It is unlikely that the young men of Harrogate who set up the first Harrogate Rugby Club would have envisaged the club continuing for 140 years. It is highly likely that their attitude to the game is identical with the players of today. Despite the dearth of material available from the history of rugby in Harrogate it is remarkable that this splendid photograph of the Harrogate Football Team from 1874 has survived and takes pride of place in the Claro Road clubhouse.

The J.W. Ackrill listed is believed to be related to the Ackrill family, which founded the Ackrill Newspapers and he was also the Honorary Secretary of the rugby club for the 1873-74 season. Another player in the photo, Tom Gospel, is mentioned in the Harrogate Herald Newspaper of Wednesday April 13th 1887 where there is a report of a "benefit' match for Tom Gospel who is reported to have played for the club for 17 years. The four Fawcetts are brothers, Tom, Frank, Fred and William and Tom Fawcett was Captain for the 1873-74 season.

There are 16 players in the photograph and it must be remembered that, at this time, the number of players in a team could be varied up to 20. The Captains before the game would agree the numbers in each team. This allowed for a handicap system when one team was known to be stronger than the other. Moustaches and beards were apparently fashionable at the time. The boots did not have studs but some players would attach strips of leather to the soles to improve the grip, this was known as "barring the boots.' J. Foggo, wearing the top hat, was the club umpire.

Games involving a pig's bladder or other similar object had been played throughout the history of mankind and in the early part of the nineteenth century the boys being educated at public schools had developed their own versions of a game with features similar to the games we now know as soccer and rugby. The pupils attending public schools were encouraged to play their games by Headmasters like Thomas Arnold of Rugby School. The novel, "Tom Brown's Schooldays,' by Thomas Hughes, first published in 1857, was very popular and helped to generate interest in the game. The book includes a very clear description of the rules of the football game as played at Rugby School.

The legend of William Webb Ellis picking up the ball and running with it dates from the early part of the nineteenth century when he was a pupil at Rugby School. If he did pick up the ball and run with it, he eithermisunderstood the rules of the game at the time or it was a deliberate provocative act for which he would surely have been severely censured.

Several factors came together which allowed the game of rugby football to rapidly develop in the middle of the 19th century. When they left university the young men of the time were keen to continue playing the game in their home towns. By the middle of the nineteenth century railways covered the country and transporting fifteen to twenty young men from one place to another to play their fixtures had never been easier. Working men were given Saturday afternoons off and they looked for ways to spend their new leisure time. This combination of factors helped the game to grow and develop. Harrogate was by this time a successful Spa town and many of the young men of the town would be familiar with the game of rugby, which acquired its name when rules similar to those used at Rugby School were adopted.

The object of the game in the 1870's was to set up a situation whereby the ball could be kicked between the goal posts and over the crossbar. In order to achieve this, each team would attempt to make progress towards the opposition goal line. If the ball was moved over the goal line the team could take a kick at goal. A kick from anywhere on the field was known as a field goal. The result was decided on the number of goals scored; tries would only be used a few years later. The game being played at this time mainly involved kicking the ball with the feet but play also involved scrummages and rucks, which could last for several minutes.

Interest in rugby must have been considerable in the 1860's and 1870's as many clubs were established during this period and this culminated in the formation of the Rugby Football Union. On 26th January 1871, 32 representatives of 21 rugby clubs met at the Pall Mall Restaurant in London and founded the Rugby Football Union (RFU). Algernon Rutter was elected as President and a committee was formed. Their first task was to agree a set of laws and they used the version adopted at Rugby School. Until 1863 there had been one single game, which incorporated aspects of both the games we now know as soccer and rugby and these included hacking and tripping. Some of those attending the meeting wanted to remove the hacking and tripping along with the handling and this became the basis of the game we now know as soccer.

The Blackheath Club attended this meeting and refused to agree to these changes as they wished to retain both hacking and handling which was very much inline with the laws used at Rugby School. On the 27th March 1871 the newly formed RFU accepted a challenge from a combination of leading Scottish Football Clubs (clubs playing rugby continued to be known as football clubs), for an international rugby match to be played at Raeburn Place,Edinburgh.

Refereeing of the game in the early years was done by the captains of each team, which meant that "disputed tries' were common. Later, non-playing umpires were introduced. Referees with whistles were first seen in 1885/86 in addition to the umpires who eventually became linesmen and carried sticks (flags). In 1876 the method of scoring was amended and results were now decided by a majority of goals and tries and in some games by a complicated system including "minors' which appear to be like near misses such as touch in goal, dead balls and missed drop goals. Scoring by points then became the norm, a try one point, conversion 2 points and a dropped goal 3 points.

more to follow..............