TWO GAMES

The loutish gentlemen of Rugby

JACK CROSS

This year the Rugby world celebrates the in- augural meeting of the Rugby Football Union, on 26 January 1871, in the Pall Mall Restaurant, then on the corner of Pall Mall East and Cockspur Street. Thirty-two men represented twenty-one clubs; the meet- ing lasted less than two hours. By unanimous consent of all parties a new game took shape. The supporters of the dribbling game had formed their Association some eight years earlier; the Union was to formulate the rules and to guard the ethos of the handling code.

The game they inherited was a probable descendant of the disciplined Roman military

training contest called Harpastum but it had

passed through the Middle Ages as a torrent of riotous brawling, abhorred by all civic authorities but sanctioned by custom to sweep through towns and villages, usually on Shrove Tuesdays, to the danger and disgust of all honest burghers.

It was this unregulated demonstration of licence, unrestricted as to time, size of play- ing area and number of participants, which found a home in the meadows and closes of the rural public schools of the early nine- teenth century. Headmasters (including the

saintly Dr Arnold of Rugby School) found that it contributed more to the corpore sand than the gambling, drunkenness and bullying which it was hoped it would replace.

In 1823 William Webb Ellis, 'with a fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time', ran with the ball in his arms though his revolutionary action seems to have passed unnoticed by his contemporaries for it was not repeated for many years. In- deed it was held that any player who attemp- ted to 'run in' would risk justifiable homi- cide at the hands (or feet) of his morally outraged fellows.

In 1871 spectators at a Rugby match would see forty players stuck in interminable mauls. heads in air and boot-tips thrashing

in an attempt to force and kick their way to the opposing line. Letters to the Timer and Lancet condemned the barbarous practice of

`hacking'. Law 57 of the new Union sternly prohibited the ploy and for many years afterwards old players condemned the milk- sops who had spoiled the game for a tougher breed.

Rugby players have an ambivalent atti- tude to the physical brutality inherent in their sport. Official guides to the game often contain genial references to teeth-marks in the calf and punch-ups in the scrum. Of

course there are rules about charging, ob-

struction, foul play and misconduct but you can do a lot to slow or intimidate an oppo-

nent while staying within the law. It's the spirit with which it is done that matters. The phrase 'a game for louts, played by gentlemen' was not coined by an opponent of the game,

Many much-admired players have been very hard men indeed. A fledgling inter- national forward told of taking his place in the line-out opposite a famous and feared All Black. 'I'll rub your bloody face in the mud,' he was told. 'What did you say to that?' I told him to — off—but very quietly.'

The RFU has always set its face against the merest hint of professionalism. No man who has kicked or carried a ball for money may join in one of its games, at any level.

In 1893 the 'broken time' controversy threatened the Union. The game had spread all over the British Isles and into all classes of society. Poorly-paid working-men could not afford to lose pay in order to play and officials of the northern clubs came to a meeting, in London to press for their right to make such losses good.

A tense and crowded meeting in the Westminster Hotel they pressed their case but found the amateur resistance move- ment well prepared. An amendment to their proposal stating that such payments were 'contrary to the true interests of the game and its spirit' (terms which appear again and again in Rugby Union rule- making) was passed by a majority of 146 votes, 120 of which were proxies for absent members, carefully garnered in advance. The 'northern declension' split from the main body, later to form the Rugby League. England did not win another international match for nearly twenty years. This was not the last time that Rugby men were to accept defeat in remaining pure.

Another aspect of the Home Union's obsessive affection for the amateur is the official distrust of organised competitiveness. The backbone of the game is in the local clubs. In spite of requests from some of these clubs, anxious for financial support from their supporters, and from the press, no form of club championship or cup competition is remotely likely to gain approval.

The administrators of English Rugby have been loth to allow their international teams to gather before a match in training squads like those other fellows of All Ramsey's. Resolved in 1957—That in keeping with the spirit of amateur Rugby the period between the assembly of the team and the playing of the match should in all cases be as short as possible climatic conditions and distances of travel being taken into account: and, in the case of the four Home Unions, they have agreed that this period should normally not exceed about forty-eight hours.' Few British sides have been able to withstand the well- drilled power play of touring Springbok and All Black forwards.

Oddly enough the County Championship is exempt from the general rule. It is or- ganised by the RFU, fought out with deadly seriousness, and the record of each county's victories is marked by handsome plaques at Twickenham.

Sir Rowland Hill. as Honorary Secretary of the Union. successfully held the line in defence of the spirit of amateur Rugby against the attacks from the North in 1893. He would approve of his successors' adher- ence to his policies. They will point to the thousands trudging from the centenary games at Twickenham towards the pubs of Richmond where they will express the same sentiments, sing the same songs, indulge in the same horseplay as their heroes, emerging from their bath at the ground. Would any Soccer official care to claim the same unity between players and followers of their tense and highly-spiced version of alfresco show- biz?