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“1987 Rugby World Cup.” RSS, nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/the-1987-rugby-world-cup#:~:text=The%20first%20tournament%20took%20place,of%20the%20Webb%20Ellis%20Cup.

Freeman, Rich. “History Makers: the Origins of Japan's 150-Year Love Affair with Rugby.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 14 Sept. 2019, www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/sep/14/history-origins-japan-150-year-love-affair-rugby-world-cup.

Green, Dominic. “Did William Webb Ellis Really Invent Rugby?” All About History, www.historyanswers.co.uk/news/did-william-webb-ellis-really-invent-rugby/.

“Japan National Rugby Union Team.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Jan. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_national_rugby_union_team.

“List of Rugby Union Competitions.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Dec. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rugby_union_competitions.

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Although international rugby has been played for well over a century, the Rugby World Cup is a relatively recent phenomenon. The first tournament took place in May and June 1987, with games played in both New Zealand and Australia. The final was held at Eden Park, Auckland, on 20 June, with the home team beating France 29-9 to become the inaugural holders of the Webb Ellis Cup.

In a country where rugby became a surrogate for religion, hosting and then winning the first Rugby World Cup was a big deal. For much of the 20th century the All Blacks vied with South Africa's Springboks for the unofficial title of the best team in international rugby. Without a world cup to bring the top teams together in a single competition, such claims were difficult to prove. When the All Blacks triumphed in 1987, the Springboks were absent because of the country's apartheid policy. The All Blacks' failure to repeat this success at subsequent World Cup tournaments weighed increasingly heavily on several generations of New Zealand fans. Photographs of captain David Kirk holding the Webb Ellis Cup aloft in 1987 became one of our most famous - and frustrating - sporting images.

The 2011 tournament was the first since 1987 to be hosted by New Zealand (this time without Australia). The same four teams made the semi-finals - New Zealand, Australia, Wales and France - and once again New Zealand and France squared off in the final at Eden Park. After a much closer game than most people expected, the All Blacks prevailed 8-7 in the lowest-scoring final in the tournament's history.

In 2015 the All Blacks threw off the burden of 1987 entirely when they became both the first team to win back-to-back World Cups and the first to taste victory three times. Richie McCaw is the only captain to have triumphantly hoisted the Webb Ellis Cup twice. This final, at London's Twickenham, was the highest-scoring so far, with New Zealand beating Australia 34-17.

How the first Rugby World Cup came about is less well known. This fascinating story highlights the struggle between the amateur ideal and creeping professionalism, tensions between the British rugby unions and their southern hemisphere counterparts, and international protests over sporting contacts with South Africa. The story begins with a look at the 19th-century origins of international rugby.

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Although international rugby has been played for well over a century, the Rugby World Cup is a relatively recent phenomenon. The first tournament took place in May and June 1987, with games played in both New Zealand and Australia.

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International Rugby has been played many times before, but not quite to this level. In 1987 New Zealand , South Africa, Ireland, Wales, England, Australia, France, Argentina, Scotland, Japan, Fiji, Italy, Russia, USA, and Georgia all competed on the world stage.

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n 31 March 2016, an urgent call went out from the president of the rugby section of the Yokohama Country & Athletic Club. The guest speaker at a gala dinner at the club planned for 2 April had pulled out and a replacement was needed. The problem was this was no ordinary dinner. It was the centrepiece of a weekend celebrating 150 years of rugby in Japan, which arrived in the country five years before the creation of the Rugby Football Union.

More of the emergency stand-in later but fast forward to last week as Japan kickstarted its buildup to the World Cup with the unveiling of a memorial plaque in Yokohama's Chinatown area, close to where the then Yokohama Foot Ball Club held its first meeting.

"Building the monument will help create a new [understanding of] history in Yokohama, with the city expected to draw attention from the world in two weeks," the Kanagawa governor Yuji Kuroiwa said.

