The Development of Nomads Internationally

It is probable that when our Club was founded in 1960 scant thought had been given to the prospect of there being any International Nomads Clubs founded in the future. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that when Brian Norgarb prompted our Founder, Mike Florance, to allow him to start a Club in what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia, it eventually came into being as just another Club among the fraternity that made up the South African Club as a whole.

However in 1978 the debate about spreading the Nomads fraternity to International status was very much in focus and resulted in high level deliberation as to whether this was the correct route to follow. Eventually after much introspection it was decided that due to the situation that South Africa occupied in world politics at the time it was inopportune to try to expand our Nomads' horizons at that time and thus the situation was left until circumstances themselves overtook us.

The issue forcibly became a reality when in 1981 Rhodesia gained its independence and became Zimbabwe. The Nomads fraternity in Harare were then forced to sever contact with their SA brethren and so our first International Club was born.
Following on this enforced separation such was the strength of Nomads in Zimbabwe that they fairly shortly afterwards had formed two additional Clubs in their country and started to host their own independent National Tournaments.

Then in the late '90s contact was made by a group of fellows based in Gaborone in Botswana, who called themselves Gomads and worked along virtually identical lines to the SA Nomads, to become associated with SA Nomads and to be formally named Nomads.

At the same time as this some expatriate ex-Nomads from Southern Natal who had settled in New Zealand also decided that they wanted to establish a Nomads Club in Auckland.

In the early 2000s the same urge to form a Nomads Club was felt by yet another expatriate Southern Natal Nomad, Wayne Richardson, who was living in Australia and so the Sydney North Club was started. This rapidly lead to another Club in the Sydney area and this was known as Sydney Hills. Unfortunately this Club could not sustain its initial enthusiasm and was absorbed into the Sydney North Club fairly shortly afterwards.

Following his transfer from Sydney to the Gold Coast Wayne was instrumental in starting the Brisbane Nomads Club.
A resurgence of interest has since occurred in the Sydney area and due to the limitations on their field size it was necessary to start another club in the Sydney area and this was named Sydney South.

Towards the end of the first decade of 2000 an approach was received from the brother of a Border Nomad, situated in England to start a Club in the Newbury area of the UK. This Club is somewhat different from the norms expected of the southern hemisphere Clubs in that, due to weather constraints, they are not able to have monthly meetings every month of the year. Consequently their playing year is from March to November.
This Clubs also has several ex-Southern Africa Nomads as part of their Founder Membership.

Finally, for the moment anyway, a new and very enthusiastic Club was Inaugurated in Swaziland in February 2012.

Over the years we have been approached by several ex-patriate Nomads who are "homesick" for the pleasures that Nomads camaraderie can bring but to date these pleas have not developed into seriously meaningful activities, however it is the policy of Nomads South Africa to assist wherever possible in the formation of International Clubs in the attempt to ensure that such Clubs bear as close a resemblance as possible to the high standards we expect of the South African Clubs.