December 16, 1905: Rugby's "Match of the Century"

Illustration for a children's book about the match

December 16, 1905: A rugby union match is played, becoming known as the sport's "Match of the Century."

Rugby was allegedly invented at the prep school of the same name in England's Midlands in 1823. Wales began playing it in 1850, the Welsh Rugby Union was formed in 1881, and the Home Nations Championship, between Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland was first played 2 years later. (France was added in 1910, making it the Five Nations Championship. In 2000, Italy was added, making it the Six Nations Championship.)

The sport was first played in New Zealand in 1870. By 1904, New Zealand was sending its national team on tour. Because of their all-black uniforms, they became known as the All Blacks. (The soccer team eventually became known as the All Whites, and their cricket team as the Black Caps.)

The Original All Blacks, also known simply as "The Originals," were the first New Zealand team to tour outside Australasia. They toured the British Isles, France and the United States during 1905–1906. Their opening game, on September 16, 1905, was against Devon, in England's West Country, whom they defeated 55–4. They defeated every English side that they faced, including a 16–3 victory over English county champions Durham in the North-East, and a 32–0 victory over Blackheath in South-East London.

They defeated the national teams of Scotland, 12-7, easily the closest match on the tour before December 16; Ireland, 15-0; and England, also 15-0. On December 13, they beat Yorkshire in Leeds, 40-0. By the time the tour arrived in Wales, the All Blacks had not conceded a single point in their last 600 minutes of rugby. They had played 27 matches on the tour so far, scoring 801 points and conceding just 22.

The team travelled to Wales by train on 15 December, arriving at Cardiff Station in the evening. Despite the late hour, the visitors received a raucous welcome, a large crowd (contemporary estimates put it crowd at 20,000) had gathered to greet the All Blacks both inside the station and along the neighboring streets, preventing the players from getting to their hotel, and police had to force a path through the crowd for the tourists.

As early as October, the Welsh Match Committee had been observing the All Blacks tour. On October 19, the committee travelled to Gloucester, and say the tourists defeat one of the best club sides in England, 44–0. Rugby historians tend to accept that the scale and manner of this All Blacks victory encouraged the Welsh observers to develop new tactics that could match the tourists' unorthodox style.

As early as 1888, the New Zealand players had been performing a pregame routine that featured the haka, a dance of their native Māori people. They brought it with them to Britain. The Wales team debated how to counter this, and it was agreed that they would simply sing "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" ("Land of My Fathers"). It is believed to be the earliest performance of a National Anthem before a sporting event, and it whipped the crowd at Catdiff Arms Park into a frenzy, charging the players up.

As has become traditional for them, Wales wore all red, which would have been distinctive in person against New Zealand's literal all-black uniforms, but makes it difficult to tell the teams apart in black & white photographs.

Having studied the All Blacks' tactics, Wales concentrated on outside play. This resulted in a defensive struggle, and accounts of the match were unanimous in reporting how unusually poor New Zealand were in the 1st half, conceding an abundance of penalties in the opening 15 minutes. (Rugby union matches are 80 minutes, 2 halves of 40 minutes each.) One reporter stated that the normally free-scoring All Blacks did not get any play inside the Welsh 25 yard line until the very moment before half-time.

In the 23rd minute, a scrum was called, and Dicky Owen saw a chance to call the move he devised in training. As Wales won the ball, Owen ran it down the blindside, with the backline of Percy Bush, Gwyn Nicholls (the team Captain) and Willie Llewellyn following him in support. This initial move drew several New Zealand players. Owen then switched the play, throwing a long pass back to the openside, with Cliff Pritchard having to take the ball at his feet. The long pass gave Pritchard time to draw a covering tackle, before passing to Rhys Gabe, who similarly drew a would-be tackler. Finally, Gabe passed to Teddy Morgan, who sprinted more than 20 yards to touch down in the left corner. It was 3-0 to Wales, the first time that the All Blacks had conceded without first scoring themselves. Wales failed to kick the conversion.

The All Blacks had most of the attacking play in the 2nd half. Billy Wallace crossed the try line, but was called back, having run into touch and a forward pass from Bob Deans prevented an inevitable try for Duncan McGregor.