The plaque was official confirmation from those who run the game that Japan's rugby history was considerably older than previously recognised, while the ceremony was a fitting start to the festivities for the World Cup, the origins of which are as blurred by urban myth as the birth of the game in Japan.

The late Katsuhiko Oku, a diplomat with the United Nations who had played rugby for Oxford University, is often credited as being the first person to lobby for Japan to host a World Cup in his role as a member of the international committee of the JRFU. However, his hopes were known to only a few and were certainly not official policy until 2003, the same year Oku was assassinated in Iraq.

The reality was apparently a slightly more off-the-cuff move. "I remember [former] chairman Nobby Mashimo wanted to say something "big" at a new year's speech [to the press] in 2003," says Koji Tokumasu, a director of the World Cup 2019 organising committee. "I suggested he say Japan wants to host the World Cup. I called [former International Rugby Board chief executive] Mike Miller and asked what he thought. He said: 'It's not impossible' - and it sort of went from there."

Japan lost out to New Zealand for the right to host the 2011 World Cup. Despair, however, turned to joy when Japan was awarded this year's tournament, turning the spotlight on the sport in the country and prompting renewed delving into its origins.

The long-accepted view had always been that the sport was first introduced to Japan by Edward Bramwell Clarke and Ginnosuke Tanaka to students at Keio University.

The two Cambridge graduates wanted to give their students something constructive to do to "keep them from idling and wasting the lovely autumn weather" and started a rugby club in 1899.

On 7 December 1901, Keio played the YC&AC - an amalgamation of the Yokohama football (rugby), athletics, baseball, cricket and tennis clubs - and the sport eventually spread to some of the other top educational establishments.

The first Japan national rugby team jersey, worn in 1930. Photograph: Newscom/Alamy

A memorial stone at Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto marks the spot where rugby was first played in the Kansai area in 1910, and such was the quick spread of the sport that the national high school championship was first contested in 1917.

In 1926 the Japan Rugby Football Union was formed, and four years later the national team - coached by Shigeru Kayama, who had played for Harlequins during a trip in London as the attendant to Prince Chichibu - played its first overseas matches on a tour to Canada in 1930, drawing 3-3 with British Columbia in a game the JRFU designated as a Test. Two years later, Japan hosted its first Test match when the home side defeated Canada 9-8 in Osaka.

In 1948 the national corporate championship began with three teams vying for the title. The competition continued until 2003 when it was absorbed by the Top League.

But back to the early days, and historian Mike Galbraith has proved that the "Keio story" is not 100% accurate when it comes to the origins of rugby in Japan and his research has shown that "football" was being played in Japan as early as 1863, the year cricket was formally introduced to the country.

"I am very glad that my efforts bore fruit 10 years after I discovered the history," Galbraith told reporters after the unveiling of the plaque in September.

According to Galbraith, Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson, the governor-general of New South Wales in Australia, gave a speech in 1908 describing the first game of cricket in Japan - "A remarkable feature of which was the fact that half the players were playing football."

That game was played between a Royal Navy team drawn from officers on ships sent to protect British expats in Japan and those under their protection following a declaration by Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi that foreigners who ignored his order to leave Japan should be killed.

With the garrison at Yokohama strengthened, it soon became commonplace for the soldiers stationed there to play rugby against civilians - who may well have included Clarke's father who was a baker in the small port town - culminating two years later in the formation of the Yokohama Foot Ball Club.

"As we happen to have two or three Rugby and Winchester men in the community, we may be certain that we shall have really good scientific play," said an editorial in the Japan Times dated 26 January 1866.

Hence the dinner 150 years later and the urgent call for a guest speaker who could represent the history of rugby in Japan. A history that incorporated its expat beginnings, its development and the eventual rise of the national team to one that caused one of the biggest upsets sport has ever seen with the win over South Africa at the 2015 World Cup.

