The sport of rugby shares a common origin with soccer, American football, Australian rules football and Canadian football. Accounts of a game called "foot ball" extend back into medieval times. Rules varied and were rarely codified, but generally involved passing a ball back and forth between players as long as possible.
William Web Ellis
Although the legend cannot be proven or disproven, popular lore has it that in 1823 a player named William Web Ellis broke the prevailing mores of the game of football by taking the ball and running forward with it instead of passing it off to another player. Ellis was a student at the private Rugby School in Warwickshire, England.
Rugby School
Whether the legend about Ellis is true or not, Rugby School is where the variant of football that allowed forward running originated and gained popularity. In 1845, the first set of written rules was published at the school. In 1871, 21 local clubs founded the Rugby Football Union at a gathering in London . The organization standardized certain practices, outlawed some of the rougher plays and thus authored the first modern set of "laws" of the sport.
Rugby Union vs. Rugby League
In 1895, several clubs split from the Rugby Football Union organization over the issue of paying players. The Union insisted on maintaining strict amateurism, which favored the middle and upper classes -- those who could afford the time off work and lost wages required to play a full competitive schedule. Those clubs defecting from the Union formed their own organization, originally called the Northern Union. Their form of rugby would come to be known as Rugby League and eventually League teams developed their own set of rules. Most notably, Rugby League lacks a scrum.
Rugby Today
In England, the Rugby Football Union maintained its allegiance to amateurism until 1995. Meanwhile, the sport spread worldwide in the wake of the British Empire. Local variants of rugby union are popular in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Rugby was included in the early years of the Olympic Games but was dropped after the 1924 games. It will return to the Olympics in 2016.
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