The closest opportunity came for the All Blacks when Deans was brought down inches from the line. By this point, there was a mist over the field, and it wasn't clear who had made the key tackle, with reports at the time saying it was a combined effort of Morgan and Gabe, but Morgan gave Gabe sole credit.

The mist led the All Blacks to believe that Deans had scored, which would have tied the game, and given them the chance to take the lead on the ensuing conversion. Even some of the Welsh players admitted that they thought he had scored, then been pulled back. But the referee, J.D. Dallas of Scotland, ruled that he never crossed the line, and was 6 to 12 inches short.

The 3-0 score held, and the crowd invaded the pitch after the final whistle, carrying some of the Wales players off on their shoulders. Dave Gallaher, the New Zealand Captain, went into the Wales locker room, congratulated their team, and admitted that the better team had won. He and Captain Nicholls exchanged shirts. Gallaher's shirt is now on display at the World Rugby Museum at Twickenham Stadium, "The Home of Rugby" in South-West London.

The All Blacks continued their tour, and managed narrow wins against 4 Welsh club teams, before opposing the France national team in its 1st-ever test match. On New Year's Day, January 1, 1906, New Zealand beat France, 38-8. They returned to New Zealand via North America, where they played 2 matches against Canadian teams. Overall, they played a total of 35 matches, which included 5 Tests. The Wales Test was their only loss.

The 1905 All Blacks tour of Britain went on to achieve legendary status within the rugby world, and New Zealand in particular. They scored 976 points and conceded only 59, and thus set the standard for future All Blacks sides. The tour also saw the first use of the All Blacks name, and established New Zealand's reputation as a world-class rugby nation. Some of these players eventually defected, to participate in the professional 1907-08 tour of Australia and Great Britain, where they played against Northern Union sides, in the variation on the sport that would eventually become known as rugby league.

Bob Deans died in 1908, only 3 years after the match, from a botched appendicitis operation. He was only 24. To the end, he insisted that he had scored.

Despite the sport's popularity around the world, there wasn't a Rugby World Cup until 1987, a joint hosting by Australia and New Zealand. It's also been hosted by each of those nations separately, England, Wales, a joint British-Irish hosting, France, South Africa and Japan. It's been won by New Zealand in 1987, 2011 and 2015; Australia in 1991 and 1999; South Africa in 1995, 2007 and 2019; and England in 2003. (UPDATE: South Africa repeated in 2023, making them the 1st 4-time winner, surpassing New Zealand with 3.)

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December 16, 1905 was a Saturday. There were no scores in North America: Baseball was out of season, football season had just ended, and basketball and hockey were mostly all-amateur.

England's Football League played that day, among the games being a 2-2 tie between Woolwich Arsenal and Yorkshire team Middlesbrough, at the Manor Ground in Plumstead, South-East London. In 1913, the hosts moved to the Highbury section of North London, and dropped the Woolwich locality from their name, becoming simply Arsenal Football Club.

December 2, 1905: New Zealand's Rugby "All Blacks" Stun England

December 2, 1905: Great Britain, and England in particular, get a lesson they will not soon forget: Their island is not the only place where great rugby is played.

Rugby was allegedly invented at the prep school of the same name in England's Midlands in 1823. Wales began playing it in 1850, the Welsh Rugby Union was formed in 1881, and the Home Nations Championship, between Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland was first played 2 years later. (France was added in 1910, making it the Five Nations Championship. In 2000, Italy was added, making it the Six Nations Championship.)

The sport was first played in New Zealand in 1870. By 1904, New Zealand was sending its national team on tour. Because of their all-black uniforms, they became known as the All Blacks. (The soccer team eventually became known as the All Whites, and their cricket team as the Black Caps.)

The Original All Blacks, also known simply as "The Originals," were the first New Zealand team to tour outside Australasia. Managed by George Dixon, coached by Jimmy Duncan, and captained by Dave Gallaher, they toured the British Isles, France and the United States during 1905–1906.

Their opening game, on September 16, 1905, was against Devon, in England's West Country, whom they defeated 55–4. They defeated every English side that they faced, including a 16–3 victory over English county champions Durham in the North-East, and a 32–0 victory over Blackheath in South-East London.

On December 2, they played the England national team, at the Crystal Palace stadium in South-East London (not to be confused with Selhurst Park, home of the current version of Crystal Palace F.C.), and won, 15-0, stunning the entire British Empire.

