0:00

Titus O'Reilly here once again annoying

0:02

you with our shameless plug for

0:04

Bazaar plus our membership program more

0:06

Mick and Me. Simply go to the link

0:09

in the show notes.

0:10

It's

0:14

Sports Bazaar. This is where the trouble

0:16

starts. It's like a party switch has flicked off. The

0:19

hunt for the weirdest. You're blowing my

0:22

mind I can't keep it. You fact check this.

0:24

There is no logic to any of what's going

0:26

to happen. Strangest. This is outrageous.

0:28

It's not for the ages. Things are just going to get sillier

0:31

and sillier. No red flags there. Most

0:33

unbelievable. Volatile. Erratic.

0:35

Simple. Clinically insane. Stories

0:38

to ever occur. There's a lot of our stories that

0:40

start with someone fleeing money lenders. This is

0:42

not the perfect preparation.

0:43

In the world of sport.

0:45

This is the opposite of perfect preparation.

0:48

This is the worst. Sports Bazaar.

0:50

Now were you saying horse whipped as in it was actually

0:53

horse whipped? Yeah he said there's only one thing for it.

0:55

I ordered hair of the dog. A rabble of

0:57

vagrants, drunkens, ruffian brawlers and

0:59

gambling desperado. So like the Sports

1:01

Bazaar audience. It's time for

1:03

the leaders of the hunt. Inept at

1:05

best and corrupt at worst. It's Titus

1:08

O'Reilly and Mick Molloy.

1:10

Welcome to the latest episode of Sports

1:13

Bazaar.

1:13

I'm Mick Molloy and doing the heavy

1:15

lifting as always the great Titus

1:17

O'Reilly. Titus you peaked our

1:19

interest last week with the history of

1:22

rugby and how it's about to be

1:24

canonized. Is that a way to describe

1:27

it? Where we left off is obviously you

1:29

know there's sort of the Eaton rules

1:31

and the rugby school rules. So we came out of all

1:33

our private schools. We had all our wonderful riots.

1:36

Yes. Which you enjoyed immensely. I loved it.

1:38

It got to the point where nationally there

1:40

was this argument of we need a unified

1:43

set of rules that take all these different private school

1:45

rules

1:46

and come up with one. So they decide

1:48

to have a meeting. So we're talking in 1863. We need

1:51

to standardize the rules

1:53

so we can all play on a level playing field. Yeah

1:55

and the idea is to have one rule for I guess football.

1:58

So this is you know there were the rugby

1:59

rules which was the name of the private

2:02

show and there wasn't a name for soccer

2:05

or football or whatever you want to call it. So they

2:07

were trying to come up with one. So 1863 it's

2:10

decided we're going to have a meeting and there's

2:13

a guy called Ebenezer Cobb

2:15

Morley.

2:16

Ebenezer's not a name

2:18

you hear, is it? It's kind

2:21

of drifted out of favour. I'll

2:24

tell you what, it'll be a bold move for anyone

2:26

who threw it in. Even as a middle name. Michael

2:29

Ebenezer Malloy. Oh yeah exactly. It

2:32

makes me want to have another kid just to call him Ebenezer. So

2:35

Ebenezer Cobb Morley, he's the captain

2:37

of Barns which is one of the clubs. They tended

2:39

to play sort of a almost close

2:41

to a soccer style game and

2:44

then they might play rugby style against

2:46

another team. So every time you almost had to renegotiate

2:49

the rules. You're saying this depending on which ground they're

2:51

on. Yeah, what the other club

2:54

wanted to play and all that sort of stuff. So

2:56

he decides, well

2:57

I'm going to set up this meeting and we're going to get all the key football

2:59

clubs from around London and various

3:01

places. We're going to get them in. We're

3:04

going to get some observers who are interested as a bunch

3:06

of blokes thrash out a set of

3:08

rules that everyone agrees on that will be

3:10

our new format for

3:12

whatever this sport will be called. It's a sit

3:14

down. It's a sit down to pow wow. All the public

3:16

schools are invited as well. As the non-public

3:18

school clubs, the actual

3:21

adult clubs. Very democratic. They don't really come only

3:24

charter house sends someone but the whole bit of this is they decide

3:27

to call themselves the Football Association. So

3:30

the FA which

3:32

exists to this day as we know. They name

3:34

a guy called Arthur Pembert the President.

3:36

He had no history as a footballer

3:39

or administrator. Good call. But they sort of... The

3:42

right man for the job. Well they thought he was right because they

3:44

were like, right, he doesn't have a foot in either

3:46

the rugby style game or the Eaton

3:48

style game. He's a black

3:51

canvas. He's a black canvas. He's a black canvas. He's

3:53

coming here with an open mind. No skills whatsoever.

3:56

Yeah, very much so. So he becomes

3:58

the President.

