Scotland Rugby League Results

The History of Rugby   by Owen Jones

Today, each schoolboy knows the story of William Webb Ellis, the Rugby School pupil “who with a fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it”. The presentation trophy for the Rugby World Cup is named the Webb Ellis trophy in his honour, and his “achievement” is commemorated by a plaque at the school

There is only one thing wrong with this story. It simply is not true. It was not until four years after the death of Webb Ellis in 1876 that the story first saw the light of day and its source is thought to stem from a local antiquarian and previous Rugbeian Matthew Bloxam.

He was not a contemporary of Webb Ellis and says that the story was told to him by an unnamed source some 53 years after the incident is alleged to have taken place.

In 1823, when the incident is alleged to have occurred, the rules of rugby had yet to be formulated and any alterations, such as the legality of carrying or running with the ball, were frequently agreed on an ad hoc basis a short time before the beginning of a game.

There were therefore no formal rules for football during the period William Webb Ellis was at the school (1816-25). It was not until 1845, some 200 years after football was first played at Rugby School, that three pupils published the first written rules of the game.

For many years it had been the boys, and not the masters who had set down the rules which were often modified by every new generation of students.

Guy’s Hospital Football Club, formed in London in 1843, by old boys from Rugby School, has strong claims to be the oldest football club in the world. It definitely predates by 14 years the formation of Sheffield FC, believed to be the oldest club playing association football.

In 1871, after a number of contentious disputes with the Football Association, 21 clubs met in London to create an association of those |clubs