Rugby Reloaded

Rugby and coalminers in the north of England formed an unbreakable bond as far as back as the 1880s. Rugby league was built on pit villages and mining towns. Of the first ten members of the RFL Hall of Fame, three were miners. But as this episode of 'Rugby Reloaded' explains, this link went much deeper, because both mining and rugby league were seen as exemplars of working-class toughness, teamwor...

For 140 years, Welsh rugby players have travelled to the north of England to find fame and fortune. At first they went to play for the powerhouse clubs of northern rugby union, and when those clubs created rugby league, Welsh players became an integral part of the 13-a-side game. This week's 'Rugby Reloaded' investigates the players who 'went North' from the 1880s to the 1930s, looking at their st...

Cricket's County Championship began last week, so this week's episode looks at the huge role that cricket played in the birth of the football codes. In the mid-nineteenth century cricketers across Britain took up football and cricket clubs started their own football sections. The rugby and football authorities borrowed from cricket and took their lead from cricket's attitude to professionalism. Bu...

Thursday 8 April is the anniversary of the 1995 meeting in Wigan when British rugby league agreed with Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd to switch to a summer Super League. It was part of the biggest revolution rugby had seen since 1895. Not only was rugby league changed forever, but rugby union was forced to embrace open professionalism. This week's 'Rugby Reloaded' examines the birth of Super League in...

29 March 2021 is the 25th anniversary of the very first game in Super League, so part one of a special double episode steps back in time to examine the events that led up to the summer rugby league revolution. We trace Super League's roots back to the problems that British rugby league faced from the 1970s, which escalated in the 1980s. Wage inflation, spiralling transfer fees, and the costs incur...

Barely six months after Super League pulled out of Toronto, the US-based XFL is in talks with the Canadian Football League about a potential merger. This week's 'Rugby Reloaded' talks to football scholar Spencer Kassimir about the history of the XFL and the CFL, the background to the talks, and what lessons can be learned by other football codes. For more on the history of rugby and the other foot...

Manchester City and United are currently dominating the English Premier League - but until the 20th century Manchester was seen as a hotbed of rugby, not soccer. So how did the city lose its status as one of rugby's most important centres? The new 'Rugby Reloaded' explores the rise and decline of Manchester as a rugby city, and examines how a series of decisions dealt a body blow to rugby from whi...

To mark International Women's Day 2021, this episode talks to Julia Lee, one of the true pioneers of British rugby league. Julia was the first women ever to referee a men's professional rugby match of any code anywhere in the world. She's also been a trailblazer in the administration of the sport, has had a play written about her career, and is now collecting the memories of women who have been in...

The birth of rugby league coincided with a wave of Jewish immigration to Britain in the 1890s, and Jews in the big cities of northern England quickly took the game to their hearts. The same was true in Sydney, where a Jewish rugby league competition was played in the 1920s. This week's 'Rugby Reloaded' takes a look at the history of Jewish involvement in the sport, from pioneers like Eli Jacobson...

As the new NRL season is about to raise the value of the drop-goal for the first time in 130 years, the new ‘Rugby Reloaded’ investigates the history of the drop-kick and the drop-goal. How did the drop-kick become so important that for over fifty years it was the most valuable way of scoring points in rugby union? And will the NRL's new rule lead league back down a road it travelled in the late 1...

Humans have thrown and kicked a ball towards some form of goal fo as long as people have lived in communities. In any historical period, in part of the globe, football-type games have been played by men and women. This week's 'Rugby Reloaded' takes the long view of 'folk football' in Britain before the emergence of the modern rugby and soccer football codes, and asks why it lagged behind sports li...

Although rugby's great split of 1895 is often portrayed as a professional breakaway, it also led to the vast majority of amateur rugby clubs in the north of England leaving the RFU and joining the Northern Union. This week's episode takes a look at the early history of rugby league below the professional level, examining its rise, fall, and rise again as it battled with the effects of war and the...

Romanian rugby boomed in the 1950s, threatening the Five Nations dominance of European rugby union, as its club sides proved to be more than a match for the top English and Welsh teams. Then the British Foreign Office stepped in... The new ‘Rugby Reloaded’ uncovers the secret history of Anglo-Romanian ‘rugger diplomacy’ and discovers an unknown league link. If you think that politics in rugby is a...

