[A] fine disregard for the rules...
created 2026-06-14T15:15:40+00:00 • updated 2026-06-26T15:59:47+00:00
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6 photos • back to albums
Rugby. And its offshoot, Rugby 7s.
According to legend, the game of rugby football was invented at Rugby School in 1823, when a boy named William Webb Ellis, "with a fine disregard for the rules of the game 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". The problem with this famous account is that it is almost certainly untrue in just about every respect. The story only appeared in print several decades later, after Webb Ellis was dead, and was never independently corroborated.
Nevertheless, the sport of rugby, or Rugby Union as it became known, has gone on to become the finest ball sport on earth, as well as spawning the rather lesser sports of Rugby League and American Football. The men's Rugby World Cup is now one of the largest quadrennial sports events on the world calendar, behind only the football World Cup and the Olympics, and the women's Rugby World Cup is growing exponentially in popularity, reflecting the general huge increase in interest in the women's game.
The shortened form of the game, Rugby 7s, which originated in Melrose in the Scottish borders in 1883 as a training exercise, has now become hugely popular in its own right, appearing at every Commonwealth Games since 1998 (men only until 2018) and making its Olympic debut as both a men's and a women's sport in 2016.
According to legend, the game of rugby football was invented at Rugby School in 1823, when a boy named William Webb Ellis, "with a fine disregard for the rules of the game 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". The problem with this famous account is that it is almost certainly untrue in just about every respect. The story only appeared in print several decades later, after Webb Ellis was dead, and was never independently corroborated.
Nevertheless, the sport of rugby, or Rugby Union as it became known, has gone on to become the finest ball sport on earth, as well as spawning the rather lesser sports of Rugby League and American Football. The men's Rugby World Cup is now one of the largest quadrennial sports events on the world calendar, behind only the football World Cup and the Olympics, and the women's Rugby World Cup is growing exponentially in popularity, reflecting the general huge increase in interest in the women's game.
The shortened form of the game, Rugby 7s, which originated in Melrose in the Scottish borders in 1883 as a training exercise, has now become hugely popular in its own right, appearing at every Commonwealth Games since 1998 (men only until 2018) and making its Olympic debut as both a men's and a women's sport in 2016.