Eddie Jones celebrates with Suntory Sungoriath after winning the All-Japan Rugby Championship Final in February 2011. Photograph: Sankei/Sankei via Getty Images

There was really only one man who could fit the bill and as luck would have it a former Tokai University, Suntory Sungoliath and Japan head coach landed in Tokyo just a few hours after the call went out.

Perhaps wanting to make up for the duck he scored for a Chairman's XI against the Japan national cricket side in the 2013 game commemorating 150 years of cricket in Japan, Eddie Jones, fresh off winning the grand slam in the Six Nations with England, agreed to attend the dinner.

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The guests, including local politicians, sports dignitaries and a number of past players who had flown in from all over the globe, had not, however, been told of the last-minute change of speaker and the look of astonishment and joy on their faces as Jones took to the stage was one to behold.

"That's what rugby is all about," he said when asked why he had no hesitation in giving up some of the little free time he had on his short trip back to Japan. It is fair to say, with close to 500,000 foreign fans expected to hit Japanese shores for the World Cup, that not only local rugby fans but the population as a whole are about to get their own taste of what rugby is all about.

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History makers: the origins of Japan's 150-year love affair with rugby

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n 31 March 2016, an urgent call went out from the president of the rugby section of the Yokohama Country & Athletic Club. The guest speaker at a gala dinner at the club planned for 2 April had pulled out and a replacement was needed. The problem was this was no ordinary dinner.

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The Japan national rugby union team (often known as the Cherry Blossoms, Sakura, and more recently The Brave Blossoms) is traditionally the strongest rugby union power in Asia and has enjoyed and endured mixed results against non-Asian teams over the years. Rugby union in Japan is administered by the Japan Rugby Football Union (JRFU), which was founded in 1926. They compete annually in the Pacific Nations Cup and previously in the Asia Rugby Championship. They have also participated in every Rugby World Cup since the tournament began in 1987.

Rugby was first played in Japan's treaty ports as early as 1866. Popular participation by local university teams was established in 1899 and Japan's first recorded international match was a match against a Canadian team in 1932. Notable games for Japan include a victory over the Junior All Blacks in 1968, and a narrow 6-3 loss to England in 1971. Famous wins by Japan include a 28-24 victory over a Scotland XV in 1989 and a 23-8 victory over Wales in 2013. In 2011, Japan displayed its progress by winning the 2011 IRB Pacific Nations Cup, played against Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Further progress was displayed in 2014 when Japan completed a string of ten consecutive test wins (a record for a tier 2 team) to rank in the world's top 10 teams. This continued into 2015 where they produced the first of their three biggest upsets when, in a Rugby World Cup pool match against the Springboks, they won 34-32.

In the years between, Japan faced quality opposition, playing relatively well with solid results including a tie against France, and a narrow loss to Wales at Cardiff. Their second shock win was a 19-12 defeat of world number-two ranked Ireland in a 2019 Rugby World Cup pool game. Emerging undefeated from the tournament's pool stage after a 28-21 victory over Scotland, Japan made their first-ever World Cup quarter-final appearance, going down 3-26 to eventual world champions South Africa.

The first recorded instance of a team being established and rugby being played in Japan was in 1866 with the founding of the Yokohama Foot Ball Club. Games, mainly between service personnel, were played on the Garrison Parade Ground in Yamate, Yokohama. In 1874 records also illustrate British sailors staging a game in Yokohama. Other games were played at other treaty ports such as Kobe between teams of long-term foreign residents and visiting ships' crews and garrisons, but they rarely involved Japanese players. The date of local Japanese participation in the sport is most frequently cited as 1899, when students at Keio University were introduced to the game by Professor Edward Bramwell Clarke and Ginnosuke Tanaka both graduates of Cambridge University.

The formation of a national team and effectively Japan's first international match took place in Osaka on 31 January 1932 when a trade delegation from Canada to Japan supported an overseas tour by the Canada national rugby union team. The Japanese won this first match 9-8. In a second test match in Tokyo 11 days later again the Japanese side beat the Canadians 38-5.

