When was rugby invented?
History of Rugby, Warwickshire
Rugby School, one of England's oldest and most prestigious public schools, rose to national prominence in the 1820s through the teaching methods pioneered by its headmaster, Dr Thomas Arnold, which contributed to a radical change in Public School education in England. Most of the present school buildings, near the centre of the town, date from this period. In 1823 William Webb Ellis is said to have invented Rugby Football when he picked up the ball and ran with it.
Comparison of rugby league and rugby union
The major annual international competition in rugby league is the Four Nations, first played in 1999. It originally involved Britain, Australia and New Zealand before expanding to include a fourth invited nation in 2009. Rugby league introduced its World Cup in 1954 and it has been held intermittently since, in various formats. Rugby union's first World Cup was held in 1987 and both are contested every four years.
Sport in Singapore
Rugby was introduced to the British colony of Singapore in the late nineteenth century. It has had a steady presence since the beginning of the 20th century, when the Malay Cup between Singapore national rugby union team and Malaya was established, which is one of the oldest rugby competitions in the world.
Timeline of foundation of national rugby unions
This timeline lists the foundation dates of the national governing bodies for rugby union—known as rugby unions or federations. The first union was the Rugby Football Union (RFU) that was founded in 1871 to govern rugby union within England. It was founded following the first ever rugby union international, played between England and Scotland in 1871. The Scottish Football Union (later renamed the Scottish Rugby Union) was then founded in 1873, the Irish Rugby Football Union in 1879 and the Welsh Rugby Union in 1881.
Mini rugby
Invented in England in 1970, mini rugby was soon taken up by both the English Rugby Football Union (RFU) and the Welsh Rugby Union.
Rugby union
Records of women's rugby football date from the late 19th century, with the first documented source being Emily Valentine's writings, stating that she set up a rugby team in Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Ireland in 1887. Although there are reports of early women's matches in New Zealand and France, one of the first notable games to prove primary evidence was the 1917 war-time encounter between Cardiff Ladies and Newport Ladies; a photo of which shows the Cardiff team before the match at the Cardiff Arms Park. In the past 30 years the game has grown in popularity among female athletes, and, according to WR, is now played in over 100 countries.
Rugby union in France
In 1900, rugby was played at the Paris Summer Olympics, France entered a team, along with Germany and Great Britain. France won the gold medal, the first ever rugby event at the Olympics. In 1905, for the first time, England and France played each other. In 1910, France coined the term The Five Nations, though they had competed in the home nations tournament four times previously, the tournament would be known as the Five Nations for most of the rest of the 20th century.
Gipsies Football Club
The first international rugby match was played between Scotland and England in 1871 and The Gipsies played a role in both its inception and in providing certain team members. It had come about following certain of the leading Scottish football clubs refusing to recognise the England v. Scotland match under Association rules at the Oval as an International meeting because they felt the dribbling game was less well known north of the Tweed. They published a challenge in Bell's Life to play a picked twenty of England under Rugby School laws, during the winter of 1870-71. This challenge was received just a few weeks before the Rugby Football Union was founded. At the forefront of those wanting to take up the challenge was Francis Luscombe, ""the energetic captain of the Gipsies, who was "spoiling for a fight,"". However, he felt that Blackheath, being the oldest of the clubs on point of foundation, ought to take the lead, and expressed this to Frederick Stokes the captain of that club. Soon after, B. H. Burns, the Blackheath secretary, promptly wrote accepting the challenge and the principal clubs in London, Liverpool, and Manchester were communicated with, and a committee formed to select the players, choose a uniform, and make the necessary arrangements. The Gipsies provided two of the 20 man team to face Scotland in the very first international rugby match in 1871. J. H. Luscombe (the older brother of Francis) and J. E. Bentley. Francis Luscombe played in the second match in 1872 along with J. E. Bentley and J. A. Body from Gipsies.
History of rugby union
Football games that included ball carrying continued to be played over the century, right up to the time of William Webb Ellis's alleged invention. One form, recorded as early as 1440 and which persisted until the 19th century, was an East Anglian game called variously Camping, Campan, Camp-ball and Campyon which was explicitly based on carrying the ball and tossing it from player to player in order to continue the advance. According to an observer writing in 1823 (ironically the year of rugby's "invention"),
Princeton Rugby
The men's team was first established in 1876 when Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia met at the Massasoit House in Massachusetts and formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, which used the rugby code. This makes it one of the oldest rugby clubs in North America.
Rugby League International Federation
Rugby league, which had started in England in 1895 and spread to Wales in 1907 and Australia and New Zealand in 1908, was introduced into France in 1934 after their rugby union side was banned from the International Rugby Board for both breaching amateur regulations and for constant foul play on the field.
History of rugby union
Early forms of rugby football were being played in Canada from 1823 onwards, in east Canadian towns such as Halifax, Montreal and Toronto. Rugby football proper in Canada dates to the 1860s. Introduction of the game and its early growth is usually credited to settlers from Britain and the British army and navy in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Esquimalt, British Columbia. In 1864, the first recorded game of rugby in Canada took place in Montreal, Quebec amongst artillery men. It is most likely that rugby got its start in British Columbia in the late 1860s or early 1870s, when brief mentions of "football" appeared in print. Canadian rugby, however, soon faced stiff competition from Canadian football.
Rugby union in Canada
In 1864 the first recorded game of rugby in Canada took place in Montreal among artillery men. It is most likely that rugby got its start in British Columbia in the late 1860s or early 1870s when brief mentions of "football" appeared in print.
Rugby League World Cup
The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league tournament, contested by national teams of the Rugby League International Federation, which was first held in France in 1954, the first World Cup in either rugby code. The idea of a rugby league world cup tournament was first mooted in the 1930s with the French proposal to hold a tournament in 1931, and again in 1951. The fifteen tournaments held to date have been at intervals ranging from two to eight years, and have featured a number of formats. So far three nations have won the competition (Australia eleven times, Great Britain three times and New Zealand once). Australia, France and New Zealand are the only teams to have played in all tournaments (Great Britain has been split into England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland since 1995, while England and Wales had previously competed as separate teams in the 1975 World Cup). Since 2000, the RLIF has also organised World Cups for women, students and other categories. The 2017 Rugby League World Cup was held in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea which was won by Australia.
