Origins
Different forms of football have existed for centuries.
(For more on the development of football sports, see football.
) In Britain, football 🧾 games may have been played as early as the time of Roman occupation in the 1st century bce.
During the 14th 🧾 and 15th centuries ce, Shrove Tuesday football matches became annual traditions in local communities, and many of these games continued 🧾 well into the 19th century.
These localized versions of folk football (a violent sport distinctive for its large teams and lack 🧾 of rules) gradually found favour within the English public (independent) schools, where they were modified and adapted into one of 🧾 two forms: a dribbling game, played primarily with the feet, that was promoted at Eton and Harrow, and a handling 🧾 game favoured by Rugby, Marlborough, and Cheltenham.
Game playing, particularly football, was encouraged at Rugby School by influential headmaster Thomas Arnold 🧾 (1828–42), and many boys educated at this time were instrumental in the expansion of the game.
Rugby football soon became one 🧾 of the most significant sports in the promotion of English and, later, British imperial manliness.
The game's virtues were promoted by 🧾 books such as Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days (1857).
The cult of manliness that resulted centred on the public schools 🧾 and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where boys were sent to learn how to become young gentlemen.
Part of the 🧾 schoolboy's training was a commitment to arduous physical activity, and, by the late 19th century, rugby and cricket had become 🧾 the leading sports that developed the "civilized" manly behaviour of the elite.
It was believed that rugby football instilled in the 🧾 "muscular Christian" gentleman the values of unselfishness, fearlessness, teamwork, and self-control.
Graduates of these public schools and of Oxford and Cambridge 🧾 formed the first football clubs, which led to the institutionalization of rugby.
Britannica Quiz Sports Quiz
Once they had left school, many 🧾 young men wanted to continue playing the game of their youth, and the early annual matches between alumni and current 🧾 senior students were not enough to satisfy these players.
Football clubs were formed in the mid-19th century, with one of the 🧾 very first rugby clubs appearing at Blackheath in 1858.
Rugby enthusiasm also spread rapidly to Ireland and Scotland, with a club 🧾 founded at the University of Dublin in 1854 and the formation by the Old Boys of Edinburgh of the Edinburgh 🧾 Academicals Rugby Football Club in 1858.
In 1863 the tradition of club matches began in England with Blackheath playing Richmond.
Representatives of 🧾 several leading football clubs met in 1863 to try to devise a common set of rules for football.
Disputes arose over 🧾 handling the ball and "hacking," the term given to the tactics of tripping an opponent and kicking his shins.
Both handling 🧾 and hacking were allowed under rugby's rules but disallowed in other forms of football.Led by F.W.
Campbell of Blackheath, the rugby 🧾 men refused to budge over hacking, calling those against the practice "unmanly.
" Though Campbell's group was in the minority, it 🧾 refused to agree to the rules established for the new Football Association (FA) even though many elements of rugby rules 🧾 were included in early compromises.
Ultimately, rugby was left outside the FA.
Despite the initial reluctance to abandon hacking, rugby clubs began 🧾 to abolish the practice during the late 1860s.
Blackheath banned it in 1865, and Richmond supported a similar prohibition in 1866.
Get 🧾 a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.Subscribe Now
Rugby received bad publicity after a Richmond player was killed 🧾 in a practice match in 1871, prompting leading clubs to respond to Richmond and Blackheath's call for an organizational meeting.
Thus, 🧾 in 1871 members of leading rugby clubs met to form the Rugby Football Union (RFU), which became the governing body 🧾 for the sport.
By this time, hacking had largely disappeared from club rugby, though it remained a part of the game's 🧾 "character building" qualities at Rugby School.
As a result of its continued adherence to the practice, Rugby School did not join 🧾 the RFU until 1890.