3:59

And he hadn't even gone to a public school. So

4:02

they thought, well, he's neutral. They then

4:04

have this big log discussion of

4:06

like, what should we do? Weets of gold,

4:08

length of pitch, height of the gold. Do we

4:10

have crossbar that you have to kick it over like

4:12

in rugby or do we have what soccer is

4:14

now? They're going through all of this.

4:17

They start talking about offside and all these

4:19

sort of things. Ebenezer Cobb Morley

4:21

is elected secretary of

4:24

the football association. He's the one doing

4:26

the power of the work. And a guy

4:28

called Francis Campbell, who plays

4:31

for Black East, who are very rugby

4:33

style club. He's

4:36

elected treasurer. So that first meeting,

4:38

they don't really come up with everything. They just have

4:41

all the various... Fill the positions. Fill the positions

4:43

and have a general chat about what

4:46

are the issues. They need

4:48

a further six meetings

4:50

to start to hammer this out. And

4:53

they get letters sent to them from

4:55

all sorts of people sending in letters saying, this

4:57

is what we think you should do. Or these are our school

4:59

rules. Think about these. It's a summit really.

5:02

It's a summit, right? It's a power. And they're

5:04

taking this very seriously. And no one's ever

5:06

really sat down, apart from the rugby,

5:09

the public school, where they wrote down the rules. No

5:11

one's ever made up a sport before

5:13

like this. Because before this, it was mob

5:15

football and played once a year. You

5:18

were just trying to... You're always farming. You're always basically

5:20

survive. Yeah, you're always farming.

5:24

You know, you didn't have time. This is where the

5:27

industrial revolution has created this ability. These

5:29

guys have got money. British spare time. Some of

5:31

them are aristocracy. Some of them are

5:33

self-made men in the new industrial. So they've

5:36

got time to sit around. So they're really throwing out the rules

5:38

from scratch. And so at one

5:40

of the early meetings, about the second meeting,

5:43

they've come up with Ebenezer,

5:45

our friend, gives 23 rules. Everyone

5:47

can react to them. Everyone

5:49

agreed on all the rules except for two. Two

5:53

create

5:53

problems.

5:55

The first is the idea that

5:57

after you catch the ball, it

5:59

says that you're allowed to play.

5:59

to then if you catch it on the full or on

6:02

one bounce

6:03

you can then run towards your opponent's goal

6:05

line

6:06

and you can

6:07

propel the ball that way. And

6:09

so that becomes controversial because the eat

6:12

and style is you can catch

6:14

the ball and then you must place it on

6:16

the ground and then kick it. So this is controversial.

6:18

So this is saying basically you're allowed

6:21

to run with the ball as in rugby. The

6:23

second one it says if you

6:26

did decide to run the rule that says

6:28

any player on the opposite side should be at liberty

6:30

to charge hold trip or

6:32

hack him. So this is kick his shins

6:36

run into it and tackle. So

6:38

it very much in the football association

6:41

rule says

6:42

it's rugby.

6:43

The rugby rules

6:45

and this

6:46

is all causes a

6:48

bit of a split because a bunch of people say

6:50

well that's not how we play. You

6:52

know we we play. These are deal breakers.

6:54

These are deal breakers for us. We play the Eton

6:56

rules. We don't want everyone being injured all the time. You

7:00

know we've got businesses to run. We've

7:02

got pheasants to shoot. I don't have time

7:05

to you know. I don't enjoy being hacked. And Francis

7:07

Campbell of Blackheath. He

7:09

is the one that's arguing for this because he's very

7:12

pro rugby and they win 10 votes to

7:14

nine. And so the football association is

7:16

basically Southworth rules that are closer to rugby

7:20

and seems like that's the way forward. There it

7:22

is. Bawley and Pember.

7:24

So Ebenezer and Pember who's been elected

7:26

the president. So the secretary president. They're not

7:29

happy with this. So while Francis Campbell

7:31

has carried the day. They are

7:34

very unhappy about this decision. They're in the Eton

7:36

camp. They're in the Eton camp. Ebenezer

7:38

says if we carry these two rules it will be

7:40

seriously detrimental to the majority of clubs.

7:43

Mr Campbell himself knows well that the Blackheath

7:45

clubs cannot get any three clubs in London

7:48

to play with them whose members are for

7:50

the most part men in business and to whom

7:52

it is of importance to take care of themselves.

7:55

So he's saying these two rules need to

7:57

go. We're not playing. of

8:00

Black Heat, whose pro rugby said,

8:02

hacking is the true football game. And

8:04

if you look into the Winchester records, you'll find

8:06

that in the former years, men were so wounded

8:09

that two of them were actually carried off the field and they allowed two others

8:12

to take their place. I

8:14

say that they had no business to drop such a rule at

8:16

Cambridge and that it saves far more of the feelings of those

8:18

who like their pipes and snaps

8:21

more than the manly game of football.

