In February 1881, on London's Richardson's field, the first-ever rugby game took place between the best players of England and the best players of Wales. There was no stand or terraced bank, and the game was watched by a small crowd standing three-deep behind a rope. The Welsh had nine university graduates and three clergymen on their team. But God was not on their side. England won by eight goals to none. 82-0 in modern values. The Welsh have desired revenge ever since. (LAUGHS) It is just total hedonism, carnage, colour ` most of it good-natured. In England, they have this tradition of coarse rugby and coarse songs; we sing hymns. (CROWD SINGS LOUDLY) We'll have players on the field. A wonderful guy called Haydn James conducts them and will actually be conducting the whole crowd. (CROWD SINGS LOUDLY) The sound in there is just unbelievable. (CROWD SINGS LOUDLY) Wales gave the tradition of singing an anthem before rugby international to the world. The anthem still has that power. You will see grown men crying in the stands. You'll see players' lips wobbling and eyes filling with tears. It is immensely moving. (ALL SING LOUDLY) (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) Captions by Julie Taylor, Chelsea Brady and Starsha Samarasinghe. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 I, Don Waldock, challenge Cambridge to bring 23 of their finest men to do battle for the 137th men's varsity match. Do you accept our challenge? I, Nick Koster, captain of Cambridge University Rugby Club accept your challenge. I will bring 23 of the best players that this university has to offer, and we will do everything in our power to retain our title. At the start of the 20th century, rugby was a purely amateur game played just for recreation by the future leaders of the establishment. These young men who would take the best jobs as lawyers, bankers or politicians, would continue merrily up the rugby ladder from public school to university. Rugby became a sport associated with the upper classes, with the moneyed classes. You were upper-class when you played it, and then to continue playing it afterwards, you had to pay money to continue to play it in a non-university environment. It was just an entirely different universe. It was like going into a separate galaxy. I became boldly aware of the fact that it was very much an upper-class enterprise start to finish. I was filled with excitement about what was this place. The whole tradition of being clapped off the field by the losers, the drinking beer immediately afterwards in the clubhouse with muck and mud on ya, and they didn't have showers in many of these clubhouses at that time, and so they had these giant bathtubs. ALL: # She'd find touch, I'd find touch. # We'd find touch together. # We'd be all right in the middle of the night. # Finding touch together. # The level of camaraderie among the squads, I just` I loved it. Whilst rugby was a gentlemen's game, not all gentlemen were English. Rugby-playing old boys spread the game to other British universities. Ireland was run by Britain, and all of the universities and all of the educational institutional bodies were all run with a British hand. This was not always a positive. Rugby flourished in Protestant Trinity College, but the sport was resented by the country's Catholic population; its presence a blatant reminder that Ireland was governed by London. In Ireland, sport is deeply political, so rugby was officially, according to the dogma of the time, a foreign game. The Irish Rugby Football Union, they associated with the oppressor. Rugby was the game of the ruling classes. The population surge from migrants in the booming coal and steel industries provided the catalyst in popularising rugby among different classes. It really was completely different in Wales to the way it was in the south of England. And one of the nice things was the diversity in rugby. You would have miners next to lawyers. And it worked. Wales is a very complex, small country, the original, kind of, melting pot of people coming in from elsewhere, and then creating something that was distinctively Welsh 100 years later. But Welsh economic and social prosperity was built on the backs of men operating in the severest of conditions. Workers depended on each other for survival, and the bonds they forged spilled over into everyday community living. We are now 765 yards below the surface of the earth and about a quarter of a mile from the trench bottom, working what is known as a Four Feet seam. It was a grim industry. Your dad or your uncle going down underground, coming home filthy, dirty every day. They'd have a shower when they came out of the pit, but they would always be grimy. I look at my own family. Both grandfathers were miners. I didn't know them because they died decades before I was born in their 50s because