In Britain, football has been played since the Roman occupation in the 1st century BCE. Later on, in the 14th and 15th centuries, a local form of football called ‘folk football’ was often played at Easter time. These matches were devoid of rules and could be quite violent and may have had their origins in pagan rites celebrating the arrival of spring.
THE REBEL
According to legend, however, rugby football was actually invented in the 19th century, although there is no historical evidence for it. As the story goes, in 1823 during a game of football at Rugby School in Warwickshire, a rebellious student called William Webb Ellis defied the rules by picking up the ball and running towards the opposite goal line, inventing the game.
A GENTLEMEN’s game
What we do know is that in the Victorian era, British independent schools were one of the main promoters of football. Some of them, like Eton, preferred the football variant played with the feet, whereas others, like Rugby School, developed rugby football and were key in the expansion of the game.
MASCULINITY
As with football, the virtues of rugby were associated with competitive British imperial masculinity. By the end of the century, rugby football was, along with cricket, the sport of choice for young gentlemen at elitist schools and universities Oxford and Cambridge, where they formed the first football clubs.
DANGEROUS
In 1863, several leading clubs met to create a common set of rules for football. However, the rugby representatives refused to accept some controversial prohibitions, and rugby was left out of the Football Association. In 1871, the Rugby Football Club Union was created to regulate the game after a player was accidentally killed during practice.
MORE THAN A SPORT
Rugby spread rapidly in the 20th century. In the British Isles, the national teams formed the Home Nations. In 1910, France joined the British Home Championship to create the Five Nations Championship, which ten years later became the Six Nations Championship, with the participation of Italy. Rugby rules in North America were modified to create American or ‘gridiron football’.
In the southern hemisphere, rugby acquired new levels of cultural meaning and innovation. In New Zealand and South Africa, the game became an essential part of national identity.