8:24

So he's basically saying, people

8:26

who like their pipes and snaps are making

8:28

up rules because they're not manly enough. He

8:31

says, if you do away with

8:32

it, meaning the two rules,

8:35

it will do away with all the pluck and courage of

8:37

the game and I will be bound to bring over

8:40

a lot of Frenchman

8:42

who would beat you within a week's practice.

8:46

Wow, these are fighting words. You

8:48

can give an Englishman in AD 50. I

8:50

could bring in the French. I could bring over a bunch

8:52

of French, train them for a week and they could beat

8:54

you. The Frenchies could have you. They

8:57

could have you. So they're getting into a, suddenly

8:59

there's a split. So the president and the secretary

9:01

argue with the treasurer over whether

9:03

they're basically going to follow a soccer

9:06

style game or a rugby style game. Yeah,

9:09

they've got to overrule the vote. Yeah.

9:12

So this is how it happens over 44 days. They

9:14

have six meetings. So

9:16

by the third, it's really becoming acrimonious

9:20

between the various groups

9:22

and

9:23

they'd already voted to include hacking and running, but

9:25

more importantly, the secretary and the president

9:28

they're trying behind the scenes to get these

9:30

rules overturned. They're trying

9:32

to work on a lobby. They're lobbying

9:35

people and at the fourth meeting, they

9:39

actually point out that in newspapers, a

9:42

new version of the Cambridge rules as in Cambridge

9:44

University have come out and they

9:46

basically ban running with the ball

9:48

and hacking and they sort of use this as a well,

9:51

you know, look, we've got a lot of us are following the

9:53

Cambridge rules and they've cut this out. And

9:56

this is something we think we should follow. Right. So

9:59

they're trying to use that. There's a like, oh, it's a new

10:01

development that we need to do this.

10:04

At the fifth meeting

10:05

emotions past the two rules

10:08

hacking and running with the ball, so basically

10:10

tackling or kicking, tripping is

10:13

banned and running with the wall. Now

10:15

Campbell launches emotion to defer

10:18

this decision because he believes,

10:20

and there's a lot of evidence he's a hundred percent right

10:23

that Morley and Pemba, the

10:25

president and secretary of organized the vote on

10:27

a day when the numbers favor them. So,

10:29

cause not everyone can attend all five, six meetings,

10:32

right? So they've waited for a meeting where

10:35

they can only go, we've got the numbers. Campbell

10:38

pulled a motion trying to delay the vote. And

10:40

he says, if this resolution carries

10:42

and you ban these two rules, we

10:45

shall not only feel that our duty to withdraw

10:47

our names from the list of members of the association, but

10:49

we should call a meeting with the other clubs and schools

10:51

to see what they think of it. He's very

10:53

much arguing against this. His motion

10:56

is defeated by 13 votes to four

10:59

because he's got the numbers against him and

11:02

basically the rules now ban

11:04

tackling

11:04

with the ball. And so

11:07

basically the football association has got

11:09

in place. Basically the rules of soccer,

11:11

the template for what comes football,

11:14

you know, and so

11:16

as a result of this, well, the other guys

11:18

would be happy. 20 clubs

11:21

who use K in the ball. We're not joining. So 20

11:24

clubs go, we're out. This is it. So you

11:26

suddenly got all the schools and

11:29

all the clubs that want to play rugby, go one way

11:31

and you have all the

11:34

clubs that are going to go on and form their FA

11:36

cup and the premier league

11:38

eventually and all these sort of things have

11:41

split. And so it was that close

11:44

to soccer or association

11:47

football or whatever, but never

11:49

being, never getting up. If, if they hadn't

11:51

have done this sneaky backdoor voting

11:53

trick and it's become the biggest,

11:56

most popular game in the world

11:58

by a mile. Absolutely. You basically

12:01

suggest that the games was invented

12:04

at the same time, is that fair? Well, they

12:06

come out of the exact same

12:08

process. Same process of rules. And

12:10

the only real difference at this point is

12:13

the running and the hacking is in one

12:15

and in the other it's not. You could catch the ball

12:17

in the original version and all this is of

12:20

the football association rules and

12:22

they change over time. Suddenly you can't touch

12:24

it with your hands and everything and becomes the offside

12:26

rule. All these things happening have

12:29

changed. It just shows you

12:31

we could have had a very different set

12:33

of games invented. There

12:35

were some differences. They had no goalkeepers

12:38

and various things at this point. There were no forward

12:40

passes at points. They kept changing all of these.

12:43

But they were overall heading

12:45

towards it. No, they didn't have any. It was

12:47

all diving. Diving, being invented. There's

12:49

the whole diving. There's the whole diving. Goal celebrations.

12:52

When was the first goal celebration? The first

12:54

man to pull his jumper over his hair. So

12:59

you've got all this. I think we'll come back one

13:01

day and do a story on how the football association

13:03

develops from there because basically

13:05

we're sticking with rugby with this one. But they go their

13:07

separate rules this bit.