Japan beat the Junior All Blacks 23-19 in 1968 after losing the first four matches on a tour of New Zealand, but they won the last five. The Japanese (coached by Waseda University Professor Onishi Tetsunosuke) lost by just 3-6 to England in Tokyo on 29 September 1971 in the RFU's centenary year. The 1973 Japan rugby union tour of Wales, England and France was less successful with the side winning only two of their eleven matches, and losing the international matches against Wales and France. Ten years later Japan gave Wales a fright in losing by a slim five-point margin, 24-29, at Cardiff Arms Park on 2 October 1983.

On 28 May 1989, a strong Japan coached by Hiroaki Shukuzawa defeated an uncapped Scotland, missing nine British Lions on tour in Australia, for the first time at Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium, 28-24. The Japan team included such Kobe Steel stalwarts as centre Seiji Hirao (captain), and locks Atsushi Oyagi and Toshiyuki Hayashi (38 Japan caps and a member of Oxford University's all-time best XV). Sinali Latu at No. 8 was then a fourth year student at Daito Bunka University, and speedy Yoshihito Yoshida on the wing (no. 14) was a third year at Meiji University. Scotland missed an incredible seven penalties and refused the kicking tee which was generously offered - as a surviving video of the game shows. It was almost the same Japanese team which defeated Zimbabwe in RWC1991.

After Hirao resigned, Toshiba Brave Lupus coach Shogo Mukai was appointed in March 2001 to lead Japan up to the 2003 Rugby World Cup. After mixed fortunes in his first two years in charge, Japan put in some impressive performances at the tournament with good efforts against Scotland and France, nevertheless they still left the tournament having failed to reach their target of winning some matches but still won admirers for their exciting brand of play. Mukai left his post after the tournament to spend more time with his family.

After Shogo Mukai left after the 2003 Rugby World Cup, the JRFU initially tried to appoint Eddie Jones from his post with Australia but were unsuccessful and instead appointed Mitsutake Hagimoto in March 2004 after he won the inaugural Top League with the Kobelco Steelers. Under Hagimoto, Japan decided they would not select foreign born players after Mukai had been criticised for playing too many at the World Cup.

Hagimoto's first match in charge was a disappointing draw with Korea, but his first few matches in charge after that were promising with wins over Russia and Canada to win the Super Powers Cup and pushed Italy close losing 32-19.

However, in November 2004, Japan went on a disastrous tour to Europe where they were embarrassingly thrashed 100-8 by Scotland and 98-0 by Wales and also were comfortably defeated by Romania. Japan's performances were described as "pathetic", and the squad was called "a joke" with some key players ignored or not given permission to travel.

This disastrous tour forced a rethink from Hagimoto and foreign born players were brought back into the side in 2005, but after losing twice to Ireland in June he was sacked and with just 5 wins from 15 matches was the least successful coach for Japan in the professional era.

After Hagimoto left his post at the end of June 2005, Jean-Pierre Élissalde who had been appointed backs coach three months earlier took full charge and became the first foreigner to be the head coach for Japan. His first match in charge was a 44-29 win over Spain in November 2005.

In 2006, despite a disappointing campaign in the inaugural Pacific Nations Cup in June where Japan lost all their matches, and also lost to heavily to Italy 52-6, Élissalde was backed to lead the side to the 2007 Rugby World Cup. But Élissalde was later sacked in September after he took on a job with Bayonne without consulting the JRFU and then refused to give up his job with them. Assistant coach Osamu Ota took over as caretaker coach for two Rugby World Cup qualifiers in November 2006.

John Kirwan was appointed head coach on in October 2006 after Elissalde was sacked. He initially worked as an advisor to caretaker coach Osamu Ota before taking over the job completely in 2007.

