First ever game of rugby seen in rediscovered 1851 photograph
A RARE photograph of the first ever game of rugby taken on the pitch where the sport was invented has been unearthed ahead of the World Cup kicking off this week.
The black and white image from 1851 shows players lining up on the field where William Webb Ellis famously picked up a football and ran with it in his arms.
A group of boys from Rugby School, in Warwickshire, can be seen preparing for a scrum wearing white shirts, which were later to be adopted by England.
The 168-year-old photo was found after decades lying on a dusty shelf in the archives at the prestigious private school William Webb Ellis attended.
Former archivist Rusty MacLean said: “England wears white because many of the founding members of the Rugby Football Union in 1871 went to Rugby School – some of whom are probably pictured here.
“Rugby School didn’t play a match against any other school until 1867, so this would have been an internal game between two houses.
“It was taken on The Close, the grounds at the centre of our school, in an area known as Bigside, where the game began. The exact date is unclear so we don’t know the score, but scores at the time were just a record of the number of goals kicked.”
This was due to the fact that originally touching the ball down behind the opposition goal line only allowed you to have a ‘try’ at kicking a goal.
Mr MacLean added: “That’s where the term comes from. It is one of the many terms created at our school, like ‘offside’, ‘touch’ and ‘maul’. The boys are wearing their ‘following up’ caps, which developed into the international cap, and are wearing the white kit of Rugby.”
Rugby was originally believed to have been established by William Webb Ellis, a 16-year-old schoolboy who suddenly picked up a football during a game in 1823 and ran with it.
He is immortalised at the school by a plaque which praised his ‘fine disregard for the rules of football’, but some researchers now believe the classic tale is inaccurate.
The rules of football were not established at the time and every public school had its own version of the game, with universal laws introduced in 1863.
Players being allowed to carry the ball changed from game to game, meaning that his act of defiance would not have been revolutionary.
However, Rugby remains the spiritual home of the game and the trophy the 20 nations will compete for in Japan is named the Webb Ellis Cup in honour of the schoolboy.
Tony Collins, a professor of history at De Montford University, also credits the school with codifying and popularising the sport.
He said: “You can certainly trace the origins of both Rugby League and Union to the game that was played at Rugby School.”