Rugby union in England
By the late 19th century, the issue over broken time in rugby had become important, particularly in the North of England, where a larger working class played rugby compared to the south, thus their work and injuries they received whilst playing came into conflict with the rules of amateurism. With mounting pressure regarding player payments and veiled professionalism, on 29 August 1895 at a meeting at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, 21 clubs met to form the Northern Rugby Football Union and thus resigned from the RFU. The game of rugby league was formed from the disaffected clubs.
History of rugby league
This situation endured until 1948, when at the instigation of the French, the Rugby league International Federation (RLIF) was formed at a meeting on 25 January 1948 in Bordeaux. The 1947–48 Northern Rugby Football League season's Challenge Cup Final was the first rugby league match to be televised. All spectator sports in the United Kingdom experienced a surge in interest in the years following the end of World War II and rugby league boomed. Large crowds came to be expected as the norm for a period of around 20 years. The total crowds for the British season hit a record in 1949–50, when over 69.8 million paying customers attended all matches. On Saturday 10 November 1951 the first televised international rugby league match was broadcast from Station Road, Swinton, where Great Britain met New Zealand in the second Test of that 1951 series.
Rugby union
The first rugby football international was played on 27 March 1871 between Scotland and England in Edinburgh. Scotland won the game 1-0. By 1881 both Ireland and Wales had representative teams, and in 1883 the first international competition, the Home Nations Championship had begun. 1883 is also the year of the first rugby sevens tournament, the Melrose Sevens, which is still held annually.
Rugby league
Rugby league football takes its name from the bodies that split to create a new form of rugby, distinct from that run by the Rugby Football Unions, in Britain, Australia and New Zealand between 1895 and 1908.
History of rugby union
Rugby sevens was initially conceived by Ned Haig a Jedburgh butcher who moved to Melrose and David Sanderson as a fund-raising event for a local club in 1883. The first ever sevens match was played at the Greenyards, the Melrose ground, where it was well received. Two years later, Tynedale was the first non-Scottish club to win one of the Borders Sevens titles at Gala in 1885.
Football (ball)
Until 1870, rugby was played with a near spherical ball with an inner-tube made of a pig's bladder. In 1870 Richard Lindon and Bernardo Solano started making balls for Rugby school out of hand stitched, four-panel, leather casings and pigs’ bladders. The rugby ball's distinctive shape is supposedly due to the pig’s bladder, although early balls were more plum-shape than oval. The balls varied in size in the beginning depending upon how large the pig’s bladder was. 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.
The introduction of synthetic footballs over the traditional leather balls, in both rugby codes, was originally governed by weather conditions. If the playing surface was wet, the synthetic ball was used, because it wouldn't absorb water and become heavy. Eventually, the leather balls were phased out completely.
History of rugby league
In 1980 the first State of Origin match was played in Australia. This pitted teams representative of Queensland and New South Wales against each other. Although matches between the two had taken place for many years, the "origin" concept (borrowed from Australian rules football) meant that for the first time players were selected based on where they first played the game, rather than where they were currently playing. This had an immediate effect, evening up the competition, which had come to be dominated by New South Wales because of the financial strength of the Sydney clubs, and rousing greater pride in spectators as their players were considered more truly representative of their respective states. State of Origin matches are now some of the biggest and most keenly fought contests in Australian sport.
Rugby union
Rugby union was introduced to Japan in 1899 by two Cambridge students: Ginnosuke Tanaka and Edward Bramwell Clarke. The Japan RFU was founded in 1926 and its place in rugby history was cemented with the news that Japan will host the 2019 World Cup. It will be the first country outside the Commonwealth, Ireland and France to host the event, and this is viewed by the IRB as an opportunity for rugby union to extend its reach, particularly in Asia. Other Asian playing countries of note include Singapore, South Korea, China and The Philippines, while the former British colony of Hong Kong is notable within rugby for its development of the rugby sevens game, especially the Hong Kong Sevens tournament which was founded in 1976.
History of rugby union in Australia
Rugby began outside of Sydney first in Queensland in 1876, with the first inter-colonial match being played in Sydney in 1882. During these years the rugby that was played, was administered by the Queensland Football Association, which was the organisation administering principally the Melbourne Rules football code. Primarily due to the poor treatment rugby received by the QFA, a new organisation to oversee rugby was founded at a meeting held on 2 November 1883 at the Exchange Hotel in Brisbane. This organisation was formally constituted a decade later in 1893, as the Queensland Rugby Union.
The first rugby union club to be established in Australia was Sydney University's in 1863. A decade after the first club was formed, a body called the Southern Rugby Union was formed as a result of a meeting at the Oxford Hotel in Sydney, a Sydney competition was established, which was administered from the England Rugby headquarters at Twickenham. The first competition commenced the following year in 1865 with 6 teams.
Rugby union in South Africa
When Canon George Ogilvie became headmaster of Diocesan College in Cape Town in 1861, he introduced the game of football, as played at Winchester College. This version of football, which included handling of the ball, is seen as the beginnings of rugby in South Africa. Soon, the young gentlemen of Cape Town joined in and the first match in South Africa took place between the "Officers of the Army" and the "Gentlemen of the Civil Service" at Green Point in Cape Town on 23 August 1862 and ended as a 0-0 draw. The local press reported a series of football matches between scratch sides "Town v Suburbs" or "Home v Colonial-born".
Rugby School
Rugby School was founded in 1567 as a provision in the will of Lawrence Sheriff, who had made his fortune supplying groceries to Queen Elizabeth I of England. Since Lawrence Sheriff lived in Rugby and the neighbouring Brownsover, the school was intended to be a free grammar school for the boys of those towns. Up to 1667, the school remained in comparative obscurity. Its history during that trying period is characterised mainly by a series of lawsuits between the Howkins family (descendants of the founder's sister), who tried to defeat the intentions of the testator, and the masters and trustees, who tried to carry them out. A final decision was handed down in 1667, confirming the findings of a commission in favour of the trust, and henceforth the school maintained a steady growth. "Floreat Rugbeia" is the traditional school song.
Brazil national rugby union team
The very first instance of rugby being played in Brazil dates back to the late 19th century. British immigrants arriving in Brazil brought the game to various port cities in Brazil. These immigrants set up various athletic clubs which doubled with association football. The first recorded instance of a rugby game being played in Brazil was 1891, played by the São Paulo Athletic Club, under the auspices of Charles William Miller. Future efforts to promote the game were then taken on by Augusto Shaw, after Miller began to devote himself exclusively to football.
