Rugby History

The legendary story/myth about the origin of Rugby football - whereby a young man named William Webb Ellis "took the ball in his arms [i.e. caught it] and ran," showing "a fine disregard," while playing Rugby School's already distinctive version of football (not to be confused with association football, which was codified much later) in 1823 - has little evidence to support it. Pundits have dismissed the story as unlikely since it was first given the School's seal of approval following an official investigation by the Old Rugbeian Society in 1895. However, the story has entered into legend, and the trophy for the Rugby Union World Cup bears the name of "Webb Ellis" in his honor and a plaque at the School commemorates the "achievement".

  Click on picture for video.

Various kinds of football have a long tradition in England and football games had probably taken place at Rugby School for 200 years before three boys published the first set of written rules (in 1845). At the time, a set of rules would be agreed between two teams before a match. Teams which competed against each other regularly would tend to agree to play similar rules.

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. (Although there is still a rugby club attached to Guy's Hospital, so few records of the original club survive that it is impossible to determine if there is any continuity.) Around the Anglosphere, a number of other clubs were formed to play games based on the Rugby School rules. One of these, Dublin University Football Club, founded in 1854, is probably the world's oldest surviving football club in any code. Other old rugby clubs include: Edinburgh Academical Football Club (1857/58], the oldest documented club in the UK); Blackheath Rugby Club (allegedly founded in 1858, although some sources suggest that the club did not start playing rugby football until 1862); and Liverpool St Helens Football Club (1858).

The Blackheath club also features in the history of association football (soccer): as Blackheath Football Club, it became a founder member of the Football Association (FA) in 1863. However, Blackheath withdrew from the FA just over a month after the initial meeting, when it became clear that the FA would not agree to rules which allowed running with the ball in hand (a fundamental part of rugby) and hacking (legal tripping). Other rugby clubs followed this lead and did not join the FA. Interestingly the clubs that did not join the FA and continued to play Rugby Football dropped the tripping rule and outlawed it.

By 1870 about 75 clubs played variations of the Rugby School game in Britain. Clubs playing varieties of the Rugby School game also existed in Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. However, they had no generally accepted set of rules: the clubs continued to agree rules before the start of each game. On January 26, 1871, 22 clubs founded the Rugby Football Union (RFU), leading to the standardization of the rules for all rugby clubs in England. Soon most countries with a sizeable rugby community had formed their own national unions.

Games based on rugby football became immensely popular in North America. However, by the 1880s these games had rapidly diverged from the laws of rugby used in most countries, and they became instead the basis of both Canadian football and American football. (See Comparison of American football and rugby.)

The origins of the North American codes of football left lingering traces: the Canadian Football League's predecessor originally bore the name of the Canadian Rugby Football Union from its founding in 1884. Canadian football was frequently known as "rugby" until the middle of the 20th century. On the setting up of the modern CFL in the late 1950s, it assumed control of the Grey Cup from an organization that still called itself the Canadian Rugby Union (now Football Canada, the country's amateur umbrella organization for Canadian football). Only in 1929 was the Canadian national rugby union formed � the predecessor of Rugby Canada.

 In1886, the International Rugby Board (IRB) became the world governing body and law-making body for rugby. The RFU recognized it as such in 1890.

The 1890s saw a clash of cultures between working men's rugby clubs of northern England and the southern clubs of gentlemen, a dispute revolving around the nature of professionalism within the game. On August 29, 1895, 21 clubs split from the RFU and met at the George Hotel in Huddersfield in Yorkshire to form the Northern Rugby Football Union, commonly called the Northern Union.

For clarity and convenience it became necessary to differentiate the two codes of rugby. The code played by those teams who remained in national organizations which made up the IRB became known as Rugby Union. The code played by those teams that played "open" rugby and allowed professionals became known as Rugby League.

NRFU rules gradually diverged from those of Rugby Union, although the name Rugby League did not become official until the Northern Rugby League was formed in 1901. The name Rugby Football League dates from 1922.

A similar schism opened up in Australia and in other rugby-playing countries. Initially Rugby League in Australia operated under the same rules as Rugby Union. But after a tour by a professional New Zealand team in 1907 of Australia and Great Britain, and an Australian Rugby League tour of Great Britain the next year, Rugby League teams in the southern hemisphere adopted Rugby League rules.

In 1948 a meeting in Bordeaux set up the Rugby League International Federation (RLIF) to oversee Rugby League world wide. From this meeting the first "Rugby World Cup" was played in France in 1954.

On August 26, 1995 the IRB declared Rugby Union an "open" game and removed all restrictions on payments or benefits to those connected with the game.