13:10

Now the thing is... Put a bookmark in that one.

13:13

So they publish a rule book, the FA

13:15

and then get what they want. Now

13:18

Campbell leads this walkout. The Blackheath Club

13:20

leaves. All that. 20 other clubs all leave.

13:23

And it's basically the rugby, the Eastern rivalry

13:26

has now split the whole thing. So

13:28

during the 1860s, they

13:31

start to battle it out for who

13:33

is going to... What clubs and what players

13:35

are going to go to what day. And it comes

13:37

down to basically whether you want to kick

13:39

someone in the shins or not. It's

13:43

almost that much, right? Historian

13:46

sickness actually drove them to both being successful

13:49

because they had something to compete against. That's

13:51

so often the case. That's

13:53

what you need. You're like out of that puma, right? When we did that,

13:55

you know? You need a nemesis. Someone

13:58

egging you on. That's right. that. So

14:00

there's this big thing where they're really going in. Now

14:03

at first it seems

14:05

like rugby is going to easily win. So

14:08

the rugby rules become more popular. They're

14:10

far more out there pushing it. The

14:12

FA, a football association membership, falls as

14:14

low as only 10 clubs. And

14:17

by 1866 they're complaining that they can't

14:19

find people to play. So it looks dead

14:22

in the water and rugby looks like it's totally

14:24

going to work. Then

14:26

what happens is the rugby side

14:29

by December 1866, they

14:31

have this match between Blackheath and Richmond

14:33

and it is so violent that

14:36

they decide to remove hacking. So

14:39

the kicking themselves. There'll

14:41

be a lot of I told you so's from the football

14:43

association. So they get rid of it, but they retain

14:46

the running with the ball for tackling.

14:48

So they're still very, they're going their separate

14:50

ways. It's just ironic that this thing that

14:52

drove them apart is now gone.

14:55

An ankle tap is fine. Yeah, you can

14:57

ankle tap is a big cut. They used

14:59

to just brutally kick each other in the shins

15:01

as we discussed in the early ones. Like it wasn't even.

15:04

And so people would end up with like splintered shins

15:06

and stuff like this, you know, which when you're

15:08

working in a factory, this is not what you

15:10

want. You can ruin your day. There's no sick

15:13

leave in 1860s, which

15:15

is what leads to the whole split with rugby league

15:18

and rugby, you know, is the payments for

15:20

missing work. So they actually abandon that

15:22

game and ban it. The thing that changes

15:25

it a bit is the football association

15:27

invent the FA Cup and

15:30

it sees their popularity explode

15:33

because suddenly anyone in the country can

15:35

enter this tournament. So by 1880s,

15:38

football's explosion, rugby

15:41

realises, well, we better

15:43

up our game, right? We're, we're falling behind.

15:46

And so they decide in 1870, really what happens

15:48

is a bunch of things

15:51

happen. They're starting to fall behind the

15:53

football association rules. But on

15:55

top of that, there's an article in the Times from

15:58

a surgeon and it's about the and brutality

16:01

of rugby and this surgeon says

16:03

it should be banned and completely replaced with

16:05

association football. It's written

16:07

anonymously but it's written by someone

16:10

who claims to be a surgeon with a son

16:12

at the rugby school and

16:14

he says sir I use the expression

16:17

because to my mind the game played as his playbo

16:19

rugby differs from that which is played elsewhere.

16:22

So rugby school is still playing a harsher

16:24

version than the adults are playing right?

16:26

He says I'm a surgeon and

16:28

have within the last few weeks been consulted in different

16:30

cases of inquiry resulting from the practice

16:32

of hacking so rugby school is

16:34

still allowing hacking. He

16:37

gives his name to the newspaper he says I've got

16:39

a son at rugby but he doesn't want it to be printed.

16:42

He says one boy with his collar bone

16:45

broken another with a severe injury to his ankle

16:47

a fourth with a severe injury to his knee and

16:49

two others sent home on crutches or to

16:52

be sufficient to call the attention of the headmaster

16:55

to the cobble practice of hacking. A

16:57

practice of nothing whatsoever to do with

16:59

the game but which frequently injures for

17:01

life and is a license for a malignant

17:04

grudge. I am not a milk sop

17:09

and I do not pet my boy but

17:12

I do protest against a system which results in

17:14

injury more or less felt for life because

17:16

it is a practice easily remedied and for

17:18

which the headmaster is solely responsible.

17:21

So he goes on and on and on but he basically

17:23

says then the Lancet the medical journal

17:25

responds to this letter

17:27

and they say

17:29

we can care and think that the sooner the specialty

17:31

about the rugby style of playing football has dropped the

17:33

better. It has always struck us that

17:35

hacking is a dangerous and brutalizing

17:38

practice. They go on and on to

17:40

argue against this. In response

17:43

Edwin Ash is the Secretary of the Richmond Football Club

17:46

and is a rugby style. He's

17:48

basically saying we've banned it at the adult level this is

17:50

just rugby school doing this but

17:53

he says it's a bad look for our game.