History of rugby union
In 1851, a football of the kind used at Rugby School was exhibited at the first World's Fair, the Great Exhibition in London. This ball can still be seen at the Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum and it has a definite ovoid shape. In 1862, Richard Lindon introduced rubber bladders and, because of the pliability of the rubber, balls could be manufactured with a more pronounced shape. As an oval ball was easier to handle, a gradual flattening of the ball continued over the years as the emphasis of the game moved towards handling and away from dribbling. In 1892, the RFU included compulsory dimensions for the ball for the first time in the Laws of the Game. In the 1980s, leather-encased balls, which were prone to water-logging, were replaced with balls encased in synthetic waterproof materials.
Huddersfield
Rugby was first played in the town in 1848 and the Huddersfield Athletic Club, the direct progenitors of Huddersfield Giants, formed in 1864, played its first rugby game in 1866. In Huddersfield on 29 August 1895, 22 northern clubs met in the George Hotel and voted to secede from the Rugby Football Union and set up the 'Northern Rugby Football Union' which became the Rugby Football League in 1922. The Rugby League Heritage Centre is in the basement of the George Hotel.
History of rugby league
The first international rugby league match took place in 1904 between England and an Other nationalities team, mostly made up of Welsh players.
Rugby league
The first of these, the Northern Rugby Football Union, was established in 1895 as a breakaway faction of England's Rugby Football Union (RFU). Both organisations played the game under the same rules at first, although the Northern Union began to modify rules almost immediately, thus creating a new faster, stronger paced form of rugby football. Similar breakaway factions split from RFU-affiliated unions in Australia and New Zealand in 1907 and 1908, renaming themselves "rugby football "league"s" and introducing Northern Union rules. In 1922, the Northern Union also changed its name to the Rugby Football League and thus over time the sport itself became known as "rugby league" football.
XIII Catalan
In 1888 rugby was introduced to Perpignan by students returning from the Lycée Michelet in Paris. Rugby League arrived in the form of XIII Catalan in 1934 under the guidance of Marcel Laborde so becoming one of the founder members of the first league in France. The clubs first chairman Dr Gaston Banet and Roger Ramis the head coach, found many early difficulties the main one being unable to secure a stadium to use. The local rugby club USAP Perpignan successfully blocked their attempts to hire a stadium and for the first month of the season they had to play all away matches. In October 1934 English side Salford RLFC toured the fledgling rugby nation and one of the matches planned was in Perpignan. The club finally found some land to use and after volunteers had demolished a house and marked out a pitch builders then erected a stand. The first ever Rugby League match was then able to take place. The locals saw their side beaten by Salford 16-41, but one of their own scored the historic first try in Aime Bardes. The teams first league match on 7 October also ended in defeat 25-48 at US Villeneuve they finished 6th that season and in the Lord Derby Cup they reached the final but lost to Lyon Villeurbanne.
University and College Rugby League
Founded in 1967 when a team was created at Leeds University by Andrew Cudbertson, Jack Abernathy and Cec Thompson, other teams soon joined in areas of the United Kingdom which lay outside of the games traditional heartlands. The first university game was between Leeds and Liverpool in 1968. A year later the Universities and Colleges Rugby League was formed after student pioneers fought hard to get the sport recognised in higher education. Portsmouth and Swansea were early non-traditional areas to accept the game.
DSV 78/08 Ricklingen
The first proper game of rugby however was not played until 1883, when "England" played "Germany" in Hannover on 17 October.
Rugby union in New South Wales
The first ‘inter-club’ rugby match took place during July 1865 between the Sydney Football Club and a team from the Australian Cricket Club. The game was intended to be played over three Saturdays but the newspapers of the time only report on the first two. The game was postponed after the second Saturday when the Sydney FC held a lead of two goals to one, but no record has been found of the final result. Newington College is credited with having a rugby club as early as 1869. From 1872 onwards there was a rapid growth in the formation of rugby football clubs.
Les Joueurs de football
The first rugby competition was held in 1892 as a one-off championship game between two Paris-based teams, the Racing Club de France and Stade Français. In 1900 rugby was played at the Paris Summer Olympics. France won the gold medal of the first ever rugby event at the Olympics. Racing Club made it to the championship final on 31 March 1912. France joined an international competition in 1910, and coined the term Tournoi des Cinq Nations (Five Nations Championship); a term that would last almost the entire century. On 1 January 1913, at the France-Scotland match, spectators threw themselves on the referee to express their dissatisfaction. The mounted police were forced to intervene charging. This violent incident led to the secretary of the Scottish Rugby Union to declare: "If the game can only be played under the protection of the police or the military, it is not worth playing". Following this incidents, Scotland refused to face France at the 1914 tournament. France was implicitly excluded from further tournaments, but World War I did not permit the application of this exclusion.
Rugby union in Wales
Rugby-like games have a long history in Wales, with games such as cnapan being played for centuries. Rugby seems to have reached Wales in 1850, when the Reverend Professor Rowland Williams brought the game with him from Cambridge to St. David's College, Lampeter, which fielded the first Welsh rugby team that same year.
Rugby sevens
Rugby sevens originated in Melrose, Scotland in the 1880s; the Melrose Sevens tournament is still played annually. The popularity of rugby sevens increased further with the development of the Hong Kong Sevens in the 1970s and was later followed by the inclusion of the sport into the Commonwealth Games for the first time in 1998 and the establishment of the annual World Rugby Sevens Series in 1999 and the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series in 2012. In 2016, rugby sevens was contested in the Summer Olympics for the first time. It has also been played in regional events such as the Pan American Games and the Asian Games, and in 2018 a women's tournament was played for the first time at the Commonwealth Games.
History of rugby union in the United States
The first recorded rugby match in the United States occurred on May 14, 1874 between Harvard University and McGill University.
History of rugby union in Scotland
Scotland has played a seminal role in the development of rugby, notably in 
Rugby sevens, which were initially conceived by Ned Haig, a butcher from Jedburgh, Scotland as a fundraising event for his local club Melrose in 1883. The first ever officially sanctioned international tournament of rugby occurred at Murrayfield as part of the "Scottish Rugby Union's celebration of rugby" centenary celebrations in 1973. Due to the success of the format, the ongoing Hong Kong Sevens was launched three years later. In 1993, the Rugby World Cup Sevens was launched and the trophy is known as the "Melrose Cup" in memory of Ned Haig's invention.
