A Czechoslovak international team including players from an Austrian club called Wiener Amateure as well as players from the Slavia Bratislava club first played against Romania in 1927, but the match is seen as unofficial, since the Czechoslovak Rugby Union was only formed in 1928. They were captained by one František Ruber, who incidentally was a very good friend of
Ondřej Sekora. Their first official match was against
Germany in
Leipzig in 1931. In 1934 they were among the founding members of
FIRA (as it was then known) along with
France,
Italy,
Spain,
Catalonia,
Romania and
Germany. In 1956 they took on
France in
Toulouse, losing by a respectable 3–28, which is considered remarkable, as rugby in Czechoslovakia was considerably ravaged by
World War II. Some of their most notable players were Zdeněk Barchánek, Eduard Krützner, who was president of the
Czech Rugby Union later on and Bruno Kudrna,
Czech Rugby Player of the Year a record six times. ==See also==