HOW THE GAME OF RUGBY WAS ORIGINATED

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6788, 20 February 1932, Page 13

HOW THE GAME OF RUGBY WAS ORIGINATED

Many Changes Since Ellis First

Ran With The Ball

In the wall that separates the Head Master’s garden from the Close at Rugby is a tablet. It commemorates the exploit of one, William Webb Ellis, who, in the year 1823, “with a fine disregard for the rules of football played in his time, first took the ball in his hands and ran with it, thus originating the distinctive feature of the Rugby game,” says an English writer. Rcfore this date running with the ball was unknown, and only came into vogue through the action of this schoolboy. The game allowed the hall to be held, but not to be run with. When the hoy had caught it from an opponent’s kick, lie stepped back and punted or drop-kicked it, or placed it for on? other of his side to do so. The astonishment was therefore great when Ellis picked the hall up and ran with it towards the opposite goal. The Rugby boys soon became attached to their game and were loath to leave it after their schooldays. They took it witli them to Oxford and Cambridge and founded clubs there, the oldest among them being the Rlackhcath Club which was founded in 1860. The rule of running with the ball was not made absolute for nearly 20 years, and it was not until 18-11 that a player was allowed to do so, and then only with certain limitations. We have an intimate view of early football in “Tom Brown’s Schooldays.” Thomas Hughes, whose statue stands on the green lawn before the school library, watching generation after generation come and go from his beloved school, devotes a whole chapter to the match between the School House and the Rest. The rules were very different then, for there were no restrictions as to the number of players. Instead of the coloured jerseys and shorts now worn, the bovs just stripped off their jackets and neckwear and changed their braces for a plain leather belt, though the School House wore white trousers to show that they were not frightened. of “hacks.” But the “scrums” were just the same, if they were larger, “a swaying crowd of boys, at one point xmlently agitated, that is where the ball is, that is where the keen players are to be met, and the glory and hard knocks to be got.” The popularity of Rugger spread northwards and in 1873 the Scottish Football Union was founded. Next year came the Irish Union, and in 1880 the Welsh followed suit. The original rules stated that theie should be 20 players a side, and hacking and tripping were abolished. A player, being offside, was placed onside when one "of his own side had run in front of him with the ball, or kicked it when the offside player was behind him. A goal was all powerful and beat any number of tries. If no goal was sco >*p“’ the match was awarded to the team that obtained the most tries. But a few years later this was again changed, and the point system adopted. With the introduction of 15 players a side, the team consisted of two halfhacks, three hacks and 10 forwards. Some vears later this was again changed and the formation consisted of a fullback, three three-quarters, two halfhacks, and nine forwards. It Wales that originated a pack of eight, addin'' the extra man to the three-quarter line, and from that time this system has become general. Rugger is still a strange game to those who are unaccustomed to the rules. Happily these are becoming fewer and fewer, for now most English towns have their teams, and the game is plaved throughout the world where Englishmen gather and the climate perm Thom as Hughes also met many people in his time who did not understand the game he was so fond of, and to them he lavs: “You say, you don’t see much in it at all; nothing but a struggling mass of boys, and a leather ball, which seems to excite them all to a great fury, as a red rag does to a bull. My dear sir, a battle would look much the same to you, except that the boys would be men, and the balls iron, but a battle would be worth your looking at for all that, nnd so is a football match. -And 1 will leave it at that.