De-mystifying General MacArthur and the Rugby League State of Origin Part 1 22-01

The Australian Rugby League's State of Origin competition is iconic, but how did the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the South West Pacific during WWII, US General Douglas 'Big Mac' MacArthur, and his ego have an impact on this competition. In Part One of this two-part podcast we look at the history of rugby league before we see how an American general caused it to come into being.

Transcript

The Australian National Rugby League State of Origin competition is said to have begun in 1980 at Lang Park, Brisbane played between the NSWRFL and QRL. Rugby League historians say that NSW teams had been playing QLD teams since the sport began in Australia in 1908... but in fact it was General Douglas MacArthur’s ego that is the indirect reason for the first true Australian Rugby League State of Origin competition. And, the first true Australian Rules Football State of Origin competition before the modern version of the series commenced in Western Australia in 1977… and it was the Australian Army that ran them both. So, let’s see how MacArthur and the Australian Army led the way.  Roll the intro.

 For those outside the Australian states of NSW and QLD, rugby league football may seem somewhat foreign, but the State of Origin series, now in its fifth decade, is iconic. To understand why it’s important and how General MacArthur and the Army played a part in its creation we must provide a bit of background on how the game came to be and how it grew in Australia and in Army.

But before we do that, we should clarify some terminology that will make it easier to understand. 

Rugby is a town in Warwickshire in England, its name is derived from Hrocaberghee meaning Hroca’s hill fortification. In the town of Rugby is a boys school called, well, Rugby School, and it was this school’s decision in 1845 to codify a style of popular football that was being played by its pupils that gave birth to the term Rugby rules of football, or rugby football. Its current pronunciation will depend on your dialect of English. Rugby if your Australia; Wugbee by the posh English southerners and Rugbeh by English northerners. Now, to further clarify terminology, when you organise a group of entities, such as football teams, you may want to create an Association of Teams, or perhaps a Union of Teams, or a League of Teams, or a Conference of Teams. Can you see a pattern forming?

Now, let’s talk about the words used to describe football and soccer. One common point of contention is that soccer is real football and everything else is not. The primary argument is that in other codes of football, you can use your hands to carry or pass the ball and so using the term football to describe those codes is inaccurate. In actual fact, the first recorded use of the term football came from a translation of the French used by the upper classes and officials in England in the Middle Ages. In an edict by the Lord Mayor of London is a description of a game where large pelotes de pee, that is balls of the feet, or foot balls, were being used during a massed ball game that was played between teams of unlimited numbers of players in what could be considered a continuous ruck or scrum or scrimmage. It was a type of ‘mob football’ and it was this type of game that was often played in villages and towns on feast days and fetes and could dominate the village greens and surrounding roads. The Lord Mayor of London banned this game due to its inconvenience to the town and the bad examples it set for its citizens. Another explanation is that it described a game that is played not on horseback as gentlemen do, but by men on their feet, as commoners do.

Now, the term soccer. The word ‘football’ conjures up different contexts depending on the country in which it is used. In Australia, it could mean Rugby football or Australian Rules football. In the US and Canada, it refers to Gridiron football. In Ireland it refers to Gaelic football. All those codes of football use both hands and feet. In Britain and in most other parts of the world, football means what we call soccer. So where did this term come from.

Well during the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, a common form of slang was to change a word by keeping its stem and adding the suffix ‘er’ to that stem. So Rugby football was colloquially known as ‘Rugger’, a term that is still used here and there. Soccer comes from the same etymology but the word Association was shortened to Assoc-er, which became the word soccer. Where rugger referred to the football that followed the rules of rugby, soccer referred to the football that followed the rules of the Football Association. But more on that later.

Lastly, let me give a backgrounder for our friends from the United States and, to a degree, Canada, by way of a comparison. The Rugby League State of Origin which we will be discussing, is like the NFL’s Pro Bowl competition between the AFC and NFC. The main differences being that the NFL Pro Bowl is played between two teams made up of players selected for their skill from the two NFL conferences whereas the Rugby League State of Origin is played between two teams made up of players selected for their skill and based on the state where they commenced their rugby league careers. The NFL Pro Bowl is often criticised as being low-quality and low impact because neither conference wants to have their important players injured in an inconsequential post-season game. As such, it does not rate as highly as a standard competition game of NFL. The Rugby League state of origin match in Australia on the other hand, is one of significant pride for the two Australian states where Rugby League is the premier football code, and is incredibly popular with fans. Furthermore, being selected to represent your state is considered a badge of honour for a professional rugby league player. It is a hard-hitting, highly competitive series of three matches played mid-season… so the stakes—and the risks—are high.

So, let’s start de-mystifying history with an explanation of rugby’s origins. There is a legend that the game of rugby was created when William Webb Ellis, a student at Rugby School was playing a game of football when he illegally picked up the ball and ran with it, thus creating a new game which became known as rugby rules football. Of course, this is not true… or at least cannot be proven… but the unsubstantiated story has passed into football folklore and people still believe it and have even made statues and named trophies about the mythical incident.

As we have discussed, there had already been a type of football played for centuries where carrying the ball and tackling were allowed, but there were no standard rules. The way in which the game was played differed from region to region, town to town, school to school.

