Rugby is a very popular sports, played in France, England, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Japan and other countries around the world.

Did you know that the history of rugby in Japan is longer than that of every major rugby-playing country in the world outside of the British Isles and Australia?

The early documented rugby history (1864 article in a Welsh newspaper) shows that it was played in Japan earlier.

The earliest significant evidence of rugby being played can be found in The Japan Times, which records a meeting held on Jan. 26th 1866, to found the “Yokohama Foot Ball Club.”

Unfortunately, almost no one knows this history because Japan’s rugby establishment apparently effected by the story of a Japanese guy and his British friend who introduced rugby to Keio University in 1899.
However, the documented evidence was found which stated that Yokohama Foot Ball Club was established in 1866, which was confirmed by a senior official in Japan.

As you all already know, Japan will be hosting and proud to be the country to welcome everyone to visit and watch exciting matches and all support their teams.

If you do not yet know which cities will be hosting rugby world cup, then here they are:

Sapporo, Yokohama, Kobe, Fukuoka, Shizuoka, Kamaishi (Iwate), Kumagaya (Saitama), Kumamoto, Oita, Osaka, Toyota city and of course Tokyo.

Hosted once every 4 years, rugby world cup is a tournament to decide the world’s strongest team. Together with the Olympic games and FIFA World Cup, it is regarded as one of the World’s three major events. Previously, the tournaments have been hosted by countries in Europe and Oceania, traditional rugby strongholds. However, this time in 2019, Japan will host rugby world cup as the first country in Asia to do so, which makes it even more exciting and attractive by foreign visitors.

As you might already know it starts from September 20th, 2019 and will last 44 days, with 20 country teams participating this time.

Although Japan is not historically the traditional heartland of the sport, after the Japan national team’s thrilling and famous victory over South Africa in Rugby World Cup 2015 in England, rugby saw a large surge in popularity across the country and there is hope that the Japanese team can achieve even greater success in 2019, while hosting at home.

The opening game will take place at Tokyo Stadium; however, the two semi-finals and the final games will be played at the International Stadium Yokohama.

In Japan young people like to gather in the sports bars and support their team, by drinking, chatting, discussing and simply making friends, who will share same feelings and excitement.  

Just for your information, recently, Japan National Tourism Organization has launched a brand-new website (http://visitjapan2019.com/) to provide information to travelers and visitor who will visit Japan for the rugby world cup 2019 held across Japan.

The aim of the website is to highlight important details of the twelve host cities including access, local food and drink, places of interest and model itineraries. It is a great opportunity for rugby fans who are visiting each city for the games to explore the local area pre and post-matches. This website will also provide information on where each team is playing, the times and locations of each match plus general match venue details such as stadium access.

Also, it will continue to add new information to expand the website as the official kick-off approaches, future additions include the most recent event news, details about fan zones and further sightseeing information.

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