Summer 2022The earliest days of rugby football in Rochdale

The game that evolved into rugby league was, in the beginning, a very different sport to the one we watch today. From its earliest days, any game in which a ball was handled, kicked or passed between players was called ‘foot-ball’.

The earliest record of foot-ball being played in Rochdale reports that games between the various hamlets around the town were played as far back as 1775.

These were called ‘mob football’ games, and were chaotic affairs with few rules: an unlimited number of players could use any means necessary to convey a pig’s bladder from one side of the town centre to the other.

These games faded from the sporting scene when the Highways Act of 1835 banned the playing of foot-ball in the street - with anyone caught liable to a fine of forty shillings (that is over £1,000 equivalent today).

After that foot-ball became organised, though it was still played to local rules, with anything up to 20 or 30 players a side.

The first contest between two Rochdale clubs took place in December 1841, when the Body-Guards Club, based at the Grapes Inn on Baillie Street, accepted the challenge of the Fear-Nought Club to play them in a 12-a-side contest, with half a barrel of ‘Old Tom’ gin for the winning side.

The match was played on Christmas Day 1841 under ‘rules agreed by both parties’, and overseen by an umpire from each team. In order to score, the teams were required to kick the ball over the fence at the opponent’s end of the ground, but neither side was successful.

The match was eventually settled when a tired Body-Guard’s player called a spectator on to the field to take a kick for him. This infringement of the rules was deemed ‘foul play’ by his own umpire, who awarded the game to the Fear-Noughts on a technicality.

As foot-ball gained popularity across the country, and teams began to play opponents from other areas, there was a need to create a common set of rules. The rules adopted by the majority of clubs, and the governing body, were those laid down at Rugby School - the Rugby rules.

This was the point at which the game became known as ‘Rugby Football’, the first step towards becoming the game we know today.

BY JIM STRINGER