Local Life - St Helens - February 2018

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Scrum on down
They’re the world’s oldest rugby club. Now Liverpool St Helens’
history is being made into an exhibition. Niamh Ollerton reports...
Queen Victoria’s reign was a time of social, economic and technological
change. Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist was published; the London-
Birmingham railway line opened and married women were given the right to own
property. And in 1857, the face of sport changed forever - right here in this area.
Rugby union is more often than not described as a southerners’ game with strong
roots in the public schools. But a group of local young men from Liverpool decided
this should no longer be the case.
They were bored with their usual pastimes, and looked back to their recent years at
public school – Rugby School to be precise – to rectify this.
Frank Albert Mather of Bootle Hall and a former Rugby School pupil,
wrote to his old friend Richard Sykes, a Manchester lad who was
captain of football at Rugby, inviting him to play a game of football.
He also asked him to bring one of the balls which were made by
Lindon, who at the time made the balls for games at Rugby.
So on Saturday, December 19 1857, some 50 players arrived at
Liverpool Cricket Club ground to play “Rugby versus the World.”
Thought to be a trial game to explain Rugby’s version of football,
the final score of the game is not known, but the players’ appetite for
continuing on this tradition was history in the making, and Liverpool