Beschrijving
Running with the Ball. The Birth of Rugby Football. Running with the Ball is the first book to take rugby back to its beginnings – to games that were never stopped ‘short of manslaughter’; to the controversies that raged before the standardization of football rules in the 1860s; to Lindon, inventor of the ’true rugby ball’ whose failure to capitalize on his invention cost him both fame and fortune. The game rapidly introduced its own fashion, with caps that evolved into awards and jerseys embroidered by adoring female relatives. From the time when typical sides could number 200 against 60, to rites of passage that involved ‘honorably scarred tibias’, Jenny Macrory, archivist of Rugby School, explores how the tactics of the modern game evolved and why the smaller side so often won.