After starting with large wins over the Asian opposition, Japan only won one of their remaining 10 fixtures in 2007, although in the 2007 Rugby World Cup they did gain a draw with a last minute touchline conversion from Shotaro Onishi against Canada to end a long losing streak of World Cup matches stretching back to 1991.

Results began to pick up after the 2007 World Cup and Kirwan led Japan up to a high of 13th in the IRB Rankings and to win their first ever Pacific Nations Cup title in 2011 after they beat Fiji away for the first ever time in Japan's history.

However, despite more positive results in between World Cups, Japan had a disappointing 2011 Rugby World Cup, losing 31-18 to Tonga who they had beaten four times in a row since 2008, and drawing again to Canada who they had beaten 46-8 and 27-6 in 2009, and Japan left the World Cup winless meaning they still had not won a match at the tournament since 1991. Kirwan came under pressure after the tournament and he resigned from his post after his contract came to the end at the end of the year.

The tenure of Kirwan as coach was notable for a large amount of imports he selected. Players who originated from New Zealand such as James Arlidge, Bryce Robins, Shaun Webb, Ryan Nicholas, Luke Thompson or Tonga such as Alisi Tupuailei and Sione Vatuvei all featured prominently under Kirwan. The large percentage of foreigners in the national team also caused criticism for Kirwan. However, despite failing to bring Japan a World Cup win, Kirwan left his post as the most successful Japan coach of the professional era with a win rate of 58.18% from 55 matches.

Kirwan chose not to renew his contract as head coach when it expired at the end of 2011, and the Japan Rugby Football Union announced that former Australia coach Eddie Jones would be his successor. Jones stated that his intention was to take the Japanese national team into the top 10 on the international rankings, and that they must develop a style of play to allow them to win games against teams such as Scotland and Wales.

Jones made his debut as Japan head coach against Kazakhstan. He had selected a total of 10 uncapped players out of the 22 selected players. They went on to win the match 87-0. They then had a big win over United Arab Emirates where young 18-year-old Yoshikazu Fujita set a new Asian Five Nations record for the most tries in a single match with a total of 6. This was also Fujita's international debut.

In 2013, Jones led Japan to their sixth consecutive championship win in the Asian Five Nations, where Japan achieved a tournament record score of 121-0 against the Philippines. In May, the nation lost their opening match of the 2013 IRB Pacific Nations Cup to Tonga, followed by a defeat to Fiji in the second round. Following these matches, Japan faced a 2-test series against Wales. Japan lost narrowly, 18-22, in the first test, but won the second test 23-8, and the series ended in a 1-1 draw. This was the first time that Japan had recorded a victory over the Welsh.

On 16 October 2013, Jones was hospitalised after having a suspected stroke and was released from hospital 2 days later on 18 October 2013. After his release from hospital, it was announced that Jones would miss Japan's 2013 end-of-year rugby union tests against New Zealand, Scotland, Gloucester, Russia and Spain, and former Australia skills coach and current technical adviser for Japan Scott Wisemantel would interim coach Japan for their 2013 end-of-year rugby union tests.

On 19 September 2015, Japan stunned South Africa by a last minute try from Karne Hesketh to win 34-32 in their opening group pool game at the 2015 Rugby World Cup in Brighton, England. BBC reported the win as "arguably the biggest upset in rugby union history". In 2015, Japan became the first team in World Cup history to win three pool games but still be eliminated at the group stage, due to their heavy loss to Scotland.

Jamie Joseph, former coach of New Zealand's Highlanders Super Rugby team and the Māori All Blacks, took over as head coach for Japan (and the Sunwolves Super Rugby team) in 2016. In the 2017 Asia Rugby Championship, Japan sealed their twelfth consecutive Asia Rugby Championship, winning all four games. They went on to defeat Romania 33-21 in the 2017 June rugby union tests, but lost to Ireland 2-0, during their first test series since 2005, losing the first test 50-22 and the second 35-13. In November 2017, Joseph led his side to a single win and a draw in four games. They started their End-of-year series with two consecutive home losses, a 27-47 loss to a World XV side and a 30-63 loss to Australia. Japan's first win came against Tonga 39-6 in Toulouse, France, before going on to draw with France 23-23, which was the first time that these two nations had drawn with one another.