Two weeks later, they played the national team of Wales, in a match that became known as the sport's Match of the Century.

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December 2, 1905 was a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. Basketball barely existed. And hockey was mostly amateur at this point. There was 1 college football game that day: The Army-Navy Game ended in a 6-6 tie, played at Osborne Field on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.

And in English soccer, Woolwich Arsenal, one day to become the North London team I would support, beat Manchester City, 2-0 at the Manor Ground in Plumstead, South-East London. 

November 3, 1869: The Oldest Professional Sports Team In the World

Tiger-Cats 150th Anniversary Logo, 1869-2019

November 3, 1869: The Hamilton Football Club is founded. They play their 1st game on December 18, against the 13th Battalion, now known as the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The final score was not recorded.

The "football" played by this team was what would now be called "rugby union," though it would later evolve into the Canadian version of "gridiron football," with a field 110 yards long and 65 yards wide, compared with the American version, 100 by 53 1/3rd; 12 players on each side instead of 11; and 3 downs to make a new 1st down, instead of 4.

This team is the forerunner of the Hamilton Tigers, who in 1950 merged with the Hamilton Wildcats to become the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. This could, if you choose to define it this way, make the "Ticats" the oldest continuously operating professional sports team in the world.

The distinctions matter. That year, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the 1st openly professional baseball team, but went out of business after the 1870 season, and the current team named the Cincinnati Reds, while they claim a connection to them, definitively goes back to 1881. The suggestion that the Los Angeles Dodgers date to the Brooklyn Atlantics is also not supported by the facts: The Atlantics were founded in 1855, but folded in 1875, and didn't turn professional until 1870, anyway. Which is key to this team: The Hamilton Tigers remained amateur until 1947.

There are soccer teams in England that claim a longer lineage, including Sheffield Football Club, which was founded in 1857, but they didn't turn professional until 1885, as Britain, and Europe as a whole, resisted professionalism in sports considerably longer than did North America. Germany proved especially resistant: They didn't have professional sports until its national soccer league, the Bundesliga, was founded in 1963.

(If you're a fan of the FX TV series Welcome to Wrexham, Wrexham Association Football Club were founded in 1864, making them the 3rd-oldest professional soccer team in the world, and older than the Tiger-Cats; but they did not turn professional until 1878, more recently than some other British soccer teams.)

On October 18, 1873, Hamilton FC played a new team, the Toronto Argonauts, on the campus of the University of Toronto. The Argos won by a goal and a try to nil -- in modern scoring, 8-0 -- and HFC wore black and yellow for the 1st time, leading to a newspaper calling them the Tigers. This game began a rivalry that still exists today, as the teams' current home fields are just 41 miles apart.

Before the merger, the Tigers won the Grey Cup, the championship of Canadian football, 5 times: In 1913, 1915, 1928, 1929 and 1932. In 1941, the Hamilton Wildcats were formed. With the onset of World War II, the Wildcats were sponsored by the Royal Canadian Air Force, and were renamed the Hamilton Flying Wildcats for the duration of the war. They won the 1943 Grey Cup, although this is officially not counted in the total of the combined team. In 1950, the Tigers and the Wildcats were merged, forming the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, shortened to "Ticats."

Since the merger, they've won 8 Grey Cups: 1953, 1957, 1963, 1965, the Canadian Centennial Cup in 1967, 1972, 1986 and 1999. This is a total of 13. For comparison's sake: The Argonauts have won 18, the Edmonton Elks (formerly the Edmonton Eskimos) 14, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 12, the Calgary Stampeders 8, the Montreal Alouettes 7, the Vancouver-based BC Lions 6, the Saskatchewan Roughriders 4, and the Ottawa Redblacks 1 (although the history of the defunct Ottawa Rough Riders is usually counted with that of the Redblacks, which would give them 10).

Tiger-Cats players with the 1999 Grey Cup

In spite of their success, the Ticats have gone longer without winning the Grey Cup than any other Canadian Football League team, the only one not to have won it in the 21st Century. They have since lost the Final in 2013, '14, '19 and '21.

