Sports
Rugby Union
Also Known As Rugby Throughout most of the world both rugby union and rugby league are known simply as rugby; context distinguishes the codes.
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Rugby football developed at Rugby School in Warwickshire, England, between the late eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries; the school's own first written rules date to 1845. Popular tradition credits pupil William Webb Ellis with originating the game in 1823 by picking up the ball and running with it, but the story was not published until 1876, more than fifty years after the supposed event and after Webb Ellis's own death, and is treated by rugby historians as an unproven origin legend rather than an established fact (see the recorded dissent on this point). The Rugby Football Union, the first union, was founded in London on 26 January 1871; the International Rugby Football Board, now World Rugby, was founded in 1886 by the unions of Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
Facts
Origin YearMarks the founding of the Rugby Football Union in London and its laws, approved 22 June 1871. The popular 1823 William Webb Ellis origin story is not treated here as the sport founding date; see the recorded dissent. Originating RegionEngland (Rugby School, Warwickshire, for the nineteenth-century codification; the Rugby Football Union was founded in London in 1871). 1 International Governing BodyWorld Rugby, founded in 1886 as the International Rugby Football Board by the unions of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, joined by the Rugby Football Union in 1890; renamed the International Rugby Board in 1998 and World Rugby in 2014. 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
Ancestor Of
Twenty-two Yorkshire and Lancashire clubs resigned from the Rugby Football Union on 29 August 1895 over broken-time payments and formed the Northern Rugby Football Union, renamed Rugby Football League in 1922, reducing teams from fifteen to thirteen players.
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Governed By
Played By
Sources
1. Rugby Football History, Independent Reference
1. Rugby Football History, Independent Reference
rugbyfootballhistory.comAncestor Of: Rugby League, Schism.htmlView the Source 2. World Rugby, Official History
Wikipedia, Rugby Union
Wikimedia FoundationLead sentenceQuote, Lead sentence
Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union or often just rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in England in the first half of the 19th century.
Wikipedia, Rugby World Cup
World Rugby, Organisation / About Us
Wikipedia, Jonah Lomu
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Origin Year
Popular tradition holds that pupil William Webb Ellis originated rugby football in 1823 at Rugby School by picking up the ball and running with it, in violation of the football rules of the day. The World Rugby Museum own historiographic review finds no contemporary support for this claim: the story was first put into print by Matthew Bloxam in 1876, more than fifty years after the supposed event and four years after Webb Ellis own death, based on an unnamed source; Webb Ellis surviving correspondence contains no mention of football, and running with the ball was itself against the rules at the school until 1841. The museum treats the story as historically plausible but unproven, and this atlas records 1871, the founding of the Rugby Football Union and its first laws, as rugby union own origin-year for that reason.
A dissenting reading, from Matthew Bloxam (1876 account, disputed by rugby historians)World Rugby Museum, William Webb Ellis: What We Know, World Rugby Museum
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