During the 2018 June tests, Joseph led Japan to a 1-all series draw with Italy, winning the first test 34-17, and losing the second 25-22. The team then beat Georgia 28-0 at the Toyota Stadium.

In 2019, Japan won the Pacific Nations Cup with wins against Fiji, Tonga and the United States, with no losses.

Japan hosted the Rugby World Cup in 2019, and the team repeated their feat of a shock win in Brighton at the 2015 World Cup, this time beating world No. 2-ranked Ireland 19-12 at Shizuoka Stadium in Fukuroi, Shizuoka They reached the quarter-finals for the first time in the team's history after beating Scotland 28-21 at the International Stadium Yokohama in Yokohama that was battered by Typhoon Hagibis only the night before.

Japan has participated in the Rugby World Cup since the tournament's inception in 1987, and has made appearances in all tournaments thus far. Despite this, they experienced little success until the 2015 tournament, with just one victory over Zimbabwe in 1991, and two draws with Canada in 2007 and 2011. In 2015 they defeated South Africa with a score of 34-32, their first win since 1991 against Zimbabwe, which they followed up with victories over Samoa and the United States in the same pool stage, but despite their 3-1 record failed to reach the knockout round.

They were the home team for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, which was held in Japan.

In the 2019 World Cup, Japan were drawn in Group A alongside Ireland, Russia, Samoa, and Scotland. After a nervy opening night win against Russia (30-10), Japan went on to beat Ireland 19-12, a huge upset and a result few predicted. Their third group game against Samoa ended in another win, this time 38-19, while also securing a highly important bonus point (for scoring four or more tries).

In the highly anticipated final group game against Scotland, both teams needed to win to progress to the knockout stages at the expense of the other. The match went ahead despite pre-game worries that it would have to be cancelled due to the ongoing issues caused by Typhoon Hagibis. The pre-tournament rules stated that if the typhoon was sufficient enough to intervene, the game would be cancelled, and the result declared a draw. This controversial rule would have allowed Japan to progress by default due to previous results.

After final safety checks, the game was allowed to commence. Japan edged out Scotland 28-21 to register their second shock win of the tournament. They also became the first Asian nation to top their group at a Rugby World Cup, and the first Asian team to progress to the knockout stages.

Japan played South Africa in the quarter finals in Tokyo on Sunday 20 October 2019, kick off 19:15 JST. They kept pace with South Africa in the first half, but two tries and three penalties in the second half for South Africa put the game out of reach and Japan lost 26-3.

Below is table of the representative rugby matches played by a Japan national XV to 13 October 2019.

Additionally, Japan tied France 23-23 in Paris, 25 November 2017.[30]

On 29 August, Japan named their 31-man for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

Caps updated: 20 October 2019

Toshiyuki Hayashi, legendary lock with Kobe Steel, Oxford and Japan.

Seiji Hirao, centre, former Japan captain and coach of Japan (RWC1999).

Keiji Hirose, former fly-half, and previously the leading points scorer for Japan (now second).

Kensuke Iwabuchi, the first Japanese to play professional rugby in England (for Saracens), also technical adviser to Sanix.

Toru Kurihara, world record points scorer in one match, 60 points scored individually (6 Tries, 15 conversions).

Sinali Latu, now coach of Daito Bunka University RFC.

Yuji Matsuo, fly-half (stand-off), Shin-Nittetsu Kamaishi.

Andrew Miller, fly-half for Kobe Steel and Japan.

Takuro Miuchi, former number 8 and captain at the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

Wataru Murata, player of Yamaha Jubilo.

Daisuke Ohata, world record try scorer (69 tries throughout his career).