of mining. There were so many men who worked in the pits those days, and each community was a strong, sort of, community, and I think rugby clubs were all part of those communities. In the Valleys, rugby was the miners' salvation from being locked underground or in front of giant furnaces. When they had a chance to get out on that field, it was as if they wanted to free themselves of all that intensity that they'd been subjected to for the whole week. Everyone said that the hardness of Welsh rugby was because they all worked in factories, mines etc. They were incredibly proud, honest men, and that transferred to the rugby field, I think. So, it becomes a game that represents the best of Welsh society. And we become very good at it. Within a tiny radius of Valley towns and villages, fierce rugby rivalries mushroomed. Those Valley bastards. They were two miles apart or four miles apart. They'd all be chanting, and it was so intimidating ` very gladiatorial, tribal. If you grew up in Ebbw Vale, for instance, and if you went down to play for Newport down the Valley to a big ground in a big city, you'd be hated for the rest of your life. (PLAYERS SHOUT) Once encountered, the intensity of Valley's rugby would be something opposition players would never forget. We went to play the game, and Buck was down the back of the lineout, and he got to` this guy was pulling his jersey, and he said, 'Don't do that. Don't do that.' Did it a couple more times. Pmm. And he knocked all his front teeth out. The thing is he shouldn't have done what he done. You know? And I warned him. And went to the dinner that night, and Buck had had the teeth stuck in his hand. I met him afterwards, and he had his front teeth missing, but that's` that's life. So Buck's there (CHUCKLES) sitting across the table from this guy, and I will always remember looking, and this guy was so happy. He was like... And he had all these teeth missing. And he was so excited that Buck Shelford had knocked all his teeth out. You know? I said, 'Oh, OK.' And then I talked to a few of his mates. He lived on that story for years. You know? Rugby pride was also strong in Scotland, the fourth of the home nations. Like Wales, rugby was embraced by town and country. Rugby in Scotland has come from two places. It's from the private education sector, which is called public schools, as they call it ` the posh kids, or the rural people who lived on the borders of Scotland. It was a rivalry of all the border towns, because, you know, we're literally only five miles from the border here. And we're fairly staunch, independent and bordered against the English. Nationalism and a desire to prove who's best now led to a landmark event in international sport. In 1871, a group of Scottish rugby players challenged their English counterparts to a one-off game in the centre of Edinburgh. Scotland won. It was a very strange scoring system. You could get nil; you could have one point. It was totally different from the current system. This first international was no gentile occasion. With 20 players on each side, the controversial encounter lasted nearly three hours, with only an umpire in walking shoes and his best suit and tie to settle disputes. It demonstrates the importance that rugby now has in those places where it's strong. It's cities like Edinburgh and as it will become important to other major cities across Britain. By 1882, annual rugby matches between the four home nations were eagerly anticipated. These games were known as tests, for they tested their players' courage and manliness. Rugby starts to reflect a kind of imperial rivalry between the countries at the heart of the British Empire. The upper-class game of young, amateur men found itself attracting huge crowds and widespread publicity. (PERCUSSIVE MUSIC) In tests, national pride was always on the line, especially when playing England. Rugby embraced a new philosophy ` winning mattered more than participating. It was about this kind of carnival of rugby shifting between the capital cities with thousands of people following the cavalcade. I don't think there's anything to touch the atmosphere in Twickenham when you've got a big game on. I think that is a very, very special place to be. I think all sport is about proving you're better than the other country, the other person, the other team. It's just the way it manifests itself. (CROWD CHEERS) Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is. And that's the essence of rugby. You play rugby; you want to win. (CROWD CHEERS) * (GENTLE PIANO MUSIC) Coal and steel restored more than Welsh pride in the 19th century. They fuelled the engine of the greatest occupation the world has ever known. Britain has colonial dominance over something like a fifth of the world's surface. Britain's control of the sea was absolutely central to the control of the