Sport in the United Kingdom
Like association football, rugby union and rugby league both developed from traditional British football games in the 19th century. Rugby football was codified in 1871. Dissatisfaction with the governance of the sport led, in 1895, to a number of prominent clubs establishing what would become rugby league. The estranged clubs, based in mainly working class industrial regions of northern England, had wished to be allowed to compensate their players for missing work to play matches but they had been opposed by those clubs that were predominantly middle class and often based in the south of the country. Subsequently, rugby league developed somewhat different rules. For much of the 20th century there was considerable antagonism towards rugby league from rugby union. One Member of Parliament described it as "one of the longest (and daftest) grievances in history" with anyone over the age of 18 associated with rugby league being banned forever from rugby union. This antagonism has abated since 1995 when rugby union's international governing body, now known as World Rugby, "opened" rugby union to professionalism.
Newport (Salop) Rugby Union Football Club
Rugby was first played in Newport in 1871 when the new Headmaster of Adams' Grammar School, Tom Collins, introduced the game to the boys. In the same year a game was played between the school and a Town team on the Chetwynd End ground. In 1876 a Town team played Stafford and lost. It seems that, after 1882 when, again, there was a local newspaper report of a match between Newport and Stafford at both Town and School levels, there is no further record of rugby being played in the Newport District, apart from at school level, until 1932, when a club was formed at Shifnal. Many of the players were from Newport, being the School Masters and boys from Adams' Grammar. One of those stars of the early days was Ron Anderson, a master at Adams', who later played for and served Newport RUFC for many years, including 18 years as President. As with a large number of Clubs, the Second World War curtailed activities. However, at the cessation of hostilities the Club was never reformed.
Rugby union
A significant event in the early development of rugby football was the production of the first written laws of the game at Rugby School in 1845, which was followed by the Cambridge Rules drawn up in 1848. Other important events include the Blackheath Club's decision to leave the Football Association in 1863 and the formation of the Rugby Football Union in 1871. The code was originally known as "rugby football"; it was not until after the schism in England in 1895, which resulted in the separate code of rugby league, that the sport took on the name "rugby union" to differentiate it from the league game. Despite the sport's full name of rugby union, it is known simply as rugby throughout most of the world.
History of rugby union in the United States
Rugby has had a long and complicated relationship with American football. William Gunmere of Rutgers devised the game, and based it upon American forms of rugby and association football. Another important point is that during the 19th century, the United States was trying to develop a new national culture, independent of its English colonial roots, as it had become politically independent the previous century. This extended into the sporting arena, with the adoption and invention of American football and basketball, and also the myth of Abner Doubleday founding baseball, which attempted to divorce it from its English origins.
Rugby football
In France, rugby is widely played and has a strong tradition in the Basque, Occitan and Catalan areas along the border regions between Spain and France. The game is very popular in South Africa, having been introduced by English-speaking settlers in the 19th century. British colonists also brought the game with them to Australia and New Zealand, where the game is widely played. It has spread thence to much of Polynesia, having particularly strong followings in Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga. Rugby union continues to grow in the Americas and parts of Asia as well.
Austrian Rugby Federation
The first documented game of rugby played in Austria occurred on April 14, 1912. The sport was being brought to Austria by two Englishmen hoping to expand the sports base. It was over sixty years, however, before rugby union took hold in Austria.
Universal football
The idea of combining the two sports to create a "universal football" code to be played throughout Australia, and potentially around the world, arose at around the same time as rugby league began in Australia. The first conference addressing the matter was held in 1908 between the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL), led by the league's founding administrator J. J. Giltinan, and Australian rules football officials, led by Australasian Football Council (AFC) president Con Hickey, with the view towards developing a hybrid set of rules which could be proposed to England's Northern Rugby Football Union (the English administrative body for rugby league) on the upcoming 1908–09 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain – rugby league as a code distinct from rugby union was a small and new code at the time, prominent only in northern England since 1895 and in Australasia for only a few years, so major rule changes which could be adopted worldwide were still a possibility. However, there was no action resolved from this initial conference.
Charles Monro (rugby union)
Monro introduced the game under the 1868 rules of rugby and with the new Gilbert oval ball to the Nelson Football club in 1870. The first game was played between Nelson College "The Gown" and Monro's club "The Town" at the Botanics ground at 2pm on 14 May 1870.
Asia Rugby Women's Sevens Series
Rugby sevens — also known as 7-a-side, or 7s — is a short form of the sport of rugby union that was first played in 1883. The first (men's) internationals took place in 1973. As women's rugby union developed in the 1960s and 1970s the format became very popular as it allowed games, and entire leagues, to be developed in countries even when player numbers were small, and it remains the main form the women's game is played in most parts of the world.
Emily Valentine
Emily Frances Valentine, designated the first lady of rugby and "female William Web Ellis" by the media, is the earliest documented female rugby player (at the age of 10) in 1887, and provides the only confirmed record of women playing in nineteenth century. Prior to the discovery of Valentine, the earliest named female rugby player was Mary Eley in 1917, who at the age of sixteen played for the Cardiff Ladies.
Tag rugby
According to sportswriter Terry Godwin, writing in 1983, tag rugby was first developed in Gibraltar by the Gibraltar Rugby Union. Due to the lack of grass pitches, an alternative variant to rugby union was developed. A 10-inch cord was tucked into the waistband, and its removal by an opponent with a shout of "tag", was classed as a 'tackle'. If the attacking team had failed to score by the fourth 'tackle' the defending team were given possession of the ball.
Rugby Europe Women's Sevens
Rugby sevens — also known as 7-a-side, or 7s — is a short form of the sport of rugby union that was first played in 1883. The first (men's) internationals took place in 1973. As women's rugby union developed in the 1960s and 1970s the format became very popular as it allowed games, and entire leagues, to be developed in countries even when player numbers were small, and it remains the main form the women's game is played in most parts of the world.
England national rugby union team
The expansion of rugby in the first half of the 19th century was driven by ex-pupils from many of England's Public Schools, especially Rugby, who, upon finishing school, took the game with them to universities, to London, and to the counties. England's first international match was against Scotland on Monday 27 March 1871. Not only was this match England's first, but it also proved to be the first ever rugby union international. Scotland won the match by a goal and a try to a try, in front of a crowd of 4,000 people at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh. A subsequent international took place at the Oval in London on 5 February 1872 which saw England defeat Scotland by a goal, a drop goal and two tries to one drop goal. In those early days there was no points system, it was only after 1890 that a format allowing the introduction of a points system was provided. Up until 1875 international rugby matches were decided by the number of goals scored (conversions and dropped goals), but from 1876 the number of tries scored could be used to decide a match if teams were level on goals.
