Say goodbye to the old Lansdowne Road.1850 - German Rugby started in 1850 at the Neuenheim College in Heidelberg, South Germany - now called Heidelberg College. Students under the guidance of the teacher Edward Hill Ullrich were the ones who then founded the Heidelberger Ruderklub von 1872 (HRK 1872) in 1872, which is the today the oldest German rugby club.
1851 - A "Rugby School Football" - an oval shaped ball - inflated by a pig's bladder - made by William Gilbert was on display at the International Exhibition in London.
1852 - G.E.L Cotton, a rugby old boy, brings Rugby rules to Marlborough school.
1853 - 25 yard line established.
1854 - Trinity College at Dublin University founded the first Rugby Football Club in Ireland. Students at the University had first learnt the game while at English Public Schools. A number of historians say that Trinity is the first rugby club as the Guy's hospital club is not very well documented (see 1843), read more.
1855 - William Webb Ellis became rector of St Mary Magdalene in Magdalene Laver, near Ongar, from 1855 until 1870.
The Guards and the Cavalry played the earliest recorded game of Rugby in the British Army. The match was at Balaclava on 27th March 1855, right in the middle of the Crimean War (1854-56). This was less than 6 months after the fated charge of the Light Brigade (25th October 1854).
Dec. 1st, 1855, game between original and new members of Trinity College.
1857 Liverpool RFU founded, claimed to be the oldest, continuously open rugby club in the world (see also 1986). An old Rugbeian (William Mather) wrote to his friend Richard Sykes (born 1840), captain of football at the school, inviting him to play a game. When around 50 players turned up on the 19th December 1857 at the ground of Liverpool Cricket Club. It was decided to play Rugby vs. the world although the score is not known, five goals are said to have been scored. Richard Sykes, who was also a former Captain of Football at Rugby School, provided the ball. After the game the Liverpool club was formed, read more.
Richard Sykes with first Child 1906
Richard Sykes captained Manchester RFC for 7 years and is accredited with introducing the game to the USA. He (Richard Sykes Land Company) later formed the town of Sykeston, North Dakota in 1883 where he created a new lake at a cost of four thousand dollars, a beautiful lake within the town site of Sykeston, which is named Hiawatha Lake, and is eighteen feet deep in places and two miles long and about a fourth of a mile wide. His company also had large land interests in Foster, Wells, Stutsman, and LaMoure counties.
He died in Santa Barbara, California in the centenary year 1923.
1857/8 Edinburgh Academy (Academical Football Club) formed (first club in Scotland). The playing of rugby football was organized by Mr Alexander Crombie who came from Durham grammer school in 1854, read more.
Merchiston Castle School played the High School Feb 13th, 1858 in the first inter-school rugby game, it's been an annual fixture ever since. Merchiston had hoped to play their first game against the Academy in November 1857 but this plan was abanded due to sickness.
The Merchiston captain, Van der Byl, returned to Cape Colony and played in the first recorded football match in South Africa (August 1862).
Edinburgh University formed 1857/8.
Blackheath club (formally the old blackheathens F.C.) was founded by some of the old boys of the Blackheath Proprietary School school as an open club. In the years immediately after the Club's formation, the game was being played mainly by teams with closed membership such as schools, colleges and teaching hospitals. This caused Blackheath to become known as "the Club" to differentiate it from the various institutions against whom they played. The practice continues to this day with supporters still cheering for "the Club!" rather than "Blackheath". There is however, controversy over the actual year of foundation, some references show 1862 as the year, read more.
Ned Haig - inventor of Rugby sevens, born.
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