empire. Britannia rules the waves. So Britain in the middle of the century was wealthy, visionary, self-confident and hugely, hugely powerful. His Majesty's Navy scoured the oceans for territories which Westminster annexed. Without a backwards glance, the British proceed to rule over indigenous peoples as if everyone was now one race. A British race. (WATER LAPS, BIRDS CHIRP) One of Britain's smallest colonies would soon alter the course of rugby forever. It was isolated at the furthest edge of the Empire. My family came over to this country in 1841, and, you know, they had one chest. And they were given a title to a little piece of land. Now, you gotta be pretty hardy, don't you, to hop on a boat if you come from Canton, England, and go to the other side of the world, and one of their children died on the way there, and then you arrive, and you look around and say, 'Where's my new life?' (SHEEP BLEAT, DOG BARKS) New Zealand was effectively a farm for Britain. Basically, we fed Britain, and the more the British farmers became factory workers, someone had to feed these burgeoning cities. And with technology, so with steam ships and railways, New Zealand became a food source of Britain. After a cautious beginning, race relations between indigenous Maori and European newcomers steadily deteriorated over the contentious issue of landownership. British forces waged war against the poorly armed Maori and took control of the country and land. The British had the technology and the numbers, but the Maori did superbly well in some of the battles. They were militarily more advanced in some forms of warfare than the British because the Maori were fantastic warriors. My great-great-grandfather's one of those British soldiers that were killing Maori, but then he ended up marrying a Maori woman. You know, then that brood started form there, and that's when the Shelford name first came to New Zealand. In the uncertain aftermath of peace, British settlers drew on home comforts like sport. (WOMAN SHOUTS COMMANDS) Rugby, cricket, golf, tennis, but especially rugby and cricket follow the British to their colonies. They come to these countries with a mission to civilise. (PERCUSSIVE MUSIC) Rugby went everywhere in the world with the exploration of the British Empire. And it took hold in areas that Britain colonised. And, of course, you know, what greater tool to preach the gospel, this new gospel of civilisation, than sport, than those games with rules, like rugby. By the 1870s, rugby was established up and down New Zealand's patchwork communities and small towns. British settlers, mostly middle or working-class, were fanatical early adapters. Sport was a way that you could bring unification with the local populations, and then it became a way that the local populations could find their own identity, express themselves. It was like a family thing. Everybody in the family was interested in it. All your neighbours were interested in it. Everybody at school was interested in it. It was our culture. It was our way. I think it was a game that suited our mentality. New Zealand is like Brazil in soccer. It's the country of rugby. It a country where rugby is more than a sport. It's not a way of life; it's a religion. (PLAYERS SHOUT) Your choice in the weekend in the winter was to either play rugby or to sit at home with Mum and Dad. It brought families together. You know, Dad especially would be out all week, and then Friday night, sitting in front of the fire, cleaning our boots, getting up in the morning, listening to the cancellation service on 1ZB to make sure we were playing, and then we'd all jump in the car, pile in the car and head off to the local rugby club. ARCHIVE: Like other important things to a New Zealander, rugby's with us from the cradle to the grave. Learning a leisure activity for its own sake was never more important to our youngsters. Mum ran the tuck shop, and then Dad would coach my brother's team. We'd have a Big Ben pie, and then Mum and Dad, after the game, would go into the clubhouse and have a few drinks, and the kids would be outside, you know, replicating the senior players. * (INTRIGUING MUSIC) The inclusion of indigenous players into English sports was usually a social taboo in the Victorian era, but Maori took to rugby as if it were custom-designed. ...intensity, urgency. 