Running with the Ball: Birth of Rugby Football

Modern rugby's founding father regarded himself as a cricketer and never dreamt that he had inspired a completely new game. When William Webb Ellis took the ball in his arms during a match in 1823 and ran with it he was censured by his peers for cheating — but he had started a sporting revolution. Or had he? Running with the Ball is the first book to take rugby back to its beginnings — to games that were never stopped 'short of manslaughter'; to the controversies that raged before the standardization of football rules in the 1860s; to Lindon, inventor of the 'true rugby ball' whose failure to capitalize on his invention cost him both fame and fortune. The game rapidly introduced its own fashion, with caps that evolved into awards and jerseys embroidered by adoring female relatives. From the time when typical sides could number 200 against 60, to rites of passage that involved 'honorably scarred tibias', Jenny Macrory, archivist of Rugby School, explores how the tactics of the modern game evolved and why the smaller side so often won. Showing why the game developed as it did, how it spread and why it diverged from association football, Running with the Ball turns the set beliefs and legends surrounding the game on their heads. Using primary sources, school records and contemporary recollections — peppered with extraordinary anecdotes — the true history and spirit of the game emerges.