17:55

We should meet and set

17:57

up a body to oversee rugby. hadn't

18:00

been one. So the air football association established

18:02

but rugby even after that hadn't, they were winning.

18:04

Who's called the shots? No one, it was just all

18:07

organised themselves.

18:10

So 22 clubs come together at a Paul

18:12

Moore restaurant in London. One

18:14

famous club's not there though and that's

18:16

the London Club Wasps and

18:18

the reason they're not there is their representative went

18:20

to the wrong venue at the wrong time on the wrong

18:23

day. Another

18:25

story is though that he did go to the right pub

18:28

but he was so drunk that he couldn't

18:30

go to the meeting. So we don't really know. Apart

18:33

from him they form the Rugby Football Union

18:36

and they work out the rules, they don't have

18:38

hacking in it, they're running with

18:40

the ball tackling and all this sort of stuff. They

18:43

still at this point don't have the number of players

18:45

or anything like 20 can play a side at this point.

18:48

They haven't really, it's still very loose

18:51

and then it starts to get down to 15 as

18:53

the standard. So they approve all of this.

18:56

Some of the clubs still wanted hacking but it gets banned

18:58

out. They should bring back hacking for just one tournament

19:01

or something? Yeah. Don't you reckon? Just

19:03

for one game a year, hacking's

19:05

allowed. Go and see that. Francis

19:11

Campbell's involved in setting up the Rugby Football

19:13

Union, the RFU, which controls rugby

19:16

to this day. So he's the only person who's

19:18

been involved in setting up both the Football Association

19:21

and the Rugby Football Union. So he's sort of

19:23

an amazing guy in this thing. But

19:25

by the 1890s that's now set up

19:27

the Rugby Football Union. They've become such different

19:30

sports that they're now fully seen as sports.

19:32

Yeah, sure. But it doesn't take to about the

19:35

1890s where this is happening. And

19:37

by the 1890s the

19:39

people in the north of England,

19:42

the clubs up there, their workers are miners

19:45

and you know they're working in industry and factories

19:48

and they're not aristocrats. They

19:50

want to get paid, not salaries,

19:53

but they want to get paid if you get injured on the football

19:55

field. You get paid

19:57

for the work you miss. Right. That's

20:00

what they want money for. It's not an argument. And

20:03

the aristocrats running the RFU say,

20:05

no, it's an amateur sport. We're not doing that. And we'd

20:07

be the ones who'd have to pay it. Well, partly

20:09

that and partly they like it being an upper class

20:12

sport. They don't initially want the poor people playing

20:14

with them. Yeah. This is where,

20:16

and we'll do this in another episode, but this is where the Northern

20:19

league breaks away and forms rugby

20:21

league where you can pay your

20:23

players. I was about to ask when would,

20:25

does it metastasize into rugby

20:27

league? And that's what happens is the Northern clubs,

20:30

and we'll do this in the same, this is in 1895 in the UK. It

20:33

then spreads to Australia, but first

20:36

the Northern clubs say we're going off on our

20:38

own, we want to pay players and

20:41

they go off on their whole other tangent. Then

20:43

they have their meetings and set up there. And set up

20:45

there. So you then suddenly,

20:48

before it was just all rugby, now you have rugby union

20:50

and you have rugby league, practically. But

20:52

in response, and the reason that's important is in

20:55

response to the Northern union forming and breaking

20:57

away, those at the rugby

20:59

school start to feel like we're losing control

21:02

and at the rugby football union, we're losing control

21:04

of rugby and this is competing

21:07

group. And we want to reestablish

21:10

how we are in

21:12

charge and the creators of rugby. Sure. So

21:15

what they do is they launch an inquiry

21:18

into discover how rugby was invented.

21:21

And this is where we

21:23

come all the way back to where we started,

21:25

which is the William Webb Ellis trophy.

21:28

The story of William Webb Ellis

21:31

picking up the ball and running it with it at rugby

21:33

school and inventing rugby has become

21:36

the story. So you're suggesting

21:38

to me that they've invented their

21:40

own backstory. They've invented their

21:42

own backstory. Or they have chosen a

21:44

story that they can hold over league

21:47

and say, we are the moral

21:50

arbiters of rugby, not you. There's

21:52

no talk of who invented it until 1895, the split

21:54

occurs. And

21:58

so the old rugby. be in society,

22:01

which is the old boys of rugby school,

22:03

they launch an investigation

22:06

purely to claim the moral superiority

22:08

over the game. They decide

22:11

to go and investigate the origins. Now they interview

22:13

the few men alive, they're old

22:15

enough to remember because you're in the 1890s

22:18

now. It's the 1820s

22:20

when a lot of this happened. So

22:22

they gave her enough evidence to say rugby football

22:24

once resembled association football, but

22:27

they kind of can work out between 1820 and 1830.

