The invention of rugby is popularly attributed to an impulsive Rugby School pupil, William Webb-Ellis.
The invention of rugby is popularly attributed to an impulsive Rugby School pupil, William Webb-Ellis.
While playing a version of football in 1823 he is said to have caught the ball and charged up the pitch with it, with total disregard for the rules.
The story, first told half a century later, is almost certainly apocryphal and, whether true or not, is most unlikely to have been the birth of rugby.
Nonetheless, winners of the Rugby World Cup are awarded the William Webb-Ellis trophy in his honour.
During the early 19th Century, football was popular in English boarding schools. There were few rules, so each school or region developed its own.
Some, like Eton, played a kicking game. Others, like Rugby, played a variation where the ball was both kicked and handled.
When they competed against each other, half the match would be played by one school’s rules and the second half by the other’s. This is how half-time evolved.
The differing rules were first drawn together as a single coherent code in 1848 when a group of Cambridge University students who had played variations of football at public school drew up the Cambridge Rules.
On October 26th, 1863, several football clubs in London met at the Freemasons Arms pub in Great Queen Street to establish the “Football Association” and propose a single unifying code.
It differed from the Cambridge Rules on two crucial points.
The ball could not be handled. Nor could a player “hack”, or kick in the shins, an opponent to regain possession.
These two controversial points were debated at further meetings – and all but two of the public schools represented refused to join the new association.
At a fifth meeting, on December 8th, Blackheath football club withdrew its support for the new FA and marked the official split between football and rugby.
In December 1870 the secretary of Richmond Football Club, Edwin Ash, published a letter in the Times stating: “Those who play the rugby-type game should meet to form a code of practice as various clubs play different rules.”
So on January 26th 1871 representatives from 21 clubs met at a Pall Mall restaurant and founded the Rugby Football Union (RFU).
By June that year the laws had been drawn up by three ex-Rugby School pupils and approved by RFU members. The number of players per team was cut from 20 to 15 in 1877.
Initially, points were only awarded for kicking the ball over the posts, but points scored for a “try” were eventually recognised and rose in value to reach three by 1891, staying that way for 81 years.
In 1886, Scotland, Ireland and Wales formed the International Rugby Football Board.
England initially refused to join, but were members by 1890.
After a complex beginning, full of splits and disagreements, rugby was flourishing.
But it wasn’t long before it encountered further turmoil, and divided in two.