80 minutes. Work hard. Let's go the mahi out there. Do the big one. (SHOUTS IN MAORI) (ALL RESPOND IN MAORI) Who are we? ALL: Whaka! Red and black! ALL: Whaka! Red and black! ALL: Whaka! Basically, the white man came out here with this game, and we become good at it. (WHISTLE TRILLS) (PLAYERS SHOUT) (DRAMATIC MUSIC) I believe Maori brought to the game the ability to play a game at a higher level. You know, the speed that they played the game. They were fast; they were big, powerful men. They changed the people who brought the game here. For the game to grow in New Zealand, you had to have the Maori people playing. (PEOPLE SHOUT, WHISTLE TRILLS) I was in the second 15 at Tauranga Boys' College, and this little Maori guy was running towards me with the ball. I tried to tackle him; he hit me so hard, I flew through the air. And I remember thinking, 'Fuck that. I don't wanna do that any more.' He was about 5ft tall, 5ft wide and everything else. And bang! I just took off. (PLAYERS SHOUT) Like the social mixing of Welsh Valleys rugby, in New Zealand, the game crossed class and colour lines that would be unthinkable in England. And it didn't matter whether you were working as a labourer on the farm, in a factory, in an office, a student; it didn't matter whether you were Maori; it didn't matter whether you were European; you're in a team. It's very inclusive. Rugby became a place where they did unite. Some say rugby and the freezing works were the two logical places where the British and Maori interacted. You know, a lot of our people, a lot of our Maori people, became very good rugby players right from the get go. (PLAYERS CHANT IN MAORI) (MAN SPEAKS MAORI) PLAYERS: Hi! (PEACEFUL MUSIC) (WAVES CRASH) In the late 18th century, the British established control at present-day Cape Town over a resident population of indigenous Africans, including Xhosa, Dutch descendent settlers and 30,000 slaves. The reason was to control the Cape sea route to the east and make sure the French did not take it over from a weak Dutch authority. From the beginning, there was a mutual loathing between the British and the Dutch, who are called Afrikaners or Boers. Our identity was a source of constant skirmish. Almost like a half-breed. My father married an English woman, which was absolutely not done in his nationalist circle. (CHUCKLES) It was considered an act of treachery. And the same thing with my mother's family. So that's` I mean, that's the other civil war ` the one that's often not seen. This antipathy turned toxic after the discovery of gold and diamonds on Afrikaner land, which the British then decided should be theirs. This series of conflicts was the Boer War. It was their Vietnam, because it took more than three years when they thought it would be a matter of weeks. And tremendous casualties on both sides. (SOLEMN MUSIC) The rest of the world turns on Britain and says, you know, 'You are hypocrites.' There are cartoons run in newspapers all over Europe showing Queen Victoria wading through seas of blood. But they then made peace with the Boers and said, 'Let us create a new union of South Africa in which Dutch-speaking whites and British-origin whites 'then control this country for white people.' For some, the fractured relationships never fully healed, with lasting consequences. Let me say this ` the most virulent form of racism I've ever come across in South Africa is the racism of English liberals, especially of the middle and upper-middle classes, towards Afrikaners. There was absolutely no doubt. Afrikaner whites, for them, the Voortrekker Monument was their symbol of liberation and achievement from, particularly, British oppression, and they saw the Voortrekker Monument as their shrine. Rugby was the unlikely glue to mend the broken nation. (PEOPLE CHATTER) Despite their loathing of its English roots, rugby held an almost spiritual appeal to the Afrikaner psyche. (MAN SPEAKS AFRIKAANS) Amen. ALL: Amen. It was a source of absolute terror to have to play against an Afrikaans school, cos these guys were so tough with their short hair. Ready? PLAYERS: Ja. And they were` And they took rugby so completely seriously. (APPLAUSE, CHEERING) I think it's in our genes, this rugby thing. I cannot explain it, but it's something magic. (INTENSE MUSIC) (PLAYERS SHOUT) In the early days, South African rugby was very much based on physical strength, and our forwards ` dominant forwards. (PLAYERS SHOUT) And the legend is built around that powerful physical dominance. MALE ANNOUNCER: This is the most coveted trophy in South African rugby ` the Currie Cup. At Newlands, Cape Town, there's a large crowd to see who wins it. Domestic South African players would be seen through a prism of identity. Were they British or Afrikaans? (CROWD CHEERS) (WHISTLE TRILLS) With rugby proving so popular within the white dominions, the first international tours began. By 1905 and 1906, New Zealand and South Africa were deemed worthy enough to send national teams to take on the best in the British Isles. The home unions considered their success a formality; so did the opposition. The tour was self-consciously used to promote the unity of the white races in South Africa. So you had people who had fought for both sides in the war in the same team in 1906. New Zealanders care deeply about what the rest of the world thinks. We like people to know we exist, and one way to prove we exist is to excel in sport. To everyone's amazement, the colonials comprehensively defeated the British teams. (CROWD CHEERS) Rugby was a weapon that we wanted to use against the British. This was their chance to vent their rage (CHUCKLES) against the English. This was to show the world and to show the colonies that this is what we can do well, and we take pride in doing it well, so it becomes important as a national statement. The defining moment of the 1905 tour was the Welsh test. The New Zealanders took rugby pretty seriously, but they had nothing on the Welsh. And the level of intensity, the level of passion that they found in Wales took them completely by surprise. They'd heard about this terrifying war dance that was scaring the living daylights out of every team they encountered on their tour. So it was decided they should counter the haka. They said, 'OK, we will sing the Welsh national anthem in response to the haka.' (CROWD SINGS 'HEN WLAD FY NHADAU') In Wales, the vast crowd immediately took up Land of our Fathers, and those who were watching and those who were writing about that game said the All Blacks were visibly unsettled. And apparently, the New Zealand captain said he'd never heard anything like it, the spirit of which the Celtic heart was capable. And that's how music and rugby became entwined evermore. I can't overstate the importance of this match. It's a seminal moment in Welsh cultural history. (SINGING ENDS, CROWD CHEERS) The New Zealanders received an overwhelmingly proud homecoming. And that was where, probably, the love of the game really started in New Zealand, and with that, we had huge success, and people like success. And we're good at it. And we got better and better and better. In South Africa, the tour was hailed as an outstanding success. The 1906 team started a pattern of domination over the British. There's something deep in the All Black and Springbok psyche about not losing to the British. Both New Zealand and South Africa returned home with another first. From now on, they would be known around the world as the Springboks... and the All Blacks. * (BAND PLAYS GRAND MUSIC) For the next 60 years, rugby remains largely predictable. However, war would prove a terrible exception. MAN: Present arms! (RIFLE CLICKS) (BUGLER PLAYS 'THE LAST POST') We lost a huge number of rugby players. And rugby wasn't played during that First World War. It actually stopped. The world was mired in this horrible, sort of, endless slog in the trenches. No team was left unscathed. Entire clubs were wiped out. An estimated 60% of international rugby players from all corners of the Empire died. (BUGLER CONTINUES PLAYING 'THE LAST POST') When you go home, tell them of us and say, 'For your tomorrow, we gave our today.' (CONTINUES PLAYING 'THE LAST POST') (THUNDER RUMBLES) There are a few who see the First World War as a triumph of their virtues. Because, well, a) Britain won, so British values obviously succeed. Rugby became the game that symbolised the sacrifice of the war. (INDISTINCT CHATTER) Rugby was really important to those men, because they went into battle with their teammates, and in many respects, you go into battle playing rugby with your teammates, so the values were very similar. Slowly, rugby recovered, and national teams toured again. But things weren't as before. Rugby was no longer an Empire's game, but a Commonwealth sport. (UPBEAT MUSIC) Touring was any player's career high. We've come here to play good, open football. On-field, games were competitive. Off-field, things were very social, and sometimes naughty. (BOTH LAUGH) A tour's unofficial secrets act was rugby's concept of discretion, better known as 'what goes on tour, stays on tour'. (UPBEAT MUSIC CONTINUES) (SEABIRDS SQUAWK) Rugby's ethos as a simple recreational past-time had long gone with the wind. Victory was now the prize. Winning mattered to players, fans, clubs, the media, even entire countries. The Irish team, in those days, they played a crude form of rugby, and it was all heart, passion, piss and wind. Three countries were at the top, and that's Wales and South Africa and New Zealand. It gave them some nationalism and some national fervour, and the three of those countries played an extremely physical game. I have two grandsons, and I asked them the other day, 'What would you like to be one day?' I was hoping that they would say a winemaker or a farmer. They said, 'Oupa, we just want to be Springboks.' So (CHUCKLES) all South African boys want to be Springbok rugby players. And, I suppose, having a father who played against the Welsh in '53 and lost. You know, Dad never went back to Wales, because he couldn't bring himself to go back to Wales, literally. That does sound a bit strange, and he's probably up there saying, 'Don't tell them, son.' Such an emphasis