The Tigers played at the Hamilton Amateur Athletic Association Grounds from 1869 to 1949. The Wildcats played at Civic Stadium, which opened in 1928, from 1941 to 1949. The merged team played at Civic Stadium starting in 1950. In 1971, the stadium got its 1st artificial turf field, and was renamed Ivor Wynne Stadium, for the former director parks for the City of Hamilton.

On August 8, 1961, the Tiger-Cats defeated the visiting Buffalo Bills, at that time a member of the American Football League and playing 65 miles away, in a preseason exhibition game in Hamilton. The Bills, playing the entire game under Canadian rules, lost 38–21. It was the 1st time in 9 tries that a Canadian professional football team beat an American one -- and remains the last such game played, although the Bills have since played "home games" in Toronto, and preseason games between NFL teams have been played on Canadian soil (or Canadian plastic).

After the 2012 season, Ivor Wynne Stadium was demolished, with a new stadium built on the site, and the Tiger-Cats playing the 2013 season at the University of Guelph's Alumni Stadium. The new Tim Hortons Field opened in 2014. (UPDATE: Tim Hortons' 10-year naming rights ran out in 2024. As of the start of the 2026 CFL season, new naming rights have not yet been sold, and the facility is named Hamilton Stadium.)

The Canadian Football Hall of Fame is part of the complex, in recognition of the Tiger-Cats being the oldest CFL team, and the oldest professional sports team in the world. Of its members, 35 either played or coached for either the Tigers, the Wildcats, or the merged team. Despite this, the Ticats have retired only 2 numbers: 10, for 1957-64 quarterback Bernie Faloney; and 68, for 1958-72 defensive tackle Angelo Mosca, who was also a noted professional wrestler.

By claiming a direct connection to the Hamilton Tigers, the Tiger-Cats are older than any professional sports team in the United States of America. The Chicago White Stockings baseball team was founded in 1870, and has been known as the Chicago Cubs since 1903. The Boston Red Stockings baseball team was founded in 1871, and has gone through several name changes, including 2 moves to other cities. Since 1966, they have been the Atlanta Braves.

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November 3, 1869 was a Wednesday. Baseball had just become North America's 1st professional sport, and its season was coming to a close. The 1st openly professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, beat the Louisville Baseball Club, 56-0 in Louisville, Kentucky. 

October 2, 1909: Twickenham Stadium Opens

October 2, 1909: Twickenham Stadium opens. Its 1st match is between 2 London teams: Harlequins beat Richmond, 14-0.

Usually called Twickenham for its Southwest London neighborhood, or Twickers for short, it is the capital of English rugby, the game from which American football developed. (Both are offshoots of association football, or soccer.)

The Rugby Football Union, the governing body of English rugby, built the original stadium on a site that had been a cabbage farm, so the stadium is also nicknamed The Cabbage Patch, kids. The stadium has been rebuilt in pieces: The current North Stand went up in 1990, the East Stand and the West Stand in 1995, and the South Stand in 2006. So despite the site having been used even before Fenway Park opened, it's a modern stadium.

The pitch, the playing surface, is Desso GrassMaster, a hybrid of natural grass and artificial fibers. It is aligned northwest-to-southeast -- really, north-to-south, like a standard American football field, so neither team is moving the ball into the sun at gametime.

Twickenham is home to the World Rugby Museum, effectively the sport's Hall of Fame. It has hosted Rugby World Cup matches in 1991, 1999 and 2015, and Six Nations matches every year. It also hosts The Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge universities (Britain's Harvard and Yale), and the Army Navy Match (their Army-Navy Game).

It's hosted 3 regular-season NFL games: October 23, 2016, New York Giants 17, Los Angeles Rams 10; October 22, 2017, Rams 33, Arizona Cardinals 0; and October 29, 2017, Minnesota Vikings 33, Cleveland Browns 16. It's also hosted rock concerts, which can increase seating capacity to 110,000.

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October 2, 1909 was a Saturday. Alex Raymond, the cartoonist who created the science-fiction hero Flash Gordon, was born on this day.

Elsewhere in English sport, Woolwich Arsenal, the South London team that would eventually become Arsenal F.C., the North London team that I now support, were having a bad season, and went to Lancashire, and lost to Blackburn Rovers, 7-0 at Ewood Park.

It was a college football day in America, and these were among the games played:

* Army beat Tufts, 22-0 on The Plain in West Point, New York. (Navy did not play that week.)

