The game of Rugby is played all over the civilised world, and we even play it in Wales. Many countries have an international team, which is a source of either great pride if you are from New Zealand, or embarrassment for anyone form just about everywhere else. Of course, in some places the game is completely unknown. A short description might help.
The idea is to kill each other, and then drink vast quantities of beer thereafter. That just about sums the entire ethos. The following may or may not help.
Popular mythology has it that that William Webb Ellis picked up a football, ran with it, and this led to the founding of the Rugby Football Union. Sadly, this was a story put about by the Victorians, who had got fed up with listening to Gilbert and Sullivan (Sullivan was a useful Inside Centre, played for Bristol Academicals), and decided to invent another sporting myth. It was partly to cover up the mistakes being made in the Raj, where, of course, Rugby is not played because the pitches are too hard, and trying to remove elephant droppings from behind the 25 yard line, as it then was, was a mammoth task. The true story is much older, and pre-dates any other known sport, bar one.
Before we look at the truth behind the game, let us briefly consider why the Ellis story must be untrue. William Webb Ellis, who later became a clergyman, was a pacifist by nature. That being the case, when he first got the ball, rather than getting involved in a fracas with three opposition players, each of them three stone heavier than he, he picked up the ball and ran with it. Sadly, whilst it could be claimed that this would be considered unfair, Ellis was not averse to bending one or two rules - indeed it was claimed that he "was rather inclined to take unfair advatage at cricket", which is just not cricket. It should further be noted that he was only 17, and would therefore presumably have been playing for the Colts, who were largely ignored by the larger players. When it boils down to it, young Master Ellis was probably a coward, another word for a realist, which is why he legged it over the goal line, to hide behind the net. Interestingly, the claim that Ellis started the game was not made until 1876, whilst his famous actions were in 1823, by which time Pontypool had been producing forwards calculated to scare the jockstrap off anyone for well over a decade. It is also worth considering that Rugby School in those days was fairly elitist, which would hardly fit in with the ethos of the Valleys in Wales, the Highlands of Scotland or the Drumlins of Ireland. Anything that was associated with the English Upper Classes would have been anathema in Australia or New Zealand, so it would seem likely that the origins lay elsewhere.
It all started on the Scottish-English border, late in the Jurassic period, just outside Berwick on Tweed. A tribe of Brigantes, or English chaps, covered in woad, were strolling around the greensward, looking for something to eat/club/marry, when they came upon a similar sized group of Celts. One need hardly say that the Celts were a hardy bunch, and despite the strictures of a Northern winter considered themselves to be hard, Jimmy, and wore but the briefest of loin cloths. The Celts were on their way home, having found very little to club or marry, but had discovered a dinosaur egg, with which it was planned to have a ceilidh and omelette. Diplomacy was very much in its infancy at that time, so the Brigantes lay down their clubs, and attempted to remove the egg, thought to have been that of a diplodocus, and therefore possibly a double yolker. The tribal elders, of which tradition required eight, tussled with the Celtic elders, and the scrum was born. Even more importantly, since the British were in woad, and the Celts were pale skinned due to the lack of sunlight up there, the wearing of blue or white became the norm, and the Calcutta cup was born. How it came about that the Scots later wore the blue and the English the white is unknown. The theory was propounded in 463 BC by Herodotus that it was as a result of post match shirt swapping, but this fails to take into account the fact that the Scots wore no shirts at all. This also explains why the Greeks do not understand Rugby Football, even to this day.
In that first epic battle, which lasted forty days and forty nights, there was no outright winner, since both sides were evenly matched. Therefore, when exhaustion took over, the protagonists decided to share the egg, which made an omelette sufficient for exactly 30 men, which is where the decision to have 15 players per side originates. Obviously, in the Northern Counties, where everybody worked in the mill, or down the pit, appetites were greater, particularly before the invention of Yorksire Pudding, and thus the feast only served for 26. At the point when both sides originally met, they had gathered certain vegation to eat, such as grapes, malt, yeast and hops, but obviously over the period of the contest, much of this had fermented, and as everybody knows, it is always wet up North, so it had produced an interesting liquid. The combatants decided to share this also, saying "Let us not be Bitter toward one another", and "This game is Larger than the both of us", (spelling not being introduced until Dr. Johnson in 1755), and the tradition of getting tired and emotional after each match was established.
