The History of Rugby

There was this boy named William Webb Ellis, who so did not like the rules of football, that one day he took the ball and ran with it to the delight of all the other boys in his school. From that day on man has been playing rugby.

That has been the long held misinformation on the beginnings of rugby. It is truer that rugby was started at his school, Rugby School, when three boys published the first set of written rules in 1845. For over 200 years, students at the school would play their own versions of football with game rules being decided before the start of each match.

Football and rugby had the same beginnings and there was little difference between the two. The Football Association (FA) held a meeting in 1863 to formulate a code of laws for all teams to play under. In the fifth meeting of the assembly, a motion to remove hacking and running with ball from football rules met strong resistance from some teams. There was strong opposition to this and the teams opposed to the changes left to continue with their own form of football.

In 1871, 21 clubs that played a rugby type game met at Pall Mall restaurant and formed the Rugby Football Union (RFU). The first international rugby football match was between England (who wore white) and Scotland (who wore blue shirts) on March 27, 1871. Scotland won the game. A disputed match decision between Scotland and England led to the formation of the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB). England refused to join the IRFB until 1890. In 1931, it changed its name to the International Rugby Board (IRB).

When Rugby Union decided to hold a radical stance on amateurism, it led to the formation of the New South Wales Rugby League in 1908. Rugby Union for a century refused to legalise payments to players and would not allow anyone who had ever played Rugby League to play the Union game. This led to the huge success of rugby union style rugby especially in Australia and New Zealand. It was not until 1995 with more increased defections of the top union players to rugby league that professionalism was allowed in Rugby Union.

The game of rugby has come a long way in terms of the changes in rules. Some of the biggest changes included the reduction of the number of players in a team from 20 to 15 in 1977. The egg shaped ball came into being in 1862 with the ball flattening out over the years. There were no points awarded for a try before 1889 since the object was to try to kick the ball over the posts. Until 1891, a try was one point and a conversion 2 points. This has now led to the present scoring system which is 5 points for a try, 2 points for a conversion, 3 points for a penalty and 3 points for a dropped goal.

Rugby has now become one of the most watched sports in the world with more fans coming in every year. Even with Rugby league trying to steal Rugby Union’s players, the game has survived. With the introduction of new teams from Africa, and South America the game of Rugby Union is going to go further than the boy who ran away with a football in the 1800’s.

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