London French
FOLLOW US ONLINE TWITTER.COM/RUGBYCLUBMAG
London French
RUGBY FOOTBALL CLUB
The London French Rugby Football Club is
based in Barnes was created in 1959 by
the children of WW2’s French expatriates
who were studying at the French Lycée.
The club’s identity has been built through
the years based on friendship, fair-play
and the famous ‘French flair’! Rugby Club
Magazine recently caught up with Club
Representative Julien Masselot to find out
more.
Involvement
He told us, “Two years after moving
to London, I wanted to reconnect with the
French community and having been told
about the London French RFC by friends
I used to play rugby with in France, I
decided to join the club in 2009 as a
player initially. From the very first training
session I attended, I felt more than
88 Issue 79
welcome in this wide family, with various
generations of players getting together to
wear this jersey every week.
Due to family commitments, I had to
reduce my involvement on the playing
side; however I could not leave entirely the
club as I wanted others to be able to play
rugby with fellow expatriates. I became
one of the directors of the club in 2015,
being in charge of the treasury and club
data officer.”
The Role
“As for many clubs in the UK, our
structure is quite small and as we like to
say ‘run by the players for the players’.
It means that players and various
administrators are volunteers who are
giving their spare time but also have a
full-time job during the week, and as such
it can be very challenging to organise
the training sessions, weekly games,
gathering availabilities and various
subscriptions, but also helping for the
bigger events during the year such as the
Beaujolais Nouveau party, the Annual
Ball and the 5 Nations tournament. It is
however very rewarding to see our club
growing, evolving through the years,
especially with the creation of our Mini
and Youth section in 2014, and now with
our Vet team since September 2017.”
Present
“This season has not been the easiest
for our club as you might expect following
the outcome of the Brexit referendum.
Many of us are expatriates, and we have
had a good number of players going
back to France with their families last