Rugby union in Austria
The first documented game of rugby played in Austria occurred on April 14, 1912. The sport was being brought to Austria by two Englishmen hoping to expand the sports base. It was over sixty years, however, before rugby union took hold in Austria.
History of rugby union
When Canon George Ogilvie became headmaster of Diocesan College in Cape Town, South Africa in 1861, he introduced the game of football, as played at Winchester College. This version of football, which included handling of the ball, is seen as the beginnings of rugby in South Africa. In around 1875 rugby began to be played in the Cape Colony, the following year the first rugby (as opposed to Winchester football) club was formed. Former England international William Henry Milton arrived in Cape Town in 1878. He joined the Villagers club and started playing and preaching rugby. By the end of that year, Cape Town had all but abandoned the Winchester game in favour of rugby. In 1883, the Stellenbosch club was formed in the predominantly Boer farming district outside Cape Town and rugby was enthusiastically adopted by the young Boer farmers. As British and Boer migrated to the interior, they helped spread the game from the Cape colony through the Eastern Cape, and Natal, and along the gold and diamond routes to Kimberley and Johannesburg. However, for a number of years, South African rugby would be hindered by systemic racial segregation.
History of rugby union in the United States
The first recorded rugby match in the United States occurred on May 14, 1874 between Harvard University and McGill University.
Rugby grew in the early 1900's, spurred in party by American football's crisis of 1905-06 due to the perception that American football was a violent sport. During this era, rugby was perceived as having the potential to challenge American football as the dominant football code on the west coast.
At the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, a United States rugby team composed largely of players from Stanford University defeated France to win the gold medal. Rugby union was again included in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, where the United States defeated France for the gold. Despite this success, however, rugby in the United States largely faded away.
Soviet Union national rugby union team
Rugby football was played in the Russian Empire as early as 1908; however, the first official match, played in Moscow, did not take place until 1923. Because of the Russian Revolution, some Soviet/Russian players emigrated and/or ended up playing for foreign sides, a notable example being Prince Alexander Obolensky (Александр Сергеевич Оболенский) who played for Oxford and England in the 1930s – he was the scorer of 2 tries on his England debut in their win over New Zealand in January 1936. His noble birth precluded him from playing in his home country and his family had fled the country when he was only a year old.
Richard Sykes (rugby union)
In the Autumn of 1857, Frank Albert Mather, who had recently left Rugby School, wrote to his friend Richard Sykes the Captain of Football at Rugby School inviting him to take part in a game of football in Liverpool and bring with him one of the balls in use at the school, made by Linden a Rugby bootmaker. The game was arranged for Saturday the 19th December 1857 on the Liverpool Cricket Ground at Edgehill. Fifty players arrived and they decided to play Rugby versus the World. Liverpool club was founded there and then.
Champion Colleges
The Student Rugby League was founded in 1967 when a team was created at Leeds University by Andrew Cudbertson, Jack Abernathy and Cec Thompson, other teams soon joined in areas of the United Kingdom which lay outside of the game's traditional heartlands. The first university game was between Leeds and Liverpool in 1968. A year later the Universities and Colleges Rugby League was formed after student pioneers fought hard to get the sport recognised in higher education.
France national rugby league team
On New Year's Eve 1933, England and Australia played in Paris – the first game of rugby league football in France. The match was one-sided, with Australia winning 63-13 in front of a crowd of about 5,000, but the seed was sown. French rugby union players, disgruntled that France had been suspended from the Five Nations Championship, formed the "Ligue Francaise de Rugby à XIII" on 6 April 1934. Jean Galia, a former rugby union international and champion boxer, led France on a six-match tour of England in 1934 and they recorded their first win in Kingston upon Hull. The national team's first game was in Paris on 15 April 1934, losing 21-32 to England in front of a crowd of 20,000. By 1939, the French League had 225 clubs and the national side won the 1938–39 European Rugby League Championship where they became the first French team in any sport to beat England at home.
Rugby union in the Czech Republic
Josef Rössler-Ořovský, who introduced a number of sports in the then Czechoslovakia, among others skiing and tennis, was originally credited with starting rugby as well back in 1895. He went to England and brought back a rugby ball with him. Efforts were made to play the game at the Czech Yacht Club, but a public struggle ensued, and rugby subsequently never really caught on.
Rugby World Cup
The winners are awarded the Webb Ellis Cup, named after William Webb Ellis, the Rugby School pupil who, according to a popular legend, invented rugby by picking up the ball during a football game. Four countries have won the trophy; New Zealand three times, Australia and South Africa each twice, and England once. New Zealand are the current champions, having defeated Australia in the final of the 2015 tournament in England.
Rugby union
Several island nations have embraced the sport of rugby. Rugby was first played in Fiji circa 1884 by European and Fijian soldiers of the Native Constabulary at Ba on Viti Levu island. Fiji then sent their first overseas team to Samoa in 1924, who in turn set up their own union in 1927. Along with Tonga, other countries to have national rugby teams in Oceania include the Cook Islands, Niue, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.
White Africans of European ancestry
Similarly to cricket, football, and field hockey; rugby was first introduced to the continent by the British. The sport was initially played in 1861 at Diocesan College but it quickly spread to the local population. The sport became popular among Afrikaners after the first club outside of Cape Town had been created being in Stellenbosch. The expansion of European settlement on the Cape towards the interior continued to increase the sports popularity. The Second Boer War led to an increased interest in rugby by Boers as a result of being interned in POW camps and the increased British presence throughout the region.
Tag rugby
The codified version of tag rugby was created and pioneered by physical education teacher Nick Leonard in England in 1990 following an idea given to by a former serviceman called Barry Johns. He described to Nick how navy servicemen on board ship or whilst playing on hard grounds overseas played the Gibraltar variant of rugby. Leonard then devised a set of rules suitable for children using belts and coloured ribbons attached by Velcro and organised the first ever schools Tag Rugby festival at UCP Marjons, Plymouth in 1991. This annual event celebrated its 20th festival in 2011.
Comparison of American football and rugby union
The Football Association was formed in England in October 1863. Differences of opinion about the proposed laws led to the formation of the first governing body for rugby, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) in 1871. Laws were drawn up for rugby football which was now distinct from association football (soccer).
In 1872 rugby clubs were established in the San Francisco Bay Area, which were composed mainly of British expatriates. The first recorded rugby match in the United States occurred on May 14, 1874 between Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and McGill University of Montreal, Quebec when McGill challenged Harvard to a game using rules in place at the Montreal campus.
