Read on Twitter
Starting tomorrow until publication on 29 August, I’ll tweet a daily quote from ‘Rugby League: A People’s History’ to tell the story of the sport in the words of the people who made it (and some that didn’t). You can pre-order the book here: http://www.scratchingshedpublishing.com/products-page/categories/rugby-league-a-peoples-history/
‘[Rugby] Football in the North of England has made great strides during the past season, and there are many clubs … in Yorkshire and Lancashire which can turn out a fifteen both strong in play and possessing a good knowledge of the science of the game.’ ‘Football Annual’, 1877
‘We saw reports in the papers of rugby football matches being played at Leeds, Bradford and elsewhere, and we thought that Halifax ought to have a club also.’ Sam Duckitt, founding member of @Halifax_RLFC 1873, echoing the thoughts of 100s of club founders in the 1870s/80s.
‘The majority of Yorkshire fifteens are composed of working men, who have received no school education in the art. The majority of members of London clubs have played it all their lives, yet when the two meet there is only one in it - the Yorkshireman.’ A Londoner, 1892
‘If the blind enthusiasts of working men’s clubs insist on introducing professionalism, there can be but one result - disunion.’ Arthur Budd, 1892
‘The game had now reached a period when another radical change must be considered, and that was the reduction of players from fifteen to thirteen.’ James Miller, president of the Yorkshire Rugby Union, on the next steps in rugby’s evolution, 1892.
‘These men were constantly called upon to lose their wages in order to play for their country or their club… Why should not the working man be able to play the game on level terms with the gentleman?’ James Miller of @leedsrhinos proposes broken time payments to the RFU, 1893.
‘I say with Mark Twain’s bold, bad boy, that we glory in the sentence of outlawry pronounced on us, as freeing us from the tyrannical bondage of the English [Rugby] Union.’ Letter to the ‘Yorkshire Post’ supporting the creation of the Northern Union, September 1895.
![‘I say with Mark Twain’s bold, bad boy, that we glory in the sentence of outlawry pronounced on us, as freeing us from the tyrannical bondage of the English [Rugby] Union.’ Letter to the ‘Yorkshire Post’ supporting the creation of the Northern Union, September 1895.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EezPcQxXkAIuvdY.jpg "‘I say with Mark Twain’s bold, bad boy, that we glory in the sentence of outlawry pronounced on us, as freeing us from the tyrannical bondage of the English [Rugby] Union.’ Letter to the ‘Yorkshire Post’ supporting the creation of the Northern Union, September 1895.")
‘The executive committee of the Northern Union cannot be called a conservative body. Every season it has evinced a desire to amend the rules of the game in accordance with the ideas of the progressives.’ Athletic News Football Annual on moving to 13-a
-side & play-the-ball, 1906
-side & play-the-ball, 1906
‘The league was formed because it was believed that the set of conditions controlling the [rugby] football unions were not suitable for the democracy and social conditions of the Australian people.’ Harry Hoyle, first NSWRL president, on why rugby league came to Australia, 1908
![‘The league was formed because it was believed that the set of conditions controlling the [rugby] football unions were not suitable for the democracy and social conditions of the Australian people.’ Harry Hoyle, first NSWRL president, on why rugby league came to Australia, 1908](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ee9h8EdX0AYPbqJ.jpg "‘The league was formed because it was believed that the set of conditions controlling the [rugby] football unions were not suitable for the democracy and social conditions of the Australian people.’ Harry Hoyle, first NSWRL president, on why rugby league came to Australia, 1908")
