History

At the invitation of Te Werve (sport facilities) Shell Lensbury Team played two games in 1952 Holland, the first match was at The Te Werve grounds against the Holland –B team and the next game was played against the Dutch National team. Both matches were won by our Lensbury friends, both events helped to boost the popularity of a relatively unknown sport in the Netherlands.

In February of 1953 the club was officially founded and due to the many expats the club thrived in the top level of Dutch Rugby. This resulted in the winning of the first Dutch National Title in 1956. Furthermore they managed to win the prestigious National Béchet Cup in 1959.

As crown on Te Werve's 10-year anniversary, the team managed to win the Dutch National title once again(1963).

In recent years Te Werve has played in the league under the "Ere Klasse"

Te Werve has always maintained many foreign contacts:
With Teams from Tchecoslovakia, Germany, France, Italy and Spain not to forget The National Team of Bermuda visiting us traditionally in the Easter period.

Through the years Te Werve teams have toured Austria, the Basque country, Brittany, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dublin, Edinburgh, Jersey, Lensbury, Paris, Paderborn and Poland.
The expats that form the teams come from many countries, including nations as exotic as Zimbabwe, Ghana, South Africa and Scotland.

Rugby is a sport with many traditions and at times exceptional group behaviour "30 Dead ants on the floor of London Heathrow airport floor".
On one of the Jersey trips the whole team departed dressed Hawaiian style with flower garlands around their necks, this drew quite a lot of public attention and caused quite some commotion on arrival in Jersey when the Te Werve Tourists claimed they were hijacked and that they were still planning to fly on to Hawaii.

Easter 1993, the 40th anniversary of the club celebrated with a tournament in which teams from Lensbury, Carrington, Stanlow and Nam competed for the John-Jennings Trophy, named after the first player/coach that taught Te Werve to play the game.
In 1998 Te Werve moved to its present location on the Celeritas / Te Werve grounds on the Leyweg 1630.

Fred Baan ( ? – 2010)

After a few struggling years in the late 90’s, Te Werve started the new Millenium in style thanks to new blood flooding from all over the globe. On the impulsion of the then-coach Jim Tait, Te Werve Second Team has been created. The club continued to grow from that moment on, and in 2004, Te Werve became 2nd Division Champions and promoted to 1st Division. After three seasons in the 1st Division, we got invited back to 2nd Division after an epic play-offs against our neighbours of HRC 2. All through the years, nobody knows how many players actually wore the Te Werve jersey, but everybody who did, surely remembers!

Benoit Wach