History

• The Stellenbosch Rugby Football Club is the second oldest rugby club in South Africa and was founded in 1875. This means that the Club will this year be one hundred and thirty seven years old. The oldest club is Hammiltons Rugby Club and the third oldest the Villager Rugby Club.
• In general the players of the club are referred to as Maties, in all probability derived from the Afrikaans word for tomatoes ("tamaties"), based on the maroon coloured jerseys in which the teams still play.
• The headquarters of the Maties is The Danie Craven Stadium at Coetzenburg in Stellenbosch.
• Apart from the Craven Stadium which can accommodate 17 000 spectators, the club utilises thirteen additional rugby fields for training and matches.
• Forty-four teams of sixteen hostel rugby clubs participate in the Steinhoff Matie hostel league.
• Eight Matie club teams and one women's team participate in the leagues of the WP Rugby Football Union.
• With fifty-three teams and more than 1300 registered rugby players that participate in league matches, the Matie Club is most probably one of the biggest competitive rugby clubs in the world.
• Through history the Matie Club has produced several rugby legends, such as Paul Roos, AF Markötter and Danie Craven.
• The Matie Club has its own Supporters Club.
• The Matie Club has its own Referees Committee with more than forty-five referees who are responsible for the more than 500 matches in the five different hostel leagues.
• The Matie Rugby Academy runs three academies. This includes the Development Academy, the Referees Academy and the Schools Academy. 
• Through the Maties Rugby Academy: Development, the Maties are involved with rugby development in Mitchell’s Plain, Khayelitsha, Stellenbosch, Kylemore, Kayamandi, Genadendal and Malmesbury.  In Mitchell’s Plain alone more than ninety schools are involved in the Maties programme. 

Matie Achievements

• The Maties have already produced 171 Springboks and 15 Springbok test captains. Current Springboks are Jean de Villiers, Schalk Burger, Gio Aplon, Juan de Jongh and Juandre Kruger.
• The Matie Sevens Team is the first overseas team to win the well-known Melrose Sevens tournament in Scotland on two consecutive occasions, and has also won the Centrale 7’s in France, Bernidorm 7's in Spain and Roma 7's during 2008.
• The Maties have already won the National Club Championship twelve times. The second-best club team could only win the title on three occasions.
• Since the revival of the National Club Championship fifteen years ago, the Matie First team qualified to compete in the Championship fourteen times.
• The Matie First Team has been the WP Champion and winner of the Grand Challenge Trophy for thirteen of the last fifteen years.
• The Matie First team has won the FNB Varsity Cup in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
• Since inception of the Cape Town 10’s tournament in 2009 Maties has been the only team that lifted the trophy by winning the 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 tournament.
• Matie rugby players annually constitute the nucleus of the rugby teams of Western Province. Over the past seven years, the following number of Maties represented the different teams.
  
  

  	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
  Stormers	13	13	10	15	17	13	13
  WP Currie Cup Team	21	14	18	16	18	19	19
  WP Vodacom Team	15	16	17	19	8	19	15
  WP U/21 Team	14	12	16	16	20	23	21
  WP U/19	14*	13	18	5	27	25	4
  	(* U/20)

• With vested long term sponsors, the Matie Club is a financial independent club.