22:31

An innovation came in to introduce running

22:33

with the ball that was a doubtful

22:35

legality for some time, but seemed

22:37

to become customary by 1830. And by 1840, it was

22:40

legalized and in the

22:42

rules, right? And they focus on

22:44

one claim more than any other. And it was a claim

22:46

by a guy named Matthew Bloxham.

22:49

And he was a native of rugby in the

22:51

town. He was an amateur archaeologist.

22:54

He was an author of a popular guide of Gothic

22:57

architecture. That's fascinating.

22:59

Since then, all his archaeologists

23:02

finds have been disproved. He's bunked.

23:05

And no one paid attention at the time he first wrote

23:08

in like the rugby old boys had

23:10

a magazine. He first

23:12

wrote named 76 a letter. It

23:15

was four years after the death of William

23:17

Webellis. And he wrote to school

23:19

magazine to say he'd been told, he didn't

23:21

say by who, that the growing sport

23:23

of rugby had originated when a town boy

23:26

of the name of Webellis picked

23:28

up the ball. He put the date at 1824

23:31

and said, this is when it all started. Now, this letter

23:33

appears in 1876 and no one

23:35

pays any attention to it. Yeah. Four

23:37

years later, he writes an old letter with more detail. He

23:39

changes the date saying William Webellis

23:42

while playing at big side at football, 1823

23:45

caught the ball in his arms. So he

23:48

says the rules at the time said he should have retreated back.

23:50

But with the opposition advancing, he caught

23:52

the ball and then and ran ahead and he said, Ellis,

23:55

for the first time disregarded the rule of

23:57

having to drop the ball and kick it. And I'm catching

23:59

up. the ball, rush forward with the ball in his

24:01

hands toward the opposite goal. So

24:04

this is a letter from when this

24:06

investigation has been conducted from 20 years

24:08

earlier about events 50

24:11

years before from a man who

24:13

said he'd heard it from someone else. Ah, it's

24:15

just ironclad. So no

24:18

one believes it, right? But the rugby

24:20

investigation think we can grab onto

24:23

this and use it. And by this point

24:25

when they're investigating Bloxham and William

24:27

Ellos are both dead. So there's no

24:29

ability to go and read. It's a contestant.

24:32

In contestant. They like the story so

24:34

much because Ellos had been an English Anglican

24:36

clergyman. He was a good strong

24:39

fit for this, you know, the muscular Christian

24:41

sort of type of bloke. They thought, it's

24:43

a story that suits our narrative. It suits our

24:46

narrative, right? They contact

24:48

all the other old boys from the era and none

24:50

of them have even heard of Ellos. Who? Who?

24:54

They're saying we think we've narrowed down where rugby

24:56

was invented and they're all gone. Never

24:59

heard of him. Never heard of him. Did he know where?

25:01

None of them knew him, right? No one knew him. Because

25:04

the whole books had been written by this point on

25:06

rugby and football origins. No one's ever,

25:08

William Ellos name doesn't enter it

25:10

in at all. The one respondents

25:13

vaguely did remember Ellis who was

25:15

five years his junior, guy called Thomas

25:17

Harris.

25:18

He said that

25:20

all I can remember Ellis was he was a bit

25:22

of a cheat. That's all he can remember.

25:25

But he said, I remember in named 28 running with

25:27

all was still distinctly forbidden. So it doesn't sound

25:29

right to me because Thomas Hughes

25:32

who wrote the book Tom Brown School Days,

25:34

which we mentioned was a huge hit at the

25:36

time. It was the Harry Potter of its day. Harry

25:38

Potter has copied a lot of the, all

25:41

those school stories. Thanks for any ins on how to copy

25:43

this, this book. The author

25:45

of that Thomas Hughes who had gone to rugby, he

25:48

was interviewed as well by this investigation.

25:50

And he said in my first year 1834

25:53

running with the ball to get a try by touching

25:55

down within goal was not absolutely forbidden,

25:58

but a jury of rugby was that they would

26:00

have almost certainly have found a verdict of justful

26:02

homicide if a boy had been killed

26:05

running in. The question remained

26:07

debatable when I was captain of Bigside, which is

26:09

one of the teams they used to play at rugby, in 1841, 1842, and

26:11

it was made lawful later on. So

26:16

he's basically saying there's no way the William Webb

26:18

Ellis story is true because I was at school

26:20

long after him and it was still not happening. It

26:23

wasn't the way. He thinks

26:25

the first great runner in of

26:27

the ball, so ran with the ball and would score.

26:29

This guy called Jim Mackey, who

26:32

popularized try scoring much later in 1838, 39, and

26:36

it was he says it was officially adopted in 1841. So

26:40

this is much later. I went 1820s, it's down in 40s. Thomas

26:44

Hughes, the author of Tom Brown's School Dose, writes in

26:46

your committee have raised an old and warmly

26:48

debated question of half a century back.

