A fantastic mythology for a fantastic game! However; the story is a lot more complicated.

In the late 1700's and early to mid 1800' a variety of games similar to soccer, rugby, gaelic rules and so forth were regularily held between communities at various celebrations, harvests and so forth.

Participants played these games with inflated pig ( animal) bladders through most of history. Rules were limited only by the imagination of the particiapnts. With the advent of the industrial rvolution, a leisure class evolved and with the rise of this leisure class came the desire fill their free time. From an amorphous soccer/rugby like game various games began to emerge.

The educators, of elite public schools - Rugby, Eton etc. - recognized the value of sport in building 'character'. In the early 1800's a variety of games which included kicking existed; however, these ball games were only played locally. Rather disorganized affairs, often with teams as large as several hundred people, there was a need for some structure. Between 1820 and 1830 at Rugby School, some players began to run forward with the ball before kicking it. The rules of the time said it was OK to run backward before kicking but running forward was considered unfair and bad form. During this era, since there was no referee, the students made up the rules and played as they wanted. After 1830, as running became more common it fainally legalized in 1841-2. Once running became accepted, legalization of tackling the person with the ball or hacking him (kick him in the shins) also became acceptable. Finally, on August 28, 1845 Rugby School published its Laws of Football.

With graduation, on to the great Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. At university and with a desire to continue sport - the games continued. With graduation from University, gentlemen wanted to continue the fraternity and clubs began forming. Of interest, it seems the Alumni of Rugby School headed to Oxford while others, more 'soccer' oriented landed at Cambridge. It was here where the real divergence and formulation of rugby and soccer as sports occurred.

In November 1863 at the Freemason's Tavern in London, a universal football code was developed and the Football Association was born.The first draft included rules that allowed the distinctive features of the Rugby game, specifically running forward and allowing a player who is running forward with the ball to be charged, held, tripped, hacked, etc However, the rules adopted by the FA were largely based on the Cambridge rules and excluded the Rugby rules. So clubs who played under the Rugby(Oxford) rules withdrew from the FA and developed their own code.

On January 26, 1871, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) was formed. This led to a consistent set of rules for all clubs that played a version of football under the Rugby School laws. On March 27, 1871, the first International Rugby match was played. Scotland beat England in Edinburgh by a goal and a try to a try. From this genesis Rugby football spread to all the Home Countries - England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland - then on to the colonies.

Rugby remained an amateur sport until 1995. Being an amateur sport, rugby remained the playground of the idle classes. How could the working class could afford to take the time off from work to play sports? By the 1890's this became a most contentious issue.

Clubs in the north of England wanted to give their players "broken time payments" - pay them what they would have gotten by working instead of playing rugby. The RFU said no and in 1895, the northern clubs split away to form the Northern Football Union which developed into Rugby League.

Also, 1891,Walter Camp of Yale University adresses and resolves the differences between the various football codes in the USA by making up his own set of rules. Of interest, he introduced the line of scrimmage, cut the team down to 11 players and narrowed the field to 53 1/3 yards and American football is born.

In 1987, we witnessed the culmination of the growth of rugby with the inaugural Rugby World Cup played in Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand beat France 29-9 in front of a home town crowd to be crowned Champions.