Extra League where they finished fourth in June 2009, losing the final play-off game to Kesckemet

The club is now comprised of a mix of expats, Hungarians, students, professionals, experienced players and those new to the sport.

History on tour:

The first major tour was to Albi in 1993. The Exiles made the National Cup final in 1994 , but lost to the Elefants. In 1995 the team played in an international tournament in Pecs which we won. A couple of weeks later the team went to Biarritz on tour. 1996 tour was to Nice. The 1997 tour was back to Biarritz and 1998 was Albi and Toulouse. The rugby was always good and the after rugby refreshment was always Ricard.

The Capitals Cup started in 1994 after Ed Gemmill moved from Budapest to Prague. In 2001 the club celebrated its first decade by hosting the tournament. The Exiles won and there is a photo of the team in the yahoo groups photo. We were runners up in '95, '02, '03 and ''06 .

Warsaw 10s started in 1996 and the Exiles attended every year until 2006. In recent years the club has toured to Poland for the Nova Huta 7s as well as coming runners up at the international Budapest 7s tournament in 2005 when Serbia Montenegro beat us in the final after we had beaten them in the group stages (we beat several other international teams on the way to the final including Hungary and Croatia), the loss was blamed on the second night of partying.

The team now plays in the Extra League, the Hungarian Premiership, and following a 4th place in the first year in the League (2008-2009) the team is aiming to consolidate and aiming for bigger and better things

Hungarian International Exiles:

The Exiles have supplied some players for the Hungarian national team and one coach, Michael 'Mancini' Cowan. The first players to represent Hungary, in 1994, were Steve Cook, Rolf Stub and Geraint Thomason. Later on Tibor Pasztor, Nico Heveli, James Donaldson, Howard Kenny, Mark Welsh and Gareth Lloyd would go on to play for Hungary with Tibor and Gareth still playing regularly.

The Christmas Ball:

Every December, from 1994 to 2007, the Exiles hosted the Pink and Black Christmas Ball with a mixture of professional and players entertainment, good food and wine, plenty of dancing and a charity auction all usually staged in the Marriott ballroom. This year we hope to resurrect the Ball so keep an eye out for info

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