Author: Butz

We sometimes forget that there is more to our beloved game than test matches, super rugby and dare I say it, the Shute Shield. It’s played across the country by all ages, all genders and all abilities. I picked up my first rugby ball aged 11. It was thick, hard leather weighed a ton when it was wet and went out of shape so easily that it soon became almost shaped like a soccer ball. My first game of senior rugby was as a callow 17 yr old in the 5th XV of a famous club in SE London (the…

 ‘In the beginning’ Where did it all begin? As usual, you can blame the Poms and that bloke William Webb Ellis, who in a game of ‘football’ at Rugby School, allegedly picked up the ball and ran with it. He probably got clobbered by 20 or more of the opposition for being ‘unsporting’ which seems fair to me. Writing this article it caused me to think that if Bill could step into a time machine and leap forward to the present day and see how our game has been taken over he would have gone back and said ‘fuck footy…