* Yale beat Syracuse, 15-0 at Yale Field in New Haven, Connecticut.

* Fordham beat Rutgers, 9-0 at Neilson Field in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

* Princeton beat Villanova, 12-0 at University Field in Princeton, New Jersey.

* In what would become a big rivalry, Minnesota beat Iowa, 41-0 at Northrop Field in Minneapolis.

And baseball's regular season was wrapping up. These games were played:

* The New York Highlanders, the team that would become the Yankees in 1913, split a doubleheader with the team that was already their rivals, the Boston Red Sox, at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. The Highlanders won the opener, 6-5. Pete Wilson was the winning pitcher, and the losing pitcher was former New York ace, but Massachusetts native, Jack Chesbro. Hal Chase hit a home run.

The Red Sox won the nightcap, 6-1. Bill Carrigan, who went on to manage the Sox to win the 1915 and '16 World Series, hit a home run. Over the 2 games, Sox rookie Tris Speaker, on the way to one of the greatest careers in baseball history, 2-for-9 with 4 RBIs.

* The New York Giants were swept in a doubleheader by the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-2 and 2-1 at the Polo Grounds. Christy Mathewson lost the 2nd game.

* The Brooklyn Superbas, who would become the Dodgers in 1911, split a doubleheader with the Boston Doves, who would become the Braves in 1912, at Washington Park in Brooklyn. Brooklyn won the 1st game, 6-2. Boston won the 2nd game, 1-0. Lew Richie pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The Philadelphia Athletics swept a doubleheader from the Washington Senators, 6-5 and 7-2 at Shibe Park. Walter Johnson lost the 1st game.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-3 at The Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati.

* The Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers were tied 6-6 after 10 innings at Bennett Park in Detroit, when the game was called due to darkness. Ty Cobb, about to win the Triple Crown, went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-1 at the West Side Grounds in Chicago. Honus Wagner did not play.

* And the Cleveland Naps and the St. Louis Browns were rained out at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Browns won the 1st game, 6-4. The Naps were leading the 2nd game, 3-1, after 6 innings, when the game was called due to darkness. Over the 2 games, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, the manager, slugger and 2nd baseman for whom the Cleveland team was then named, went 3-for-7. The Naps became the Indians in 1915 and the Guardians in 2022, while the Browns became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954.

August 15, 1903: The 1st Australia vs. New Zealand Rugby Match

A 2023 match. Australia in yellow, New Zealand in black.

August 15, 1903: For the 1st time, the national rugby union teams of Australia and New Zealand play each other, at the Sydney Cricket Ground. New Zealand dominate, 22-3.

Rugby union has a long history in Australia, with the first club being formed in 1863 at Sydney University. The sport was first played in New Zealand in 1870. As early as 1888, their players included the indigenous people of their islands, the Māori, who taught the white players the haka dance, and they've been doing this (hopefully) intimidating tactic before matches ever since.

By 1904, New Zealand was sending its national team on tour. Because of their all-black uniforms, they became known as the All Blacks. (The soccer team eventually became known as the All Whites, and their cricket team as the Black Caps.) 

In contrast to these basic colors, Australian sports teams wear green and gold. These represent the green leaves and golden blooms of the golden wattle flower, a symbol of the country's natural landscape and mineral wealth. Australia calls its rugby team the Wallabies.

Australia has been independent since 1901, New Zealand since 1907, though both remain in the British Commonwealth, with a Parliament led by a Prime Minister, but with the monarch of Great Britain as head of state, represented in-country by a Governor-General. Today, Australia is home to about 25 million people; New Zealand, 5 million.

There has never been a war between the 2 nations, mainly because they are separated by water: It is 1,340 air miles over the Tasman Sea between Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand, which is pretty much the closest points between the island nations. They have gone to war together, and, along with another nearby island nation, Tonga, celebrate the 25th of April, the anniversary of the heavy losses they all sustained in the Battle of Gallipoli in World War I in 1915, as ANZAC Day. (ANZAC: Australia and New Zealand Army Corps.)

So their rivalry is pretty much limited to sports. And, while they do play other sports, including the sport that most of the world calls "football" (though both of them tend to call it "soccer," and the Aussie team is "The Socceroos"), they prefer rugby. "Australian rules football" is also closer to rugby than to soccer. