Early History
Playing football has a long tradition in England and football had probably been played at Rugby School for two hundred years before three boys published the first set of written rules in 1845. The rules had always been determined by the pupils and not the masters and they were frequently modified with each new intake. Rules changes, such as the legality of carrying or running with the ball, were often agreed shortly before the commencement of a game. There were thus no formal rules for football during the time William Webb Ellis was at the school (1816-1825) and the legendary story of the boy “who with a fine disregard for the rules as played in his time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it” in 1823 is apocryphal. The story first appeared in 1876, some four years after the death of Webb Ellis, and is attributed to a local antiquarian and former Rugbeian Matthew Bloxam. Bloxam was not a comtemporary of Webb Ellis and vaguely quoted an unnamed person as informing him of the incident that had supposedly happened 53 years earlier. The story has been dismissed as unlikely since an official investigation by the Old Rugbeian Society in 1895. However, the trophy for the Rugby Union World Cup is named “Webb Ellis” in his honour (as is Ellis Park in Johannesburg a major international rugby union stadium), and a plaque at the school commemorates the ‘achievement’.
Rugby football has strong claims to the world’s first and oldest “football club”: the Guy’s Hospital Football Club, formed in London in 1843, by old boys from Rugby School. Around the anglosphere, a number of other clubs formed to play games based on the Rugby School rules. One of these, Dublin University Football Club, founded in 1854, has arguably become the world’s oldest surviving football club in any code. The Blackheath Rugby Club, in London, founded in 1858, is the oldest surviving non-university rugby club.
The schism between the Football Association and Rugby Football
The Football Association was formed at the Freemason’s Tavern, Great Queen Street, on Lincoln Inn Fields, London October 26, 1863 with the intention to frame a code of laws that would embrace the best and most acceptable points of all the various methods of play under the one heading of “football”. At the beginning of the fourth meeting attention was drawn to the fact that a number of newspapers had recently published the Cambridge Rules of 1863. The Cambridge rules differed from the draft FA rules in two significant areas; namely ‘running with the ball’ and ‘hacking’ (kicking an opponent in the shins). The two contentious draft rules were as follows:
IX. A player shall be entitled to run with the ball towards his adversaries’ goal if he makes a fair catch, or catches the ball on the first bound; but in case of a fair catch, if he makes his mark he shall not run.
X. If any player shall run with the ball towards his adversaries’ goal, any player on the opposite side shall be at liberty to charge, hold, trip or hack him, or to wrest the ball from him, but no player shall be held and hacked at the same time.
At the fifth meeting a motion was proposed that these two rules be expunged from the FA rules, F. W. Campbell a member of the Blackheath Club argued that hacking is an essential element of the ‘football’ and that to eliminate hacking would “do away with all the courage and pluck from the game, and I will be bound over to bring over a lot of Frenchmen who would beat you with a week’s practice”. At the 6th meeting on December 8 F.W.C. withdrew the Blackheath Club explaining that the rules that the FA intended to adopt would destroy the game and all interest in it. Other rugby clubs follow this lead and did not join the Football Association.
of the game
The forming of the First Rugby Union
In December 1870 Edwin Ash, Secretary of Richmond Football Club published a letter in the papers which said, ‘Those who play the rugby-type game should meet to form a code of practice as various clubs play to rules which differ from others, which makes the game difficult to play.’ On January 26, 1871 a meeting attended by representatives from 22 clubs was held in London at the Pall Mall Restaurant. As a result of this meeting Rugby Football Union (RFU) was founded. Three lawyers who had been pupils at Rugby School drew up the first laws of the game which were approved in June 1871.
Teams that met to form the union
* Blackheath
* Richmond
* Ravenscourt Park
* West Kent
* Marlborough Nomads
* Wimbledon Hornets
* Gipsies
* Civil Service
* Law Club
* Wellington College
* Guy’s Hospital
* Flamingoes
* Clapham Rovers
* Harlequins
* King’s College
* St Paul’s School
* Queen’s House
* Lausanne
* Addison
* Mohicans
* Belsize Park
(Wasps were invited but due to a mix-up failed to attend.)
