In the first match of a rugby-filled weekend, the San Francisco Fog Women goes up against the Oregon Sports Union Rugby Club perennial powerhouse women’s team from Portland, OR at 1pm this upcoming Saturday, October 4 at our home pitch on Treasure Island. Video highlights of the match will be shown on the club’s FogTV video channel on YouTube.

Come on out to cheer on the Lady Fog after our Rugby 101 Clinic in their Pacific Coast Rugby Football Union league match!

Place: Treasure Island on the corner of Avenue D & 9th Street
Date: Saturday, October 4
Time: Kickoff at 2pm

FOG RUGBY - LEARN A SPORT, JOIN A FAMILY

The San Francisco Fog RFC will have a recruiting booth, and also fully staff two liquor booths, at the fun and exciting Castro Street Fair this Sunday, October 5, 2008 in the epicenter of the Castro District in San Francisco (Castro St., 18th St. and Market St.).

Come out to meet us, learn what the incredible sport of rugby is like, and see what our family is all about! Check out our FogTV video of the Fog at the Castro Street Fair in 2006 to see for yourself!

Place: Castro Street Fair on Castro and Market Streets
Date: Sunday, October 5
Time: 11am to 6pm

In the second match of a rugby-filled weekend, the San Francisco Fog Women faces off against the 2007 Women’s National Champions Berkeley All-Blues at 1pm this upcoming Sunday, October 5 at our home pitch on Treasure Island.

If you’re not going to see the Fog at the Castro Street Fair, come on out to Treasure Island to cheer on the Lady Fog!

Place: Treasure Island on the corner of Avenue D & 9th Street
Date: Sunday, October 5
Time: Kickoff at 1pm

Fresh from their victorious road trip to Seattle last weekend, the Women of Fog Rugby squared off in the first home match of the season against the newly-formed Davis DoubleDeckers women’s rugby squad. The game featured outstanding rugby play and a tight score throughout all 80 minutes of the match, with the Fog falling just short of the victory line and a final score of 16-12 in favor of the upstart DoubleDeckers.

The following FogTV match video can also be viewed in high quality. Also, take a look at some of the photos from this match.

FOG RUGBY - LEARN A SPORT, JOIN A FAMILY

The San Francisco Fog RFC will have a recruiting booth, and also fully staff a liquor booth, at the 25th annual leather-themed Folsom Street Fair this Sunday, September 28, 2008 on Folsom Street between 7th Street and 12th Street in San Francisco, CA.

Come out to meet us, learn what the incredible sport of rugby is like, and see what our family is all about!

Place: Folsom Street Fair on Folsom between 7th and 12th Street
Date: Sunday, September 28
Time: 11am to 6pm

On Friday, September 19, come out to The LookOut Bar at 3600 16th Street in the exciting Castro district to enjoy all the Budweiser beer you can drink from 6pm to 9:30pm for only 8 dollars!

The Fog will also be selling clothing merchandise (including t-shirts and hats) and holding a raffle with exciting prizes throughout the evening! The Fog will also be showing video highlights of their matches throughout the last season as seen on their FogTV YouTube channel on their big screen TVs!

And did we mention there will be LOTS of rugby players to hang out with? Come on out, unwind after a hard work week, and enjoy a beer with us!

The San Francisco Fog Women traveled up the coast to Seattle, Washington for a weekend of rugby, playing two matches in consecutive days within the Pacific Coast Rugby Football Union Women’s Division. The Fog lost Saturday’s game against the Seattle Mudhens, a club that made the Sweet 16 USA rugby women’s national championship playoffs last year, by a score of 46-7. The ladies then bounced back on Sunday as victors by defeating the Seattle Breakers 21-20, winning in the last few seconds on a try and conversion kick and ending the weekend on a high note.

The next game for the Lady Fog will be against the Davis RFC from Davis, California in two weeks on Saturday, September 27 at the Fog’s home pitch in Treasure Island.

SF FOG TO CREATE TWO FULL-SIZE RUGBY PITCHES

(12 Sep 2008) The San Francisco Fog RFC has signed a lease for 6-1/2 acres of land on Treasure Island, the club’s chief officer, Carl Fortney, announced today.

Large enough for two full-size, regulation pitches (playing fields), the location will be developed by the Fog for use in its home matches and practices.

Fortney said that Fog Rugby will be seeking corporate sponsorships to defray the cost of the site improvements, which may include the sale of naming rights for the field.

The Fog began using Treasure Island’s rugby pitches for events in 2005, when the second FogFest rugby festival was held there. In fall 2007, after years of hopscotching around the city of San Francisco in search of practice grounds, one of the TI pitches became the ongoing site of Fog Rugby training sessions. The newly leased land is adjacent to the existing rugby fields.

Treasure Island is an artificial island in the San Francisco Bay between San Francisco and Oakland. Named after the novel Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson (who lived in San Francisco from 1879 to 1880), the island was created in 1936 & 1937 for the Golden Gate International Exposition.

Watch for further announcements concerning Fog Rugby’s Treasure Island home over the coming weeks and months. For information about sponsorship opportunities, please contact us.

Every September 11, the Fog pauses to remember Mark Bingham, our friend and an early member of the San Francisco Fog.

Mark was a successful public relations executive who’d played rugby for the perennial national champions, UC Berkeley. The Fog, by contrast, was a newly formed club that hoped to join the competitive Northern California Rugby Football Union (NCRFU) as its first team geared primarily toward gay men and men of color.

We were mostly complete novices to the game, and our training sessions were horribly remedial, but Mark started showing up anyway. He coached, cajoled, and crashed through our practices, and played No. 8 in our first two friendly matches and in our first tournament (where he promptly dislocated his shoulder). He taught us his favorite rugby songs and made us feel like we were part of something bigger than ourselves. That was early 2001.

Over the summer the Fog did gain entry into the NCRFU. Mark, traveling in Europe, let us know how proud he was of the club’s achievement. He also told us what it meant for him to be part of a rugby team comprised entirely of gay men: “As we worked and sweated and ran and talked together this year, I finally felt accepted as a gay man and a rugby player. My two irreconcilable worlds came together.”

Mark never got another opportunity to play for the Fog. He was aboard United flight 93 when it crashed in rural Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.

This Thursday we will gather once again to remember Mark and the many gifts he brought to our young club. And as always, we will honor his mother, Alice Hoagland, too. A tireless supporter of Fog Rugby and of the international gay rugby movement, Hoagland can usually be seen cheering on teams from all over the world at the biennial Bingham Cup tournament, established by the Fog in 2002 in her son’s memory.

For the full text of Mark Bingham’s final email to the Fog, see our About page.

The San Francisco Fog Women traveled down the coast and made a very strong showing at the Tri-Tip 7’s Rugby Tournament hosted by the home club San Luis Obispo RFC on Saturday, September 6, 2008, as the Lady Fog persevered and made it to the final match, losing in the end by a very slim point margin.

The Fog Ladies first played SLO Beaches, an experienced Women’s side, and held their own with two tries a-piece and a final score of 10-12. The next two games “were short work,” as the Fog squared off against Eagle Rock Rugby, a new Women’s Team in California, and the SLO Rookies, a side filled with new ruggers. The final match “pitted SLO Beaches again against the Lady Fog,” and the song remained the same on this day with a final score of 10-12.

Scores from all four games will be posted soon.