alive by young professionals, mostly Europeans, working in these countries. The official union of Oman was formed in 1971. Bahrain founded its union a year later, while in 1975 the Dubai Sevens, the Gulf's leading rugby tournament, was created. Rugby remains a minority sport in the region with Israel and the United Arab Emirates, as of 2019, being the only member union from the Middle East to be included in the IRB World Rankings. Africa In 1875, rugby was introduced to South Africa by British soldiers garrisoned in Cape Town. The game spread quickly across the country, displacing Winchester College football as the sport of choice in South Africa and spreading to nearby Zimbabwe. South African settlers also brought the game with them to Namibia and competed against British administrators in British East Africa. During the late 19th and early 20th century, the sport in Africa was spread by settlers and colonials who often adopted a "whites-only" policy to playing the game. This resulted in rugby being viewed as a bourgeois sport by the indigenous people with limited appeal. Despite this enclaves of black participation developed notably in the Eastern Cape and in Harare. The earliest countries to see the playing of competitive rugby include South Africa, and neighbouring Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), which formed the Rhodesia Rugby Football Union in 1895 and became a regular stop for touring British and New Zealand sides. In more recent times the sport has been embraced by several African nations. In the early 21st century Madagascar has experienced crowds of 40,000 at national matches, while Namibia, whose history of rugby can be dated from 1915, have qualified for the final stages of the World Cup four times since 1999. Other African nations to be represented in the World Rugby Rankings as Member Unions include Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. South Africa and Kenya are among the 15 "core teams" that participate in every event of the men's World Rugby Sevens Series. Women's rugby union Records of women's rugby football date from the late 19th century, with the first documented source being Emily Valentine's writings, in which she states that she set up a rugby team in Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Ireland in 1887. Although there are reports of early women's matches in New Zealand and France, one of the first notable games to prove primary evidence was the 1917 war-time encounter between