William Webb Ellis
The Reverend William Webb Ellis (24 November 1806 – 24 January 1872) was an English Anglican clergyman and the alleged inventor of rugby football while a pupil at Rugby School. According to legend, Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it during a school football match in 1823, thus creating the 'rugby' style of play. Although the story has become firmly entrenched in the sport's folklore, it is not supported by substantive evidence, and is discounted by most rugby historians as an origin myth.
Sport in England
Like association football, rugby union and rugby league both developed from traditional British football games in the 19th century. Rugby was codified by the Rugby Football Union in 1871. The Rugby Football League developed after a number of leading clubs, that wished to be allowed to compensate their players for missing work, formed their own governing body in 1895 and subsequently the two organisations developed somewhat different rules. For much of the 20th century there was considerable antagonism between rugby league, which was a mainly working class game based in the industrial regions of northern England, and rugby union, which is a predominantly middle class game in England, and is also popular in the other home nations. This antagonism has abated since 1995 when the governing body now known as World Rugby opened rugby union to professional players.
History of rugby union
The first detailed description of what was almost certainly football in England was given by William FitzStephen in about 1174–1183. He described the activities of London youths during the annual festival of Shrove Tuesday:
Rugby union in Slovakia
Rugby union was introduced to Czechoslovakia (as it was then) by the Czech/Moravian writer Ondřej Sekora, when he returned from living in France in 1926, with a rugby ball and set of rules. It developed during the interbellum, but was severely disrupted by the tribulations of World War II, and the Cold War.
Rugby union in Japan
Before the arrival of rugby, Japan was home to a game known as "kemari" (), which in some ways was a parallel development to association football, and to a lesser extent rugby football. It is said that "kemari" was introduced to Japan from China in about 600 AD, during the Asuka period, and was based upon the Chinese sport of cuju. The object of Kemari is to keep one ball in the air, with all players cooperating to do so. The ball, known as a "mari", is made of deerskin with the hair facing inside and the hide on the outside. Kemari has been revived in modern times, and the players still wear the traditional costumes for the game.
History of Rugby, Warwickshire
Rugby got its name in Saxon times. It was first mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 as a small farming settlement then called "Rocheberie". One theory is that the name came from the Anglo-Saxon "Hrōceburh" = "Rook fort", where Rook may be the birds or may be a man's name. There is another theory that it is derived from an old Celtic name "Droche-brig" meaning "wild hilltop". Viking influence in the area changed the ending to the Old Norse "-bý"; in 1200 it was spelt "Rokebi". The name later evolved into "Rokeby", and by the 18th century had become "Rugby".
History of rugby union
This is not only the first international rugby match, but the first international of any form of football because, despite the fact that three England v Scotland fixtures had already been played according to Association Football rules at The Oval, London, in 1870 and 1871, these are not considered full internationals by FIFA as the players competing in the Scotland team were London-based players who claimed a Scottish family connection rather than being truly Scottish players.
Rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known in most of the world simply as rugby, is a contact team sport which originated in England in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is between two teams of 15 players using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field with H-shaped goalposts on each try line.
United Hospitals RFC
In 1874 the United Hospitals instituted the oldest cup competition in the game of rugby, the United Hospitals Challenge Cup, also known as the Inter-Hospital Challenge Cup, and is the oldest cup competition in the game of rugby. The first final was played on Wednesday 3 March 1875 at The Oval between Guy's Hospital and St George's Hospital with Guy's winning by 1 Goal (a converted try) and 1 try to 2 tries. With the exception of breaks for the two world wars of the twentieth century, the United Hospitals Challenge Cup has been played for without interruption since that first final.
Rugby union
The origin of rugby football is reputed to be an incident during a game of English school football at Rugby School in 1823, when William Webb Ellis is said to have picked up the ball and run with it. Although the evidence for the story is doubtful, it was immortalised at the school with a plaque unveiled in 1895. Despite the doubtful evidence, the Rugby World Cup trophy is named after Webb Ellis. Rugby football stems from the form of game played at Rugby School, which former pupils then introduced to their university.
List of rugby union players by country
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. It is played with an oval-shaped ball on a field up to long and wide with H-shaped goal posts on each goal line.
Rugby union in Scotland
Scotland has played a seminal role in the development of rugby, notably in rugby sevens, which were initially conceived by Ned Haig, a butcher from Melrose as a fundraising event for his local club in 1883. The first ever officially sanctioned international tournament of rugby occurred at Murrayfield as part of the "Scottish Rugby Union's celebration of rugby" centenary celebrations in 1973. Due to the success of the format, the ongoing Hong Kong Sevens was launched three years later. In 1993, the Rugby World Cup Sevens was launched and the trophy is known as the "Melrose Cup" in memory of Ned Haig's invention.
Rugby union in England
Rugby in England is generally attributed to when William Webb Ellis "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 at the Rugby School, although modern scholars consider this story to be a myth. One of the earliest football clubs formed, some claim it to actually be the first, is the Guy's Hospital Football Club which was founded in 1843 in Guy's Hospital, Southwark, London. The club played an early version of rugby football and was formed by old boys of the Rugby School. Subsequent clubs established in this period include Dublin University Football Club in 1854 and the Blackheath Rugby Club in 1858.
History of rugby union
1970 saw the invention of mini rugby, a form of the game still used to train children.
Rugby football
The Rugby League World Cup was the first World Cup of either of the Rugby codes and was first held in France in 1954, and as of 2013 occurs on a 4-year cycle. It is an international tournament that is organized by the Rugby League International Federation. The event is played in the league format and features the top 14 teams from around the world. The current world champions are Australia, who won the World Cup in 2013, played in England, Wales, France, and Ireland.
Rugby union in Chile
It was introduced by the British in the 19th century. It is believed that the first people who played it in Chile were the English who worked at the saltmines in Iquique. Rugby was also developed by the English private colleges. For many years it was a sport mostly played by the upper classes in Chile. The first teams appeared in Valparaíso and Santiago de Chile, who later formed the Unión de Rugby de Chile. The British influence can be noticed by the fact that several of the main Chilean teams have English names.
