In the books I got for Christmas, one of the games you MUST play is rugby. Emily, at my school, is rugby-mad and she is the smallest year 5 I know; the ball is almost as big as she is. My godmother is also rugby-mad or probably just mad but she likes rugby ALOT. On the other hand, Dad, who is a dentist and big on teeth, gets mad at rugby because he reckons they do not look after their gnashers. Mum says she doen not understand rugby but quite likes the look of it.
Above is a picture of William Webb Ellis. He was supposed to have invented the game of rugby when he was a schoolboy at a school called Rugby (that is quite a co-incidence!) In 1823 he is said to have been so cheesed off with playing with just his feet that he picked up the ball and ran with it. Hmmm. What do we know about William Webb
Ellis? Not much. What we do know is that the boys (definitley no girls then) used to play football at Rugby and they liked to make up their own rules as they went along which sounds excellent.-Let's have 100 players on Team A and 4 players on Team B and see who wins!
-Let's have a pitch with no boundaries!
-Let's NOT have a referee!
So, I do not think that someone picking up the ball would have been a. unusual or b. against the rules -since there weren't any.
William Webb Ellis's name was probably picked out of a top hat. Anyway, what is true is that rugby was invented by boys (yeh!) and soon loads of schools and even adults started playing it.
This stone says that William Webb Ellis, "...with a fine disregard for the rules...
first took the ball in his arms and ran with it thus originating the distinctive
feature of the rugby game"
Thing is, nobody asked William about it.
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