Atsushi Oyagi, lock, Kobe Steel and Japan, now a TV personality ("talento").

Kenzo Suzuki, better known as a professional wrestler, Suzuki was capped for the national team as well.

Yoshihito Yoshida, world class Japanese wing, known especially on the Sevens circuit.

Ayumu Goromaru, former fullback and the leading points scorer for Japan.

Japan traditionally plays with white and red hooped shirts (with white collar and cuffs) with a Sakura embroidered on the chest, paired with white shorts and white socks with red splashes. Between 2003 and 2011, the shirt was predominantly red with two white parallel hoops on the chest with white accents, sometimes with black or navy socks and shorts.

On 4 July 2019 the Japan Rugby Football Union on Thursday unveiled the national team's jersey for this year's Rugby World Cup, the shirt featuring a samurai helmet motif representing the tradition of Japan's warrior spirit. The combination of Samurai and Sakura (Cherry Blossom) has long been linked in Japanese culture.

The away kit usually consist of a navy blue uniform, white or navy shorts and navy blue socks, sometimes with white collar or panels, or black. The kit supplier since the 1960s is Canterbury. Currently, the jersey sponsors are Lipovitan D (in the front) and Toshiba (in the back). Previously, between 1997 and 2000, the shirt sponsor was Epson.

Player records (career)

Player records (match)

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The Japan national rugby union team (often known as the Cherry Blossoms, Sakura, and more recently The Brave Blossoms) is traditionally the strongest rugby union power in Asia and has enjoyed and endured mixed results against non-Asian teams over the years. Rugby union in Japan is administered by the Japan Rugby Football Union (JRFU), which was founded in 1926.

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The myth of Rugby's origin in Japan is disputed, but the main theory is that Edward Bramwell Clarke and Ginnosuke Tanaka brought the sport to Japan, when they created a Rugby club at Keio University.

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The following is a list of notable rugby union competitions that are still currently in existence. This includes both international tournaments played by national Test teams and also domestic club and provincial competitions.

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In 1883 the first ever Home Nation Championship was held in England. It immediately spread to what is now Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. In 1910 France joined the league, showing the first large international spread of the game. (Italy joined much later in 2000)

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The Rugby World Cup began in London last Friday. Over the next six weeks, teams from twenty nations will compete to hoist the William Webb Ellis Cup. Or should that be the Jem Mackie Cup?

According to legend, one day in 1823, the pupils of Rugby School were playing the school's traditional blood sport, a medieval free-for-all known as 'foot-ball'. As the boys shoved and hacked at each other in the mud, one of them, William Webb Ellis, hit upon the ingenious notion of picking up the ball and running to the opposing team's touchline. This was considered unsporting at the time, but eventually the other chaps caught on. A plaque at Rugby School records that Webb, 'with a fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus originating the distinctive feature of the Rugby game, AD 1823'.

We do know that Rugby School was instrumental in the creation of the modern game. In 1845, Rugby School issued players with a 'foot-ball' rulebook. Other public schools followed suit. When players formed old boys' teams and an informal league, they discovered that each school played by its own rules. So they formed the Rugby Football Union, and in 1871 issued the rules that, allowing for adjustments over the years, will be finely disregarded by the combatants for the Webb Ellis Cup.

Whether Webb Ellis recognized his role in sporting history is another question. If he was the first to pick up the oval ball, he never spoke about it. Nor did he join Rugby's old boys' team. He preferred cricket, at which he won a Blue for Oxford against Cambridge. After Oxford, Webb became an Anglican clergyman: the only surviving photograph of him is from an Illustrated London Post article on a sermon about the Crimean War. He died at Menton in the south of France in 1872, a few months after the formation of the Rugby Football Union, and apparently oblivious to it.