saw players adopt new levels of aggression, blurring the lines of acceptability. In front of the English king at Twickenham, the home of rugby, in 1924, All Black Cyril Brownlie was the first player sent off in a test. There was a lot of foul play in those days, because there was no television. Touch judges had no rights other than to determine when a ball went into touch. And there were no replacements. And so if you could get a few of them off the field, that made your job so much easier. The referee starts to run off in that direction; that's his back. So things happened, you know. And punching and kicking and all that sort of stuff, there were guys that did that. I played in the Canterbury game in '71. Sandy Carmichael, I think he had 27 hairline fractures in all his face. You know, he was a mess, to say the least. * (PENSIVE MUSIC) The 20th century introduced one of rugby's most beloved institutions ` the Lions, a composite selection of the very best British and Irish rugby players. Touring a couple of times a decade to the Southern Hemisphere, the Lions were unique and cheered by everyone. In England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, once you'd been capped, you've got one more Everest to climb. The Lions was really special, because suddenly you were one of only, what, 30 players selected across four teams. We knew as a group how few guys in each position had already worn that famous red jersey. ARCHIVE: He sees an opening. He's over! You have a little badge, where you have the Scottish, the Welsh, the Irish and the English emblems in one. It is iconic, right? You normally spend your time knocking the seven bells out of the other three around your little badge, and then all of a sudden you go in a team and you're all mates, and you've all got the same badge on. (ALL SING) The fun, the craic, that we had was exceptional, particularly when the opposition are squealing and moaning in the background. (SHOUTING) The British Lions were massively popular, partly because they very rarely won, so that was nice. (CHUCKLES) (PENSIVE MUSIC) There was one rivalry above all others. I think South Africa and New Zealand is one of the great rivalries, and when those two nations play each other, my goodness, sparks fly. (CROWD ROARS) ARCHIVE: He is in there. Incidents continue right to the finish of play. In the 20th century, the Springboks have the best record of any rugby country. They've a better record than the All Blacks. All Blacks in New Zealand were treated with a reverence that was quite extraordinary, and as much as little children wanted to get their autograph, dads wanted to talk to them and be their friend, and I'm not exactly sure what mums wanted to be to them, but they certainly locked them. On Saturday afternoons when the rugby's on, my father is there with the wireless right there, and tuning it in, and then there's a wildfire of the commentary. (INDISTINCT COMMENTARY, CROWD ROARING) When we scored, explosion of delight. (CHUCKLES) You could see him just losing it completely, knocking his chair over as he leapt to his feet. There was a notable difference between New Zealand and South Africa. In South Africa, rugby was strictly a whites-old game. Official segregation between the races was called Apartheid. And rugby fully embraced it. Rugby, the way we experienced it was very white. Your teams were completely white, and our Coloured friends and black guys had to play on their own. When I was a kid, I could not play sport against a team that wasn't white, or with anybody that wasn't white in my team. Sport was segregated from school right the way up to national level. Behind this facade, South Africa had a long and vibrant history of Coloureds and blacks participating in rugby. But these players were hidden from the record books ` erased from rugby's white reality. I grew up in the Eastern Cape where black people get born into rugby. You get told of how your dad played or your uncle played. This game gets shoved down your throat. 'Such and such a guy was such an icon. 'I did this back in my days.' And you're like, 'Wow! I wanna be like that as well.' The people of colour played as long as the whites played. We were just sort of segregated, in regards to the laws ` the Apartheid laws. But these players were as good as their white counterparts. They were South Africans. It was never shown on TV. Clips that you'll see on TV are, like, of Frik Du Preez scoring a try for the Springboks, but you'll never see a guy like Temba Ludwaba. My father played rugby when he was in school, and even to this day, he still has a serious gripe about what happened in Apartheid and the opportunities that were taken away from him. It is a serious injustice. (EXCLAIMS) (ALL EXCLAIM) (ALL FALL SILENT) (ALL CHANT) (ALL EXCLAIM) www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019