Rugby and Soccer: Two Sports, Same DNA
By Igor Christopher Seibel
History tells us that rugby was created accidentally during a soccer game in the 19th century at Rugby School, a traditional school in the United Kingdom now made famous by this accident. The story goes that a student William Webb Ellis caught a ball with his hands and ran to the other end of the field. Even if the evidence of this story is suspect, the plaque unveiled in 1895 remains at the Rugby School as a symbol of the genesis of rugby football, or today simply “rugby”.
Between 1863 and 1871 rugby and soccer were the same sport. That’s because in 1863 the Football Association (FA) was formed unifying English football (soccer) and rugby football rules. But in 1863 an important club member of FA named Blackheath made a decision to leave the organization because he disagreed with dropping two rules of Football Association, tackles and carrying the ball with your hands. In 1871 after almost a decade later, the Rugby Football Union was formed, thus splitting the two sports. In same year in March 27th took place the first international rugby match between England and Scotland. Years later Wales and Ireland now have representative teams, which helped in the development and growth of the sport. So it’s not surprise that a rugby field has the same size of football field and similar concepts like offside, kicks and line outs. Of course since the creation these two sports had a natural and different evolution but the DNA is the same.
Rugby became widespread in the southern hemisphere primarily through visits by English teams to New Zealand and Australia in the early twentieth century. Another interesting thing about the sport is that it was an amateur sport until 1995 when the IRB (International Rugby Board) removed restrictions on payments to players.
Nowadays, the Rugby World Cup is the premier rugby competition. The tournament is one of the largest international sporting events in the world, surpassed in scale only by the FIFA World Cup, the Summer Olympics and the Tour de France. The importance of this tournament especially for South Africa is portrayed in the film Invictus, which was recently in theaters in Brazil.
In Curitiba we have the legacy of this sport represented by a club named “Curitiba Rugby Clube” founded in 1981 by Mauro Callegari and Eduardo Laguarrigue.
More information contact icseibel@ gmail.com or visit: www.curitibarugby.com.