26:51

Jim Mackey was the one who was the first good

26:53

one. He was very fleet of foot as well as brawny

26:56

of shoulder so that when he got hold of the ball,

26:58

it was very hard to stop him rush. And

27:00

he goes on and says, I think he's the guy that

27:02

actually invented it and has much more

27:04

detail in this letter. I don't really know of

27:07

what it is. And he says the word

27:10

Ellis tradition had not survived to my day.

27:12

So I've never heard of it. So what would be the disadvantage

27:14

of acknowledging that story? The

27:17

reason they don't want to acknowledge Jim Mackey

27:19

as the creator, one is purely

27:22

it's later, but they would like to have

27:24

it happen a lot earlier. The

27:26

other problem is Jim Mackey was expelled

27:29

from rugby school for an unspecified

27:31

incident. No one to this day

27:33

knows why, but he was expelled. So

27:36

the rugby school was very much like

27:38

one,

27:39

we can use William Webb Ellis, who was

27:42

a clergyman and goes back

27:44

to 1820s, or we can use Jim

27:46

Mackey who we suspended and it was so bad. What

27:48

did he get suspended for? These guys used to riot. Exactly.

27:51

These guys used to stay the fort. Yeah,

27:54

exactly. They burned the joint to the ground

27:56

and there was no action taken. Exactly.

27:58

So they're sort of like. The other theory

28:01

too is Bloxham, who is

28:03

the guy who wrote the letters in about Woom, where

28:05

Dallas in the first place had made a

28:07

huge donation to the Rugby School Library.

28:11

They like the idea of, well, on a

28:13

him or on a Woom, where Dallas, we get an earlier

28:16

date. We get all this

28:18

stuff happening. You know, everything is this

28:20

work in order. But it seems that

28:22

there's far more evidence

28:24

for Gem Mackey being the originator

28:27

of the sport. Has there been anyone

28:29

definitively go back to

28:31

testing? Do we all just accept

28:33

it as legend or as fact? Even

28:37

now, if you go under the Rugby World Cup site

28:40

and the various rugby

28:42

bodies, they kind of admit that the WebLF

28:45

one is not really true. But the trophy

28:47

is still called the William Web L's trophy,

28:49

right? They just decide

28:52

basically

28:53

that this is just

28:56

a much better story, that

28:59

they decide to believe a

29:01

story that teachers of William

29:04

L's, this great boy, comes

29:06

up with his innovative way of scoring

29:08

way back in 1820 and

29:11

goes on to become a clergyman and

29:13

is an upstanding citizen. And

29:15

this is the story they decide to tell. I get

29:17

worried about a lot of history from this era. I

29:20

started to question a few. Religion

29:22

anyone? They have way more evidence

29:24

it was Gem Mackey or at least even

29:26

if you don't believe the Gem Mackey, which some people argue for

29:29

or against, there is almost way

29:32

more evidence that it wasn't William

29:34

Web L's, even if we don't know who actually.

29:37

And like all these things, these are schoolboys coming up with

29:39

games that change every year. The rules didn't really

29:41

solidify to 1890, right? So the idea

29:43

that they could have been invented 10 times

29:45

over and then gone back and forth each year.

29:48

The idea that you're going to find one person

29:50

who just

29:51

completely invented the game. So

29:54

in 1895, they decide in their minds, our claim

29:57

is going to be 1820 and William Web L's.

29:59

The Northern Union

30:02

have broken away and they form

30:04

rugby leaders. Two years later

30:06

they decide to launch an inquiry

30:08

in 1897 and they decide to launch inquiry

30:13

in the origins of the sport. Of their

30:15

sport or the union? Or rugby as a whole. Because

30:17

they both come from rugby. They're not going to be happy.

30:20

This infuriates the rugby school. So they quickly

30:23

put up a plaque, a commemorative plaque

30:26

that says William W. Bellis

30:27

with a fine disregard for the rules of football,

30:30

played in his time, first at the ball in his

30:32

arms and ran with it.

30:34

And that's the myth that was born and

30:36

it stays with us today. And

30:38

that is how rugby has been

30:40

invented. But tell me this, rugby

30:43

still has its origins from

30:45

the rugby school. Yeah, so everything we've

30:47

talked about is the true origins are

30:49

it came out of the rugby school. So

30:52

they should be happy with that. They should be happy with that.

30:54

But they want to. They're happy with that. You've

30:57

got the credit. You've got bullshit fairy tales. Yeah.

