As early as 1875 a group of British Embassy employees played rugby on the Szabadság tér in Budapest. At the 1935 World University Games held in Budapest, rugby was also included in the program. Reasons given for the hosts not participating were lack of time for preparation and a serious injury suffered by a player. Italians have played a major part in the establishment of Hungarian rugby, namely the late Carlos Passalacqua and his friends from the Italian Embassy in Budapest. The game was originally introduced by a group of Italian diplomats in the 1960s and 70s. who founded a number of clubs. However, when they left, the game withered away in all but Budapest, where a small group of enthusiasts kept it going. Like neighbouring Austria and the Czech Republic, rugby has tended to be strongest in the national capital Budapest - however, in 1981, it would spread into the town of Kecskemét. The former All Blackscrum halfChris Laidlaw, writing at the end of the 1970s, saw rugby as a positive force in east-west relations at the time: Chris Laidlaw writing of the open secret of shamateurism in Soviet sport said: Hungary had its first international in 1990, shortly after the foundation of the national union. This was against East Germany, which they lost with a respectable scoreline of 3-7. In the early 1990s, former Italian cap, Dr Giancarlo Tiziani was a major driving force in Austrian rugby. Before his death in 1994, he tried hard to establish a Central European equivalent of the Five Nations between Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia. There are over two thousand registered players in the country. On 6 October 2012 a new record was set for most spectators to watch a rugby match in the country with over 3000 people watching Hungary win against Bulgaria 28-23 in a Rugby World Cup 2015 qualifier.
Notable players
Hungarian actor András Stohl played scrum-half for the now-defunct ELTE-BEAC in the 1980s. He was also involved with the MRgSz in some capacity in the first decade of the 2000s.
