THE NATIONAL GAME.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 206, 31 July 1937, Page 10

THE NATIONAL GAME.

HISTORICAL REVIEW, INFANCY OF THE CODE. Reviewing the history of Rugby football from the time when merely “football” was played, in the middle centuries. in England, and from the period when it was banned in the reign of King Henry VIII, Mr N. A. McKenzie,- sole selector of the Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union, gave a most interesting address to the members of the Napier Rotary Club, this week. In the very early days of football it was played between two villages, he said, which were sometimes 15 miles apart, each village sending a team of about 1000 players, and the game continued sometimes for weeks before one side covered the 15 miles or seven and a-half miles that separated it from the opposing set of goal-posts erected in the opposing village In 1823 occurred the famous exploit of William Webb Ellis, who “picked lip the ball and ran” —this in the absence of any referee who might have put a stop to the practice and incidentally to the development of Rugby. This was the first step _in the gradual line of demarcation between Rugby and Association football. The colleges of the day brought gradually into use the custom .of playing with sides of 15 men each, and also the present practice of distinguishing players by coloured caps, jerseys, and blazers. In Hawke’s Bay, Mr McKenzie said, football commenced about 1875, Mr Snodgrass being captain of the first club, and in 1878 games were played with Poverty Bay., A number of well-known names in the' district occurred in tho early sides —two ,Von Tempskys and two Ormonds playing in the first Hawke’s Bay team.. Later the names of Rees, Dobson, and Le Quesne occurred. In 1884 the, Hawke’s Bay Rugbv Union was formed, with Mr R. Dobson as the first president and Mr H. F. Gibbons, now of Palmerston North, as captain of the first official Hawke’s Bay team. In 1889 Mr T H Lowry captained tho side.