31:01

Underline the truth of the matter. You own

31:03

it and it's yours. Fantastic. But

31:05

they were just so it wasn't like it just came out of nowhere. It

31:07

was a full decision to

31:09

make this myth up, to give

31:12

it more credibility and reacts to rugby

31:14

league. Wow. But also

31:16

the thing is, it's more interesting is it came

31:18

out of this competition

31:21

of who was going to control these sports in the earliest

31:23

days. And so who owned the story and

31:25

the myth was important back then because

31:28

they were very similar sports and they were competing for the same

31:30

athletes and the same clubs. And you had the football

31:32

association going from strength to strength

31:34

with the FA Cup. You had the Northern

31:36

League breaking away. And

31:38

then rugby was very keen to

31:41

reassign. And we had lost a lot of people when hacking

31:43

was bad. That's it. The

31:45

game's gone soft. They looked like they did a lot of people would have

31:47

they looked there was a club. It's

31:49

unrecognizable. Unrecognizable. If you

31:51

can't hack. Yeah. What's

31:53

the point? Like three years of it being splitting

31:56

from football, they banned

31:58

hacking and you didn't know that. There were people going,

32:00

well, the game's gone soft with three ears. So

32:03

all these cries that we have to this day, uh, just

32:06

one, one World Cup tour and

32:08

we're hacking it loud. Yeah, that's right. And

32:10

the thing is, this is not that surprising because

32:13

almost every sport has, and we

32:15

can do others in the future, but in

32:17

America, the story of double day,

32:19

a guy called double day inventing baseball

32:22

is completely, fixedly made up.

32:24

And now is admitted as you are. But at the time

32:27

it was very much seen as wanting

32:29

them to claim that there was this moment

32:31

the sport was purely invented and it almost

32:33

never happens.

32:34

What's the best, what's the best rugby movie? Is

32:37

there a movie that's a union?

32:39

There's the one I think was, was Matt Damon's in

32:41

it about the South Africans winning an

32:44

Invictus, Invictus, which

32:46

does a neat trick that makes the South

32:48

African rugby team seem almost likeable,

32:51

which is the real magic of cinema. Those

32:54

pricks from the Transva. Oh yeah. I'd still

32:56

hack if they could. If your ear off, you didn't

32:58

tape them up. Exactly. Is that allowed? Well,

33:00

that's a fascinating story. And I'm still

33:03

going back to your origins in the first round of

33:05

how about just lawless schoolboys starting

33:08

a riot. Exactly. And having to

33:10

be conquered by the local military.

33:12

Oh, it's unbelievable. That's where I'd be going

33:14

back to. Whoever's that is, they own

33:16

the game. All right. Well, thank you very much.

33:19

Once again, that's the end of a fascinating two-parter

33:21

to help us out as we watch the World Cup.

33:23

What's that? As you see your team go around. And

33:27

imagine what it could have been. Well,

33:29

thank you ladies and gentlemen for listening to another episode

33:31

of Sports Bazaar. If you'd like more

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Sports Bazaar, join our membership program

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Bazaar Plus. And one of the key bits that people

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are loving is you get an extra episode

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every week. Here's a short outtake from

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our bonus episode. I got papped

33:45

once. I'll tell you that. You

33:47

got papped. Who got papped

33:49

eating a burrito? Now

33:52

listen, but it's not a lot. It's

33:54

this. I know. And what offended me was it

33:56

was a private moment between a man and a burrito.

33:58

Yeah, very private. And you can see it from the.

33:59

pictures that I'm really

34:02

enjoying. This is a new love. It's

34:05

like a Tinder date. But I'm

34:08

on a cafe in Bondi,

34:10

a long lens from the beach. Snap.

34:13

I get rung up by a journalist at

34:16

the Daily Telegraph who goes, mate, he

34:18

goes, just so you know, there's pictures of

34:20

you floating around eating a burrito. And

34:23

I go, ah, this is terrible. You always

34:25

say like, what a relief. It's just me eating a burrito.

34:28

And he goes to me, goes to me. I go, oh mate,

34:31

give me one of the photos.

34:32

I'll use it on my show. It'll be funny. He goes,

34:35

well, we can't cause no one's bought them yet.

34:37

And I go, okay. How much are they asking

34:40

me? They go 70 bucks. So

34:42

I then to produce

34:44

a show hacked to spend $70

34:46

buying a paparazzi photo of me eating

34:49

a burrito so I could put it on the show

34:51

and go, look at this. This is disgusting. What

34:53

a violation of my privacy. Have

34:56

you still got the photo? Yes. Would

34:58

you like me to post that? I think we should get it

35:00

put on the disc on for our members. I'm going

35:02

to put it on this episode. I'm going to put it as a backdrop on

35:04

my phone. It's

35:07

a private moment. I had a

35:10

paparazzi moment with Chrissie Swan,

35:12

who if you're overseas, she's a radio and TV

35:13

presenter and a good

35:15

friend of mine. Anyway, one

35:18

day her and I had been at some event or function and we

35:21

were out in the street afterwards just having a quick chat because

35:23

then

35:24

we talked for a little bit. We talked like

35:26

five minutes and then we're headed home. The

35:29

next day it's on the Daily Mail and it says,

35:31

Chrissie Swan here with unknown guy.

35:38

It was a real wake up call to where

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