Chris Krause (second from left)





Dave Thompson, Val Krause, Bob Kreasul

OUR FOUNDER

Chris Krause was born in Germany in 1923 and immigrated to England when he was a boy of 12 years of age. Later on Chris immigrated to Canada in 1951. He played wing-three-quarter with the Toronto Nomads in the early 1950s, and started working for General Motors in Oshawa in 1956.

Chris realised that the Canadian boys had few opportunities to participate in contact sports after high school, and believe that rugby would fill a void for enthusiastic young athletes. When somebody - possibly Jimmy Stephenson - said "Why don't you start your own club, Krause?", Chris did exactly that.

The official foundation date for the Oshawa Vikings R.F.C. was Thursday, 12 February 1959, when Chris chaired a meeting of 35 people at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Oshawa. Chris became Team Secretary on the first executive, and was involved in the running of the club - mostly in a Team or Match Secretary role - until 1972, serving as President in 1967.

The Vikings club colours were chosen to represent the black of New Zealand and the red of Wales, in honour of the Welsh ancestry of Chris' wife Brenda.

Chris and the Vikings club were also very active in the development of schools rugby in the Oshawa area, and the success of Oshawa schools in the early Ontario High School Championships, which Chris helped organise, contributed significantly to the club's growth through the 1960s.

Chris Krause passed away in the winter of 1983 following a lengthy battle with cancer. We all miss his enthusiasm and tenacity. We honour his memory with an annual men's and women's tournament held on consecutive weekends in the spring.