Why do we have two codes in the sport of rugby and when and where did they split?
A Rugby’s great split happened in 1895 when the top clubs in the north of England left the Rugby Football Union (RFU) to create the Northern Union, which became the Rugby Football League in 1922.
The split’s roots lay in the late 1870s when rugby became hugely popular with the working classes in northern English industrial towns. Crowds were often bigger than for soccer and demands grew for players to be paid. But unlike with soccer, the RFU refused to allow professionalism, fearing it would lose control of the game, and in 1886 it declared rugby a purely amateur sport.
In response, northern rugby clubs argued for ‘ broken-time’ payments to working-class players to compensate them for taking time off work to play the sport. Differences about how to play rugby emerged too, with the north of England favouring an open, passing game containing fewer scrums.
In 1893 the RFU decisively voted down the north’s proposal to allow broken-time payments and civil war broke out in rugby. Major clubs Wigan, Huddersfield, Salford and Leigh were suspended. With compromise impossible, 21 clubs met at Huddersfield’s George Hotel on 29 August 1895 to found the Northern Union.
The overwhelming majority of northern clubs soon joined this body. Rugby’s rules were reformed, teams reduced to 13-a-side, line-outs abolished and scoring amended to make tries more important than goals. In response, the RFU banned for life anyone connected with rugby league.
Today, rugby remains two separate sports, each with its own distinct rules, traditions and communities.