Page:Football, the Rugby game.djvu/11



Rugby Football Union was organized in the early part of 1871, at the initiative of the Richmond and Blackheath clubs. The difficult task of drafting the code of laws was, we believe, undertaken mainly by Messrs. A. G. Guillemard (West Kent), E. H. Ash (Richmond), and F. I. Currey (Marlborough Nomads), to whose untiring energy and enthusiasm the formation of the Union was largely due. Some of them had been engaged eight years previously in endeavouring to frame a code of laws which would suit all players, but these negotiations had been terminated on the formation of the Football Association in 1863, under a code which Rugbeians could not afford to accept.

From that time forward the two games have drifted further and further apart, but time has shown that there is plenty of room for both, and consequently the country has distinctly gained by the bifurcation.

At the end of its first full season the Rugby Union comprised thirty-three clubs, and the balance-sheet showed an income of £7, with an expenditure of £5; at the end of this, its nineteenth season, there are 290 clubs on the list,