The new game soon became a national pastime. In 1875, an early rugby fan wrote to the London Standard, enquiring about the game's origins. His letter reached the attention of Matthew Bloxam, a solicitor and amateur historian who had attended Rugby from 1813 to 1820. Bloxam is our only source for the legend of William Webb Ellis. Between 1876 and 1880, he wrote two letters and an article for The Meteor, the Old Rugbeian magazine. In his first letter, Bloxam described 'Rugby foot-ball' as he had played it. In his day, no one was 'allowed to run with the ball in his grasp'. The great innovation had occurred sometime after 1828, when Thomas Arnold, the promoter of 'muscular Christianity', had become headmaster.

Webb Ellis left the school in 1825. Yet in his second letter, written in October 1876, Bloxam named Webb Ellis as the inventor of the game. Quoting an unnamed source, he reported that carrying the ball was permitted after 'the second half-year of 1823', and that Ellis had been the first to do it. In December 1880, Bloxam summarized his findings in a Meteor article. He again credited 'a boy of the name Ellis' as the innovator, but this time could not confirm when running with the ball became permitted.

Given that more than half a century had elapsed, that the rules were not written, and that the boys were allowed to modify them as they went along, the confusion is understandable. It was not, however, acceptable. In 1895, the Old Rugbeian Society tasked a committee with getting to the bottom of this muddy mystery. Bloxam had gone to the great changing room in the sky in 1878, but several other old boys supplied their recollections, including Thomas Hughes, the author of Tom Brown's Schooldays, the public school novel that introduced 'Rugby foot-ball' and Flashman the school bully to the reading public.

The oldest correspondent, Reverend Thomas Harris (1819-1828) remembered Webb Ellis 'perfectly'. "He was an admirable cricketer, but was generally regarded as inclined to take unfair advantages at Football. I should not take him in any way as an authority." In Webb's day, picking up and running with the ball was 'distinctly forbidden'. The other correspondents had attended Rugby in the 1830s. Most of them remembered that carrying the ball was permitted, and the rest thought that it 'probably' had been.

The committee concluded that when Webb Ellis had attended Rugby, the school game had been a primitive precursor to Association Football ('soccer'). Carrying the ball had been 'gradually' accepted in the 1830s, and formally legalized in the 1842. The committee endorsed Bloxam's story cautiously: at some date between 1820 and 1830, a player had picked up the ball, and 'in all probability' he had been Webb Ellis. In 1900, the Society picked up these findings and ran with them: the plaque at Rugby School credits Webb Ellis without reservation. And in 1987, when the first Rugby World Cup was played, Webb Ellis's name was inscribed on the silver and gold trophy.
Dr. Dominic Green, FRHistS is the author of The Double Life of Dr. Lopez and Three Empires on the Nile. Read his feature on the New Orleans underworld in issue 27 of All About History, available to order from the Imagine Shop.
There is an alternative story. In the late 1830s, a Rugby pupil named Jem Mackie was notorious for running with the ball. Unfortunately, Mackie was expelled following an unexplained 'incident'. Given that the incidents in Tom Brown's Schooldays include tying a boy to a spit and roasting him alive, we can only guess what Mackie did. Perhaps we should continue with the Webb Ellis tradition, and its 'fine disregard' for the origins of the game.

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Did William Webb Ellis really invent rugby? | All About History

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The Rugby World Cup began in London last Friday. Over the next six weeks, teams from twenty nations will compete to hoist the William Webb Ellis Cup. Or should that be the Jem Mackie Cup? According to legend, one day in 1823, the pupils of Rugby School were playing the school's traditional blood sport, a medieval free-for-all known as 'foot-ball'.

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Rugby was invented in 1823 by William Webb Ellis. He was playing "medieval foot-ball" with his friends when he decided to just pick up the ball. Medieval foot-ball was a freeform game where the only goal was to get the ball across the enemy line. It was illegal to pick it up and run with it but it caught on quickly with everyone involved in the game and changed it completely. The newly formed "Rugby" was named after the school where it was created.