First international game
The first international rugby union game was played at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh on March 27, 1871 between England and Scotland. It was won by the latter, though England got revenge at the Kennington Oval, London in the following year. (See the library of the Scottish Rugby Union for details.)
The forming of the International Rugby Football Board
In 1884 England had a disagreement with Scotland over a try that England had scored but the referee disallowed citing a foul by Scotland. England argued that the referee should have played advantage and since they made the Law, if they said it was a try then it was. The International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) was formed by Scotland, Ireland and Wales in 1886 but England refused to join since they believed they should have greater representation on the board because they had a greater number of clubs. They also refused to accept that the IRFB should be the recognised law maker of the game. The IRFB agreed that the member countries would not play England until the RFU agreed to join and accept that the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) would oversee the games between the home unions. England finally agreed to join in 1890.
Evolution of modern rules
Changes to the laws of the game have been made at various times and this process still continues today.
The number of players was reduced from twenty to fifteen-a-side in 1877
Historically, no points at all were awarded for a try, the reward being to “try” to kick the ball over the posts. Some historians record the first international between Scotland and England finishing 0-0 for this reason. The first points scoring system was created in 1889.
The balance in value between tries and conversions has changed greatly over the years. Until 1891, a try scored one point, a conversion two. For the next two years tries scored two points and conversion three, until in 1893 the modern pattern of tries scoring more was begun with three points awarded for a try, two for a kick. The number of points from a try increased to four in 1971 and five in 1992.
Penalties have been worth three points since 1891 (they previously had been worth two points). The value of the drop goal was four points between 1891 and 1948, but three points at all other times.
The goal from mark was abandoned in 1971, having been worth three points, except between 1891 and 1905 when it was worth four.
Until 1870 rugby was played with a spherical ball with an inner-tube made of a pigs’ bladder. In 1870 Richard Lindon introduced rubber inner-tubes and because of the pliability of rubber the shape gradually changed from a sphere to an egg. In 1892 the RFU endorsed ovalness as the compulsory shape. The gradual flattening of the ball continued over the years. In the 1980 leather-encased balls, which were prone to water-logging, were replaced with balls encased in synthetic waterproof materials.[1]
The schism between union and league
On August 29, 1895 at a meeting at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, twenty clubs from Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire decided to resign from the RFU and form the Northern Rugby Football Union which from 1922 would be known as the Rugby Football League. The dispute about payment was one which at the time was also affecting soccer and cricket. Each game had to work out a compromise; Rugby was the least successful at doing this. It would be a century before union legalised payments to players and would allow players who had played a game of league (even at an amateur level) to play in a union game.
World War I
The Five Nations Championship was suspended in 1915 and it was not resumed until 1920. One hundred and thirty three international players were killed during the conflict.
Interesting times 1931 – 1947
For many years, the sport’s authorities had suspected that the governing body of French Rugby Union, the French Rugby Federation (FFR) was allowing the abuse of the rules on amateurism, and in 1931 the French Rugby Union was suspended from playing against the other nations. Looking round for an alternative, many French players turned to rugby league, which soon became the dominant game in France, particularly in the south west of the country.
In 1934 the Federation Internationale de Rugby Amateur (FIRA) was formed at the instigation of the French. It was designed to organise rugby union outside the authority of IRB. In 1990s the organisation recognised the IRB as the governing body of rugby union world wide and became in 1999 FIRA - Association of European Rugby an organisation to promote and rule over rugby union in the European area.
In 1939 the FFR was invited to send a team to the Five Nations Championship for the following season, but when war was declared, international rugby was suspended. Eighty eight international rugby union football players were killed during the conflict.
In the UK, for the duration of the World War II the ban on rugby league players was temporarily lifted by the RFU. Many played in the eight rugby “Internationals” between England and Scotland which were played by Armed Services teams, using the rugby union code. The authorities also allowed the playing of two “Rugby League vs. Rugby Union” fixtures as fundraisers for the war effort. The rugby league team (which included some pre-war professionals) won both matches, which were held under union rules.
