winklogo200.png

Rugby Football

The Relationship of American football with other brands of Rugby with Expert Tony Collins and Timothy P Brown
Search results provided by xnetd.com

The 1922 Rose Bowl
Celebrate 2 of the top Gridiron Coaches in history in the latest Pigskin Dispatch book

When Greasy Met the Wonder Coach

Greatest Pro Team
Who was the MOST DOMINANT team in Pro Football History? We have the answer in the latest Pigskin Dispatch book

The World's Greatest Pro Gridiron Team

FREE Daily Sports History
You are only seconds away from receiving the Pigpen's Newsletter everyday filled with new items

SUBSCRIBE BY CLICKING _________________________  

Podcast with Rugby Expert Tony Collins

Dr. Tony Collins is one of the most revered experts and historians in the disciplines of football globally, especially in the different types of Rugby Football. We had the honor of having a discussion with Tony along with one of America's foremost experts on the early origins of our brand of football in North America, Timoty P. Brown of Football Archaeology. Tony sheds light on so many items in the relationship and shared history of these football games and what each has given to the other.

Introduction

It is a long-standing tradition that our American football game was derived as a version of Rugby football brought over to the States from Europe in the 19th Century. This fact is actual, as the early interscholastic game of the North East, such as the 1869 Princeton v. Rutgers game, was more like Association football of soccer than Rugby. The famous 1874 McGill visit to Harvard shifted momentum toward Americans adopting Rugby, and in 1876, the IFA rules established that a form of Rugby would be played over the association style of play. 

Football Archaeology founder Timothy P. Brown invited us to partake in a conversation to learn more about the game of Rugby football and its different styles and levels around the world as well as their relationship to their American cousin, American Gridiron Football, that we know and love.

About our Guest

He is some more information on our guest Tony Collins and his webiste and the podcast he produces regulary called Rugby Unloaded.

Rugby Unloaded

Here is the home of Tony Collin's complete archive of Rugby Reloaded podcasts. Learn all about the game of rugby football, both current and past, in one place, from one of the foremost experts on football history.

About Tony Collins

Tony Collins is a British social historian specializing in the history of athletic sport. Professor

Collins is well accredited as he is an emeritus professor of history at De Montfort University, a

Research Fellow at the Institute of Sports Humanities, and in 2018 was a visiting professor at

Beijing Sports University. In 2020 Dr. Collins

His works on Rugby history include:

1999, his first book Rugby’s Great Split, which won the Aberdare Prize for Sports History Book

of the Year. The great Rugby Football expert also won this same Prestigious award for later

works such as:

Rugby League in Twentieth-Century Britain (2007),

A Social History of English Rugby Union (2010)

The Oval World: A Global History of Rugby (2016).

A Social History of English Rugby Union was also a winner of the 2015 'World in Union Book

Award' for the best academic book on rugby union

Other works to his credit are:

Sport in Capitalist Society (2013)

How Football Began: How the World’s Football Codes Were Born (2018).

To share much more about the sport, Dr. Collins launched a sports history podcast called Rugby

Reloaded looks at the history of rugby and the other football codes worldwide.

Rugby Football

Here is some basic history of Rugby Football that may help in undersanding the game through it history and current play.

Rugby Football

Rugby football started about 1845 at Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, England, although forms of football in which the ball was carried and tossed date to the Middle Ages.

Rugby football split into two codes in 1895, when twenty-one clubs from the North of England left the Rugby Football Union to form the Northern Rugby Football Union (renamed the Rugby Football League in 1922) at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, over payments to players who took time off work to play ("broken-time payments"), thus making rugby league the first code to turn professional and pay players.[5] Rugby union turned professional one hundred years later, following the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa.

The Different Styles of Football

There are many styles of football played around the world. Here in North American we are familiar with NFL, NCAA, High School, and Canadian brands of the game. Here are three more that have variations of Rugby at their core played arpound the globe.

Here are some of the questions that Tony addresses in our conversation:

  • Brief overview of Rugby Football
  • Your book, How Football Began, describes how the various football codes morphed from "English football and rugby." Can you outline the major forces or trends discussed in the book?
  • What were association football (soccer) and rugby like compared to American football in the 1870s?
  • From your perspective, what were the key changes in early American football that distinguished it from rugby?
  • What is the difference between rugby union and rugby league? When and why did they separate?
  • In the history of other football codes, did they face threats of being banned due to deaths and injuries among players?

Rugby Union

Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. Rugby is simply based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is played between two teams of 15 players each, using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field called a pitch. The field has H-shaped goalposts at both ends.


Rugby union is a popular sport around the world, played by people of all genders, ages and sizes. In 2014, there were more than 6 million people playing worldwide, of whom 2.36 million were registered players. World Rugby, previously called the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) and the International Rugby Board (IRB), has been the governing body for rugby union since 1886, and currently has 101 countries as full members and 18 associate members.

Rugby League

Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes rugby, football, footy or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 m (74 yd) wide and 112–122 m (122–133 yd) long with H shaped posts at both ends.[1] It is one of the two codes of rugby football, the other being rugby union.[a] It originated in 1895 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England as the result of a split from the Rugby Football Union (RFU) over the issue of payments to players.

Australian Rules Football

Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules,[2] or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by kicking the oval ball between the central goal posts (worth six points), or between a central and outer post (worth one point, otherwise known as a "behind").


During general play, players may position themselves anywhere on the field and use any part of their bodies to move the ball.

Conclusion

Special thanks to Dr. Tony Collins and to Timothy P. Brown for helping to facilitate this awesome discussion and help us appreciate the root game that football derived from.

Images are courtest of Wikimedia Commongs including the banner image of Novembre 1898, Stade Français contre Catford-Bridge (Football-Rugby) 2

Football Archaeology

Timothy Brown's FootballArchaeology.com is a website dedicated to preserving pigskin history. digs into gridiron history to examine how football’s evolution shapes today's game. The site has a variety of articles, history of football word origins, and Daily Tidbits, which have a daily football factoid that shares some quite interesting items and aspects of the gridiron in a short read. They preserve football history in a very unique way Visit the site at Today's Tidbits.

Timothy P Brown

Tim Brown, one of the foremost experts on early college football, is the host and founder of FootballArchaeology.com. Tim's love of the gridiron's past goes beyond just the website. Mr Brown, to date, is the author of three books on football history, appears on various football history podcasts, and has been quoted in articles by The Athletic, The Chicago Tribune, and other publications. He guest authors articles on UniWatch, and his research on the 1920s West Point Cavalry Detachment teams contributed to All American: The Power of Sports, currently on display at the National Archives Museum in Washington, D.C.

His books include: Fields of Friendly Strife; How Football Became Football: 150 Years of the Game's Evolution; and Hut! Hut! Hike! A History of Football Terminology, which explores the history of football’s words and expressions and how they became connected to the game.