Tuesday 26 January is the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Rugby Football Union at the Pall Mall Restaurant in the centre of London. In this week's 150th episode of 'Rugby Reloaded' we explore why and how the RFU was formed, and discover the contemporary parallels which forced rugby clubs to form their first governing body. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, t...

Facts speak for themselves, don't they? Not always, as we discover in this week's interview with Neil Ormston from the Rugby League Record Keepers' Club. As well as looking at the history of league stats, we discuss what constitutes an international match, what makes a club a club, and why league sides don't include their pre-1895 stats in their records. This is the episode where history, statisti...

This week’s 'Rugby Reloaded' explores the book that did more to shape the modern sporting world than any other: Tom Brown’s School Days. When it was published in 1857, it was the Harry Potter of its day, but it went on to influence not just rugby football, but all football codes and all modern sports, not least the Olympic movement. But what exactly was its message and what lessons did it expect i...

It's widely believed that William Wollen's famous rugby painting of 'The Roses Match' accidentally reveals 'ghost players', men who joined the Northern Union and were later painted out of the picture. This week's 'Rugby Reloaded' looks at the history of rugby's most memorable masterpiece and explores the truth behind the 'painted out players' story. As one myth is debunked, the painting reveals ye...

This week’s episode talks to Peter Harvey, the former England schoolboys’ rugby union captain and St Helens centre/stand-off of the 1960s, about his life in rugby. Peter grew up watching rugby league in St Helens, but he passed his 11+ exam and went to grammar school, where he began playing rugby union. He played for Lancashire and captained England schoolboys, before signing for St Helens and bec...

Christmas is just around the corner - and in past times soccer and rugby league supporters would have been looking forward to watching a match on Christmas Day. It was a tradition that brought record crowds and festive-style football. But how traditional was it - and why did it die out? The new episode of ‘Rugby Reloaded’ unwraps the history of Christmas Day football and asks if it’s a tradition t...

To mark the publication of a new book on the origins of British public school football games - 'Puddings, Bullies and Squashes', edited by Malcolm Tozer (Sunnyrest Books)- this episode of 'Rugby Reloaded' goes back to the 19th Century to look at the development and influence of schools' football. Did the public school codes influence modern games of football? What was the role of Muscular Christia...

What's the point of rugby league's salary cap? Rugby was was the original salary cap sport when it banned payments to players in 1886, which led directly to rugby's great split in 1895. Super League introduced the game's first salary cap in 1998 wth the aim of equalising competition and protecting clubs from themselves. But has it achieved its goals? The new 'Rugby Reloaded' talks to former St Hel...

In the wake of the BBC's excellent 'Once Were Lions' documentary, we look back on the 1986 Kangaroo tour of Britain with Mark Flanagan, author of 'The Invincibles: The Inside Story of the 1982 Kangaroos, the Team That Changed Rugby Forever'. Was the 1986 side the greatest touring team of all time? What did their success tell us about the state of British rugby league, or the future direction that...

It's the England versus Wales rugby union showdown on Saturday, the latest instalment in a rivalry that stretches across nation, class and playing styles. To discuss the roots and the history of a contest that dates back to 1881, this week's guest is Huw Richards, rugby historian, journalist and author of 'The Red & The White: A History of England vs Wales Rugby'. Huw examines the myths, legends a...

In the second part of our wide-ranging interview with Mark Evans, the former Harlequins and Melbourne Storm CEO who is now head of Global Rapid Rugby, we talk about at the state of the two codes in the northern hemisphere and look at the prospects of South Africa joining the Six Nations, the difficulties of private ownership in rugby clubs, and the way forward for rugby league in Britain. For more...

This week's episode is the first of a wide-ranging two-part interview with Mark Evans, the former Harlequins and Melbourne Storm CEO who is now head of Global Rapid Rugby, the Asia-Pacific rugby union competition. This week we look at the state of the rugby codes in the southern hemisphere, starting with the emergence of rapid rugby, then examining the consequences of the end of Super Rugby, befor...