There is no actual evidence that William Webb Ellis 'picked up the ball and ran' during a game of football at Rugby School but that has not prevented a legend building up around him. | Sport24news
The 2023 Rugby World Cup, to be hosted in France, is less than a month away.
The trophy is named after William Webb Ellis, whose actions are believed to have contributed to the origins of the sport.There is no actual evidence that William Webb Ellis"picked up the ball and ran" during a game of football at Rugby School but that has not prevented a legend building up around him.To all intents and purposes the Victorian vicar has been adopted as the Father of Rugby. The 20 teams gathering in France this year will battle it out for the Webb Ellis Cup no less.
The legend grew through a series of letters to the school magazine that he had picked up the ball in a game of football in 1823. And with international rugby just opening its arms to the world with England's meeting with Scotland in 1871, it stuck. Not surprisingly, Rugby School, founded in 1567 when another Warwickshire legend William Shakespeare was still very much in short trousers and still going strong, took the opportunity this June of staging a bicentenary match to mark the occasion.
England's 2003 World Cup winning flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson was just one of the guests as the pupils - boys and girls - recreated some of the key moments in the early history of the game.
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