Okinawa
Okinawa (Kadena) Rugby Football Club
(Insert Club patch here) Started in 1974 by Sean Edris, USAF, when the American base in Taiwan (CCK) was decommissioned and mostly moved to Kadena, and along with it, most of the CCK rugby team. The team was originally named the Lyons, and in one of the first games played, had no ref. So coach Edris ref'd and played scrumhalf at the same time. As he remembers "I was a fantastic ref, which we all know is the mantra of all scrum halfs, who have always been the unofficial deputy refs anyway"
Okinawa RFU was founded in May or so of 1978 and prior to its foundation, the civilian Japanese teams on the island, i.e., Gurukun and Ryukyu University, refused to play against any of the U.S. teams because they considered that we did not play rugby. They considered us to be playing American football and calling it rugby. When Mike Malone, USMC, arrived in August of ’77, he began playing with and helping coach the Wild West Show, occasionally refereeing. In late 1977, PO2 Ed Hutsell convinced the Fukushima Prefecture championship team with which he had played, to come down to Okinawa to play Gurukun in the football stadium on Kadena Air Base, with Kadena’s CG in attendance. Kadena played the JASDF team as the opener to Gurukun match, refereed by Mike Malone. Gurukun saw the match against the JASDF team and saw that there was very little, if any foul play. Having witnessed the US team play a match relatively free of foul play, Gurukun and Ryukyu University were convinced to begin negotiating in forming the Okinawa RFU, accomplished in late spring of 1978.
The team was later renamed the Okinawa Wild West Show with Kadena AB continuing as the center of its activity. In 1983 a team was created on Kadena proper ("Falcons") [[1]], but the Wild West Team carried on. At some point prior to 1993, the Wild West team changed names to the "Hellcats"
Not sure when this patch was popular (do not have a copy with rugby spelt correctly!)
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