History of rugby league
The All Golds arrived in Britain late in 1907 having never even seen a match played under the new Northern Union laws. They undertook a week's intensive coaching in Leeds to bring them up to speed, and after playing a number of touring matches the first true rugby league test was played, with the team going down 8–9 to Wales in Aberdare on 1 January 1908. The All Golds gained revenge however, defeating the full Great Britain side in two of the three Test matches, which were played at Leeds, Chelsea and Cheltenham; a surprising choice of venues given rugby league's northern base. The tour was a great success, and gave a much needed boost to the game in Britain, which was struggling financially against the rise of association football.
William Webb Ellis
An article by Gordon Rayner in "The Sunday Telegraph" about the origin of Rugby football, says that Thomas Hughes told the 1895 investigation that in 1838–1839 a Rugby School boy called Jem Mackie "was the first great runner-in", and that later (in or before 1842) Jem Mackie was expelled from Rugby School for an unspecified incident; in 1845 boys at the school first wrote down an agreed set of rules for the version of football played at Rugby School, which is now rugby football. Gordon Rayner says that the reason for Jem Mackie's expulsion may have damaged Mackie's reputation so much that Bloxam transferred Mackie's part in inventing Rugby football to Webb Ellis, and that a big donation by Bloxam to Rugby School's library may have influenced school official acceptance of this Webb Ellis version.
Rugby union at the Summer Olympics
The sport was introduced by Pierre de Coubertin, who is famous for reviving the modern Olympics. He also helped to establish rugby in France, refereeing the first domestic French club championship in 1892 and France's first international, on New Year’s Day, 1906, at Parc des Princes. Coubertin formed the IOC in 1894, but rugby union was not featured until the II Olympiad.
Laws of rugby union
The game of Rugby evolved (initially at Rugby School) from early association football, with the rules of play being agreed upon before the start of each match. Rugby clubs broke away from The Football Association after they left out rules for "running with the ball" and "hacking" when framing their universal code in 1863. The first rugby laws were standardised in 1870 and the International Rugby Football Board (later named the IRB) was formed in 1886. In 1930 the IRFB was made responsible for developing any new laws. These laws have changed over time. The point value for scoring tries has increased from zero to five, penalties were initially worth just two points and drop goals four. The ball has changed too, going from a pig's bladder to a rubber bladder in first a leather and nowadays, a plastic case, and becoming more oval in shape. Player numbers were initially 20 each side, but reduced to 15 in 1877. The laws are still being tweaked, with some of the biggest recent changes being introduced in 2009.
Rugby union
Many Asian countries have a tradition of playing rugby dating from the British Empire. India began playing rugby in the early 1870s, the Calcutta Football Club forming in 1873. However, with the departure of a local British army regiment, interest in rugby diminished in the area. In 1878, The Calcutta Football Club was disbanded, and rugby in India faltered. Sri Lanka claims to have founded their union in 1878, and although little official information from the period is available, the team won the All-India cup in Madras in 1920. The first recorded match in Malaysia was in 1892, but the first confirmation of rugby is the existence of the "HMS Malaya Cup" which was first presented in 1922 and is still awarded to the winners of the Malay sevens.
Rugby football
Rugby refers to the team sports rugby league and rugby union. Legend claims that Rugby football was started around the time of 1845 in Rugby School, Rugby, Warwickshire, England, although forms of football in which the ball was carried and tossed date to medieval times. Rugby eventually split into two sports in 1895 when twenty one clubs split from the original Rugby Football Union, to form the Northern Union (later to be named rugby league in 1922) in the George Hotel, Huddersfield, Northern England over the issue of payment to players, thus making rugby league the first code to turn professional and pay its players, rugby union turned fully professional in 1995. Both sports are run by their respective world governing bodies World Rugby (rugby union) and the Rugby League International Federation (rugby league). Rugby football was one of many versions of football played at English public schools in the 19th century. Although rugby league initially used rugby union rules, they are now wholly separate sports. In addition to these two codes, both American and Canadian football evolved from rugby football.
History of rugby league
A meeting was held at Bateman's Crystal Hotel in Sydney on 8 August 1907, to organise professional rugby in Australia. Giltinan, Burdon and the Test cricketer Victor Trumper were among those who attended. The meeting resolved that a "New South Wales Rugby Football League" (NSWRFL) should be formed, to play the Northern Union rules. This was the first time that the words "rugby" and "league" were used in the name of an Australian organising body. Players were soon recruited for the new game; despite the threat of immediate and lifetime expulsion from the New South Wales Rugby Union. The NSWRFL managed to recruit Herbert "Dally" Messenger, the most famous rugby player in Sydney at the time.
English public school football games
During the early 19th century the Rugby school rules appear to have spread at least as far, perhaps further, than the other schools' games. For example, two clubs which claim to be the world's first and/or oldest football club, in the sense of one which is not part of a school or university, are both strongholds of rugby football: the Barnes Club, said to have been founded in 1839, and Guy's Hospital Football Club, reportedly founded in 1843. Neither date nor the variety of football played is well documented, but such claims nevertheless allude to the popularity of rugby before other modern codes emerged.
History of rugby union in Scotland
The newspaper notice advertising the very first rugby international match - inconspicuous by being slotted in between
other items. (From The Scotsman, 27.3.1871) In December 1870, following a series of England v. Scotland eleven-a-side football matches played in London (all of which were won by England), a group of Scots players issued a letter of challenge in The Scotsman and in Bell's Life in London, to play an England XX at the carrying game. The English could hardly ignore such a challenge and this led to the first-ever rugby international match being played at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh, on Monday 27 March 1871. The Scots won the encounter by a goal and a try to a solitary try scored by England (a points scoring system had not
then been devised).
Australia national rugby league team
Rugby football has been played in Australia since the 1860s. In 1863 Sydney University became the first rugby club to be formed in Sydney, and played games amongst themselves or against the crews of visiting British ships. The Sydney Football Club (1865) and the Wallaroos (1870) followed, and inter-club competition commenced. By 1880, there were 100 clubs across the country, and rugby quickly became the dominant winter sport for Sydney.
History of the England national rugby union team
The game of rugby union developed out of the game of football that was played at Rugby School from the mid-18th century. In the first half of the 19th century, the game began to spread, as ex-pupils of Rugby, and other public schools, introduced it into the universities. At Cambridge University, in 1839, a game was organised between Old Rugbeians and Old Etonians, and a rugby club was formed at Guy's Hospital, London in 1843. In 1848, representatives of the major public schools agreed a code of rules. On 26 January 1871, a meeting was held in London that led to the founding of the Rugby Football Union. Following a challenge from Scottish members, teams representing England and Scotland met at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh, on 27 March 1871 in the first ever international rugby union match. Scotland won by four points to one, in front of 4,000 people.