There is much conjecture as to how the various positions on the field of play got their current names, but they are known to go back to the very beginnings of the game. For example, the position of Scrum Half was always played by a very small person, who was tiny enough to duck under the clutches of enemy breakaway forwards, and was therefore thought to be only half the size of them. This still holds true today. The Stand Off Half was so called, not because such players were actually stand-offish, although there have been occasions, but because if he had any sense, he would let the scrum half get marmalized, and if the ball came his way, so much the better. If not, that was what forwards were for. He too was usually of lower stature, at least physically, although never tell a Fly Half this. He will take it as a personal insult. He is sometimes known as the Outside Half, a name this breed of men gave themselves, on the grounds that many thought they were outside the human norm. Ask any Welshman. The name centre is self-evident, although there was a period of time early in the history of the game, when centres did not get involved in the rough and tumble, these being known as soft centres. The phrase Three-Quarter was invented by a disgruntled Hooker. Her name is unknown, but she claimed that most of them are not all there, and the appelation stuck. The Winger got his name from the phrase 'Winging It', which is defined as: "To say or do something without preparation, forethought or sufficient information or experience; improvise". You are invited to interpret this as you will.
Quite the most philologically obscure definitions, however, are for those individuals who make up the Pack. This is a word defined variously as "A large amount; a heap", or "To send unceremoniously, to form lumps or masses". Again, the choice is yours. The front row, self-explanatory, is made up of two props and a hooker. The prop was a named devised by a certain Dai Llewellyn of Ebbw Vale, a miner who made it a habit to carry a pit-prop on the field of play, a practice that was banned in 56AD, when they beat a Roman Legionnaires fifteen by XXV points to VI. The Roman Prop, one Porcius Pius, never recovered his sanity, and finished up playing at Full Back. The name of the Hooker is lost in the mists of time, decency, propriety and censorship. Permissiveness still hasn't gone that far, so again, you may use any explanation you wish. The second row, or Lock Forwards were noted for their strength, their tenacity and their barbarity, thinking it good sport to bite the heads off opposition half backs, a practice that can still be seen today at the Stade de France. Particularly during the Dark Ages, when mead was ridiculously cheap, taxation not having been invented then, many a second row forward had to be locked outside, before they confused the roast boar with the Half-Back coach.
Wing forward got their title in much the same way as the Winger did, on the grounds that it is perfectly possible to stand at the back of a ruck, with our hand on a sweating prop's shoulder, and kid yourself you are contributing to pushing the opposition off the ball. You are fooling nobody, except the opposition Wing forward, who is doing exactly the same thing, thus equalizing the entire proceedings. Rugby is much more organised than it looks to the lay person, such as the referee. Incidentally, the referee was only introduced in the nineteenth century, and he was nearly always the local undertaker touting for custom. This is why they usually dress in black. Contrary to popular opinion, professionalism entered the game long before the modern era, since many of these men became exceedingly wealthy. The Wing Forwad is also known as the Flanker, a term originally coined by Bilious Bowmontus, a famous player of the early second century, but it is possible that the name was mis-heard, cauliflower ears being de rigeur at the time. We shall never know.
Finally, we come to the Number Eight, or as it was known earlier, the Number VIII. Peculiarly, there was little formalisation in the formative years of the game, and the man at the back of the scrum was usually picked for his weight, rather than ability. Many fat men were extremely successful at this position, your present scribe having been of that ilk, and the term was allied to the "Two Fat Ladies" once used in the Bingo halls of Britain, before the PC brigade took over. Most Number Eights had very small heads, in order to fit in between the Lock forwards, but not far enough that they were at risk of being bitten.
The dimensions of the pitch were entirely arbitary until fairly recently, one extreme example being the entire county of Rutland, which had posts erected at Cottesmore in the north and Uppingham in the South. The local emblem of the horseshoe was taken from the fact that most forwards carried one, partly as good-luck charm, partly as knuckle-duster. Whilst we are in that part of the country, Leicester Tigers got their name from their tradition of eschewing the normal custom of the post-match omelette and spit-roasting a sabre toothed tiger, at least till they became extinct.
There is yet more research to do to fill in the finite details of our great game, particularly with regard to the effects of the War of the Roses, the Civil War, (which was only an over-enthusiastic bit of extra time) and the Battle of Jenkin's Ear, Jenkin being an Outside Half for Heriot's. Archaeology is throwing much light on the past, what with finds of teeth, a medieval stud and the remains of a leather jockstrap found near Richmond in south-west London. We will, of course, keep you informed, so please watch this space.
Post Script. Many years of playing Rugby has been known to cause brain damage, to the extent that the sufferer is unable to spell the name of this great game in the title of anything he may be writing. This is most distressing.
