"This stone honors the exploit of William Webb Ellis who with a fine disdain for the guidelines of soccer, as played in his time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus originating the specific feature of the Rugby game A.D. 1823"
The game of Rugby has a wonderful history that is steeped in conventions of the ages. Rough and tumble games involving multiple players on each side fighting to get possession of a ball made from a pig's bladder stuffed with air and transport it to a marker at one end of a patch of ground can be traced into the middle ages. Frequently these games have Celtic and Viking origins. Otherwise, they can be traced back to the Romans. However these games came to be, we do know that the people of Britain had a fondness for playing them.
There wasn't any formal set of rules to regularize these games. Instead, the local players were known to make up there own rules on the spot. Because these games were so coarse and people were so regularly hurt, maimed or even rubbed out in the playing of them, the law began taking measures to outlaw the playing of such games.
The laws went so far as to make it illegal to play on public roads or public lands. The laws did not discourage folk from taking part in sporting events. It just meant that the games were moved from public lands to personal lands. College became well-liked venues for such sporting events because they'd giant enough tracts of land for playing, and because large numbers of boys and young men were picked up there.
The classic story which has been passed down through generations is that in the year 1823 at a Brit college in the city of Rugby, a young man named William Webb Ellis was engaged in playing a game with his school pals. At a critical moment in the game, he showed utter disdain for the rules and picked the ball up and ran with it across the field, scoring a point for his team.
This story, though very hip, is most probably not completely true. There's no real evidence to support the story, but Rugby players love the story and so it has lived on. In fact, there's an en-graven stone at Rugby which carries the message found at the beginning of this article. What is fact is that William Webb Ellis did attend Rugby college at about the time Rugby changed into a distinguishable game. And that the origins of the game can be traced to the college in Rugby, thus the name Rugby was given to the game.
By the 1840's the game had gained acclaim, and Rugby clubs began to spring up across the nation. However, there were still no standardized rules, and each club played by their own rules. In Jan of 1871, a meeting was held in which members from all twenty-two Rugby clubs were in attendance. During this meeting the Rugby soccer Union was founded and a delegation was selected to create a standard set of rules. The rules were introduced by June 1871, and the official sport of Rugby was born.
In the 1890's the division between economic classes split the Rugby union in two. This break slowed the progression of Rugby Football for virtually a century. During that time Rugby continued to be played in clubs around Europe, Australia and New Zealand, but other games which also sprang from the seeds of those medieval sports played with an inflated pig's bladder, for example American football and soccer moved into the forefront. Today, Rugby is making a comeback. Latterly, members of the global Olympic committee voted to include Rugby Sevens as an official sport in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Source: EzineArticles
There wasn't any formal set of rules to regularize these games. Instead, the local players were known to make up there own rules on the spot. Because these games were so coarse and people were so regularly hurt, maimed or even rubbed out in the playing of them, the law began taking measures to outlaw the playing of such games.
The laws went so far as to make it illegal to play on public roads or public lands. The laws did not discourage folk from taking part in sporting events. It just meant that the games were moved from public lands to personal lands. College became well-liked venues for such sporting events because they'd giant enough tracts of land for playing, and because large numbers of boys and young men were picked up there.
The classic story which has been passed down through generations is that in the year 1823 at a Brit college in the city of Rugby, a young man named William Webb Ellis was engaged in playing a game with his school pals. At a critical moment in the game, he showed utter disdain for the rules and picked the ball up and ran with it across the field, scoring a point for his team.
This story, though very hip, is most probably not completely true. There's no real evidence to support the story, but Rugby players love the story and so it has lived on. In fact, there's an en-graven stone at Rugby which carries the message found at the beginning of this article. What is fact is that William Webb Ellis did attend Rugby college at about the time Rugby changed into a distinguishable game. And that the origins of the game can be traced to the college in Rugby, thus the name Rugby was given to the game.
By the 1840's the game had gained acclaim, and Rugby clubs began to spring up across the nation. However, there were still no standardized rules, and each club played by their own rules. In Jan of 1871, a meeting was held in which members from all twenty-two Rugby clubs were in attendance. During this meeting the Rugby soccer Union was founded and a delegation was selected to create a standard set of rules. The rules were introduced by June 1871, and the official sport of Rugby was born.
In the 1890's the division between economic classes split the Rugby union in two. This break slowed the progression of Rugby Football for virtually a century. During that time Rugby continued to be played in clubs around Europe, Australia and New Zealand, but other games which also sprang from the seeds of those medieval sports played with an inflated pig's bladder, for example American football and soccer moved into the forefront. Today, Rugby is making a comeback. Latterly, members of the global Olympic committee voted to include Rugby Sevens as an official sport in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Source: EzineArticles
