Atlantica - 01.06.2011, Side 66

64 a t l a n t i c a
By Júlíana BJörnSdóTTir
PhotoS By BorGThór SaevarSSon
And Páll STefánSSon
It’s a cool and rainy Sunday afternoon in
Reykjavík. On the grassy training fields of
Valur Football Club, one team is wearing
blue, red and white jerseys and the other one
a blue shade of purple with yellow snowflakes.
The home team is the Reykjavík Raiders and the
guests are the Thunderbirds Old Boys. This is
the first Rugby Union game ever to be played
in Iceland.
The players are of all ages, shapes and sizes,
each coming with their own story. Some have
played for as long as they can remember, others
discovered the game by accident as adults look-
ing for a team sport they could actually enjoy. A
38-year-old engineer, a 30-year-old banker, uni-
versity students in their early 20s, academics and
business men sharing a passion for a sport that
requires stamina and strategic thinking.
The spectators are mostly friends and fam-
ily of the players, but also curious passersby
intrigued by the intense physicality of the play-
ers as well as the peculiarity of a game charac-
terized by scrums and tackles, or so it seems in
the eyes of someone new to the game.
The Reykjavík Raiders’ story began just over
a year ago at the English Pub in the center of
From Expats
with Love
having started a year ago, thanks to a group of expats seeking to enrich the country’s
culture, rugby continues to gain a rapid following in Iceland. Júlíana Björnsdóttir
attended the historic first ever Rugby union game played here, and learned
more about the people who love to play the sport sometimes
referred to as a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen.