For more than a century, people believed that rugby was introduced to Japan by a schoolteacher in 1899. But that's not how it actually happened. The true history is much older … and much more exciting. (OnlyAGameNPR)
Japan has gone rugby-mad as the country hosts the World Cup. It's the first time that an Asian country has hosted the Rugby World Cup.
But that’s not how it actually happened. The real story involves samurai, British warships and an armed cricket match.Mike Galbraith is a rugby historian who lives in the town of Rugby. Really. It’s an actual town in England, home of the Rugby School, where the sport was first invented sometime in the 1820s.
"Well, when I first came to Japan, I wasn't aware that people played rugby," Galbraith recalls."But I shared an apartment with an American guy. He was working as a movie extra." In fact, almost right away, Galbraith found a book that pointed him to an article that documented the creation of the Yokohama Foot Ball Club in 1866.
"One day, he went riding with some of his friends in Yokohama," Galbraith says."Unfortunately for him, a few hours earlier, a daimyō, which is a kind of lord, and his retinue had set off from Tokyo to go to Kyoto. And they came into contact. They collided. Maybe three or four miles from Yokohama."Nobody’s exactly sure what happened next. Some accounts say Richardson didn’t show the proper respect to the daimyō. Others suggest Richardson’s horse spooked.
"And so one team is called the Shore Team, so that was the merchants. And then one was called the Navy," Galbraith says."The ground they played on was ringed by Marines. But there is an account that says the wicket-keeper was carrying a pistol, and he would put the pistol behind the stumps and take six balls, an over. And then he'd pick up the pistol, walk to the other end, put it down behind there.
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