The first set of codified rules for rugby football was drawn up at the Rugby school in 1845 but there were many variants of the game being played by the many clubs and schools. In 1863, in response to the formation of numerous football clubs and their different rules, the Football Association of clubs was formed with the intention of collating the various rules being used and then creating a unified set of rules for a standardised game. There were two rules in that initial draft that, it was suggested, be removed. The first rule had to do with carrying the ball, and the second referred to tackling which could include charging, holding, tripping and kicking the ball carrier. The Football Association wanted these two rules removed, but some diehards said that if the Football Association removed the rules on tackling, then the game would become a weak non-contact sport and then, quote ‘even a Frenchman could play it’ end quote. A breakaway group of football clubs met and formed a union of clubs to play a harder game than the Football Association wanted, a game based on the rules of football created by the Rugby school. Thus was created the Rugby Football Union of clubs playing football that allowed the ball to be carried and the ball carrier to be tackled. Meanwhile, the Football Association did not allow the ball to be carried in their brand of football, nor was tackling allowed. Thus was born Rugby football and association football, shortened to Rugger and Soccer. 

But let’s talk about rugby rules football and leave soccer to the British Football Association and the English Premier League. In England, rugby football was the dominant game. The Rugby Football Union (RFU) competition drew huge crowds. It was fiercely amateur and made up of players and officials that were predominantly from the well-to-do, particularly in the affluent south of England. The idea that one would be paid to play was seen as un-gentlemanly. When some players who were playing in organised competitions sought payment for lost wages due to absences from work, they were met with disapproving comments like ‘if men can’t afford to play, then they shouldn’t play at all’, response from the Union. This led to discontent, so it is not surprising that in 1895 a breakaway ‘Northern Union’ was established by dis-enchanted players of the RFU. The north part of England was very industrialised and had many factory workers, miners and other manual tradesmen so players often came from the working classes where lost wages often meant they could not play football and tour in competitions. The rules of football for this breakaway Northern Football Union were also changed such that the ball was more visible and not hidden by a multitude of rucks, and was faster and the number of tackles limited. This Northern Football Union formed a League of teams in 1901, and thus was born the Rugby Football League. The Rugby League version of football was faster than the Rugby Union version. It became incredibly popular among the working class and the growing fan base was charged to come and watch. This meant gate-takings were passed on to the players and to the clubs which allowed for a more professional organisation with paid players. The clubs also became wealthy and with wealth comes influence. Soon, the Rugby Football League and its version of rugby was surpassing the Rugby Football Union and their version of rugby, but the Football Association’s version of football—soccer— was soon to eclipse both of the rugby codes in the UK. Rugby Union football became the preferred game of the educated upper class and was played at private schools and universities and remained ardently amateur, shunning attempts to professionalise the sport.

Now let’s head down under to Australia, where in the late 19th/early 20th Centuries saw rugby football unions emerge in the colonies of New South Wales and Queensland that mirrored what was happening in England. Each colony, later state, had their own competitions with the first rugby union club formed at Sydney University in 1864. Five years later, Newington College became the first school in Australia to form a rugby union team and they would play Sydney University. Meanwhile, the other states were playing a different form of football that saw a lot more kicking of the ball between players on the same team rather than passing by hand. This would develop into Australian Rules Football and would become the pre-eminent code of football in Australia, except in New South Wales and Queensland where rugby remained more popular.

In 1908, a breakaway group of clubs in the NSW capital of Sydney and the Queensland capital of Brisbane decided to form their own leagues based on the British rugby football league concept and rules. Australian rules football was becoming incredibly popular and breaking world records for attendances at football matches, so to prevent an exodus of talented players defecting to Australian rules football, the NSW Rugby Football League was formed to make playing football profitable. Likewise in Queensland with the Brisbane Rugby League and, later, the Queensland Rugby League.

For those from NSW, some more history. Sydney was not as spread out as it is now and transport was limited to trains and horse-drawn trams, so teams were, for the most part, based on suburban areas within a short distance from the city centre. Iconic teams that formed the first league were the South Sydney “Rabbitohs”, the North Sydney “Bears”, the Eastern Suburbs “Roosters”, the Western Suburbs “Magpies”, Newtown “Blue-bags”, Central Cumberland “Fruit-pickers”, Glebe “Dirty Reds”, Newcastle “Rebels” and Balmain “Tigers”. The Newtown Bluebags were later re-named the “Jets” in 1973 for the same reason the New York Titans were re-named the Jets in 1962, because of their proximity to a major airport where jets made such an impact to the area due to their size and noise, Sydney Kingsford-Smith airport and New York’s La Guardia airport).

The competition became very popular and the first grade competition bred local heroes. Remember, before WW1 there was no TV, radio, movie theatre chains or internet and limited electricity... so these sorts of events drew huge crowds and the South Sydney Rabbitohs became the dominant team in the first few decades.

Rugby League grew in Sydney, Newcastle and Brisbane and in country towns (particularly in Queensland) but did not make head-way into the other states which had been ardent followers of Australasian Rules football for decades. This schism continues today.

So that’s the end of part one in this two part podcast on the Australian Rugby League’s State of Origin origin story. Join me for part two where we see how the Australian parliament made the Army take up the sport and how General Douglas MacArthur’s ego forced the Australian Army’s hand in indulging in the competition on a South Pacific island. To see some images relating to this podcast, go to ipas.com.au, that’s I P A S dot com dot au and visit the pods, blogs and vlogs page. See you next time.