Water polo ball
The modern game originated in the late 19th century as a form of rugby football, played in rivers in England and Scotland, with a small 3 to 4 inch ball constructed of rubber imported from colonial plantations in India. This "water rugby" came to be called "water polo" based on the English pronunciation of the Balti word for ball, "pulu". The original ball soon gave way to a football (soccer ball), which allowed for passing and swimming above water with the ball. However, the leather football absorbed water and became extremely heavy, slippery and out-of-control when wet. In 1936, James R. ("Jimmy") Smith, California water polo coach and author of several books on water polo mechanics, developed a ball made with an inflatable bladder and a rubber fabric cover, which improved performance. The new ball was red, but by 1948 yellow was adopted for better visibility by players. It became the official FINA and Olympic ball in 1956.
History of rugby union
The history of rugby union follows from various football games played long before the 19th century, but it was not until the middle of that century that the rules were formulated and codified. The code of football later known as rugby union can be traced to three events: the first set of written rules in 1845, the Blackheath Club's decision to leave the Football Association in 1863 and the formation of the Rugby Football Union in 1871. The code was originally known simply as "rugby football". It was not until a schism in 1895, over the payment of players, which resulted in the formation of the separate code of rugby league, that the name "rugby union" was used to differentiate the original rugby code. For most of its history, rugby was a strictly amateur football code, and the sport's administrators frequently imposed bans and restrictions on players who they viewed as professional. It was not until 1995 that rugby union was declared an "open" game, and thus professionalism was sanctioned by the code's governing body, World Rugby—then known as the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB).
History of rugby league
Although many forms of football had been played across the world, it was only during the second half of the 19th century that these games began to be codified. In 1871, English clubs playing the version of football played at Rugby School which involved much more handling of the ball than in association football, met to form the Rugby Football Union. Many new rugby clubs were formed, and it was in the Northern English counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire that the game really took hold. Here rugby was largely a working class game, whilst the south eastern clubs were largely middle class.
World Rugby
Until 1885 the laws of rugby football were made by England as the founder nation. However, following a disputed try in an international between Scotland and England in 1884, letters were exchanged in which England claimed that they made the laws, and the try should stand. Scotland refused to play England in the 1885 Home Nations Championship. Following the dispute, the home unions of Scotland, Ireland and Wales decided to form an international union whose membership would agree on the standard rules of rugby football. The three nations met in Dublin in 1886, though no formal regulations were agreed upon. On 5 December 1887, committee members of the Irish Rugby Football Union, Scottish Rugby Union (named the Scottish Football Union at the time) and Welsh Rugby Union met in Manchester and wrote up the first four principles of the International Rugby Football Board. England refused to take part in the founding of the IRFB, stating that they should have greater representation, as they had more clubs. The England Union also refused to accept the IRFB as the recognised lawmaker of the game. This led to the IRFB taking the stance of member countries not playing England until they joined, and no games were played against England in 1888 and 1889. In 1890 England joined the IRFB, gaining six seats while the other unions had two each. The same year, the IRFB wrote the first international laws of rugby union.
Super 8 (SRL)
The Student Rugby League was founded in 1967 when a rugby league team was created at Leeds University by Andrew Cudbertson, Jack Abernathy and Cec Thompson, other teams soon joined in areas of the United Kingdom which lay outside of the games traditional heartlands. The first university game was between Leeds and Liverpool in 1968. A year later the Universities and Colleges Rugby League was formed after student pioneers fought hard to get the sport recognised in higher education.
Currie Cup
The Currie Cup is one of the oldest rugby competitions, with the first games played in 1889 but it was only in 1892 that it became officially known as the Currie Cup. The competition had its humble beginnings as an inter-province competition in 1884, but when the South African Rugby Board was founded in 1889 it decided to organize a national competition that would involve representative teams from all the major unions. The original participating unions were Western Province, Griqualand West, Transvaal and Eastern Province. The first tournament was held in Kimberley and was won by Western Province. For a prize they received a silver cup donated by the South African Rugby Board, now displayed at the SA Rugby Museum in Cape Town. The story of how the Currie Cup came to be comes from the first overseas rugby team to tour South Africa in 1891, The British Isles, who carried with them a particularly precious bit of cargo. Among the bags, boots and balls was a golden cup given to them by Sir Donald Currie, owner of Union-Castle Lines, the shipping company that transported them to the southern tip of Africa. Sir Donald was clear with his instructions – hand this trophy over to the team in South Africa that gives you the best game; and after a spirited display where the unbeaten British Lions narrowly won 3-0, Griqualand West became the first ever holders of the Currie Cup. They then handed the trophy over to the South African rugby board and it became the floating trophy for the Currie Cup competition. The inaugural Currie Cup tournament was thus held in 1892 with Western Province earning the honour of holding it aloft as the first official winners.
Cambridge University R.U.F.C.
Football is believed to have been introduced to Cambridge University in 1839 by Trinity College fresher Albert Pell. Pell had matriculated at Cambridge after going up from Rugby School, where the game of rugby is believed to have originated. Cambridge University Rugby Union Football Club was officially established in 1872, around three years after the Oxford rugby club was founded. The first Varsity match was contested between the two teams on 10 February 1872. The Cambridge team was led out by captain Isaac Cowley Lambert, wearing pink jerseys with a monogram on the left breast. Played away at the Park in Oxford, Cambridge lost by a single goal to nil. CURUFC officials helped to draw up the laws of the game that were adopted by the Rugby Football Union (RFU) when it was established in 1871. Cambridge became a Constituent Body of the Union in 1872, a status which the club still holds today. In 1874, Cambridge provided their first international player directly from the club, when John Batten represented England in the third encounter against Scotland.
Heidelberger RK
The game of rugby was introduced in the club in the early 1890s by Edward Hill Ullrich, who was partly of English descend and had a great love of "English" games, translating the rules of rugby into German. It is from this beginnings that the "HRK" claims to be the oldest rugby club in Germany. This is true in the sense that it is the oldest rugby-playing club in Germany but other clubs have an older rugby department.
Rugby union in India
Like other sports founded in England and brought to India during the British Raj such as cricket, rugby union has a long history in India. The earliest trace of Rugby Football in India dates back to a scratch match or two played in Calcutta and Madras during the visit of H.M.S. Galatea in 1871. The teak goal posts used on the occasion of the Calcutta Match were afterward used by the C.F.C. up to at least 1886.