After the defeat of France in 1940, the French Rugby Union authorities worked with the German collaborating Vichy regime to re-establish the dominance of their sport; Rugby League was banned and many players and officials of the sport were punished. All of the assets of the Rugby League and its clubs were handed over to the Union. The consequences of this action reverberate to this day; the assets were never returned, and although the ban on rugby league was lifted, it was prevented from calling itself “rugby” until the mid-eighties, having to use the name Jeu de Treize (Game of Thirteen, in reference to the number of player in a rugby league side)
In 1947 the Five Nations Championship resumed with France taking part.
The Rugby World Cup
For more details see Rugby World Cup#History
The first Rugby World Cup was held in New Zealand in 1987, and was won by the hosts. The Second was held in England in 1991 and was won by Australia who beat the hosts in the final. The World Cup of 1995 proved to be a turning point for the game. The competition was held in South Africa, newly readmitted from international exile. The first superstar was created when giant wing Jonah Lomu scored four tries for the All Blacks against England. The Springboks won the final, beating the All Blacks 15-12 thanks to Joel Stransky’s boot. South African President Nelson Mandela, dressed not in a suit but in the Springbok jersey, long a symbol of apartheid, with the name and number (7) of South Africa’s captain Francois Pienaar, gave Pienaar the William Webb Ellis Trophy.
This had shown the commercial potential for the game, and breakaway competitions were being formed, thus forcing the hand of the authorities to declare the game open.
The Professional Era
On August 26, 1995 the International Rugby Board declared rugby union an “open” game and thus removed all restrictions on payments or benefits to those connected with the game. It did this because of a committee conclusion that to do so was the only way to end the hypocrisy of Shamateurism and to keep control of rugby union (there were rumours that Rupert Murdoch was planning to finance a Southern Hemisphere professional league).
The rugby union authorities of the time hoped that as players could now play in either code, in the long term most of the sponsorship and interest would gravitate away from league to union. The union clubs and national teams in Australia and England stand to gain the most, as they are able to call upon talent in terms of ideas, players and support from the league heartlands. Conversely, the ending of sanctions against the playing of rugby league led to some amateur union players moving the other way and sampling the ‘other code’.
The move to professionalism was not without its problems, and the many smaller unions have struggled (both financially and in playing terms) to compete with the major nations since the start of the open era. In England whilst some teams flourished in the proressional era others such as Richmond, Wakefield, Orrell, Waterloo and London Scottish found the going much harder and have either folded or dropped down the leagues.
Timeline of the foundation of national rugby unions/federations
Year the National Rugby unions were founded:
* 1871 (England) Rugby Football Union (RFU)
* 1873 Scottish Rugby Union
* 1874 Southern (Australian) Rugby Union (later New South Wales Rugby Union)
* 1879 Irish Rugby Football Union (a merger of two Irish unions both formed in 1874)
* 1880 Welsh Rugby Union
* 1883 Northern (Australian) Rugby Union (later Queensland Rugby Union)
* 1889 South African Rugby Board
* 1892 New Zealand Rugby Football Union
* 1895 Rhodesia Rugby Football Union (Zimbabwe RFU after 1980)
* 1899 Argentinian Rugby Union
* 1913 Fijian Rugby Union
* 1919 French Rugby Federation
* 1923 Spanish Rugby Federation
* 1923 Tongan Rugby Football Union
* 1923 Samoan Rugby Football Union
* 1926 Japanese Rugby Football Union
* 1928 Italian Rugby Federation
* 1931 Romanian Rugby Federation
* 1949 Australian Rugby Union
* 1951 Uruguay Rugby Union
* 1961 Cote d’Ivoire Rugby Federation
* 1964 Georgian Rugby Union
* 1965 Rugby Canada (founded as Canadian Rugby Union)
* 1975 USA Rugby (founded as United States of America Rugby Football Union)
* 1990 Namibian Rugby Union
* 1992 South African Rugby Union (founded as South Africa Rugby Football Union, a merger of the white South African Rugby Board and the non-racial South African Rugby Union; adopted current name in 2005)
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