History of Rugby Union in Scotland - Codified Rugby Comes To Scotland

Codified Rugby Comes To Scotland

Several new schools were formed in Scotland during the first half of the 19th century, among them The Edinburgh Academy (1824), Loretto (1827), Merchiston (1833), Glasgow Academy (1845) and Trinity College, Glenalmond (1847). It is known that unregulated forms of football were played at all of these schools, but it was in Edinburgh that the handling game first took root and spread to other areas of the country. Two young men, Francis Crombie and Alexander Crombie, came from Durham School to Edinburgh in 1854. Francis joined The Academy as a pupil but Alexander had already left school. Apparently, neither brother had played football at Durham School but they took with them a knowledge of the rules of football as played at Rugby School and this they passed on. Francis is recorded as having been the first school football captain and Alexander became actively involved in the formation of The Edinburgh Academical Football Club. He qualified for membership under a rule which allowed relatives of school pupils to become members. In 1858 he became the first captain of the Football Club - a position he held for eight years. During the same period, a boy named Hamilton came to The High School in Edinburgh (in 1856) from an English public school and brought with him the 'Rules of Rugby Football' as he had known them in the south. This document was instrumental in the High School's adapting their existing game to this new form.

The first-ever inter-school match recorded in Scotland was Royal High School versus Merchiston (in Edinburgh), played on 13 February 1858. However, the game suffered from lack of uniformity of rule and ball. In The High School, in the early 1860s, football was played with '…monstrous inflated globes of vast circumference and ponderosity…'. H. H. Almond, a master at both Loretto and Merchiston and a founding father of the game in Scotland, describing an incident in a Loretto versus Merchiston match, wrote: '…but so little did any of us, masters or boys, then know about it, that I remember how, when Lyall ran with the ball behind the Merchiston goal the resulting try was appealed against on the ground that no player may cross the line whilst holding the ball. The previous rule at Merchiston had been that he must let go of the ball and kick it over before he touched it down. It must be said in excuse for this and other similar sins of ignorance, that the only available rules were those printed for the use of Rugby School. They were very incomplete and presupposed a practical knowledge of the game.' Gradually, over several years, the game approached that then being played at Rugby. There were local variations which, inevitably, resulted in disputes. Almond again: '…well into the 1870s the only schools able to play each other on even terms were The Edinburgh Academy, Merchiston and The High School.' From the mid-1860s, senior (former pupils) clubs started to appear in both the Edinburgh and Glasgow areas and these clubs, making good use of the then new railways, began to play each other. In those early club matches play was often halted whilst captains and umpires tried to settle some point of difference. Such disputes and mix-ups were frequent. Such a state of affairs could not continue indefinitely and a group of men from The Edinburgh Academical Football Club convened a series of meetings and, in 1868, with the agreement of the other schools and clubs, set out and had printed rules for the game in Scotland. The resulting booklet Laws of Football as played by the Principal Clubs in Scotland, became known as The Green Book. Alas, no copy survives but it is worthy of note that neither the clubs nor The Green Book felt it necessary to include the word 'Rugby' in their title. Indeed, the Scottish Football Union, formed in 1873, did not alter its name to become the Scottish Rugby Union until 1924 - the year prior to the opening of Murrayfield.

The world's oldest continual rugby fixture was first played in 1858 between Merchiston Castle School and the former pupils of The Edinburgh Academy, although the 'Edinburgh Courant' journal of Jan 1858 describes a Rugby Football match of December 1857 between sides representing 'The University' (Edinburgh) and 'The Academical Club' (Edinburgh Academicals FC).