The RFU is celebrating its 150th anniversary.
Despite England’s defeat to Scotland yesterday, the 127th Calcutta Cup was nonetheless a historical and celebratory day for the RFU. After all, it was January 1871 when representatives of 21 clubs met at the Pall Mall Restaurant in London and selected 20 players to represent England after a challenge had been laid down by Scotland.
The first ever international rugby union match duly took place at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh on the 27th March 1871 with the Scots winning 1-0. This was of course long before the modern points scoring system was introduced in 1992. The grounding of the ball over the line gave the scoring team the chance for a kicked conversion and only if successful with that kick would one point be added.
In the 150 years since the formation of the RFU, the game has changed dramatically. Through the advent of sports spectatorship in the early 1900’s and the purchase of the ‘Cabbage Patch’ site for Allianz Stadium,Twickenham in 1907, the proliferation of radio and television broadcasting in the 1920’s and 30’s and the switch to professionalism in 1995, the RFU has been the core pillar of the English system for 150 years and we wanted to take a look at some of the key milestones in what is a magnificent story of development, success and pride in that Red Rose.
We spoke with Hospitality Finder ambassador and England Rugby World Cup winner Mike Tindall MBE and he sent us some key milestones in modern RFU history.
For a more in-depth look at some of the key events in the history of the RFU, please take a look at the infographic below:
