At least Fuller will forever have one claim to fame
ONE of Herbert Fuller’s two claims to fame will disappear at Twickenham on Thursday when Cambridge prop Will Briggs – barring injury, illness or an act of God – will win an incredible seventh Blue. Until that moment Briggs, 27, Fuller and Lewis Anderson jointly share the record on six Varsity match appearances.
Where Fuller, a stalwart Cambridge forward between 1878 and 1883 and the winner of six England caps, can not be surpassed, however, is his invention of the scrum cap, which would have netted a fair old fortune had he thought to patent the idea.
Although prominent ears might have been the problem the invention, it seems, owed more to vanity.
Prematurely bald, Fuller won his last Blue at the age of nearly 28 which was considered positively ancient at the time of predominantly teenage undergraduate student rugby players. It seems likely that disguising his venerable looks was his main motivation.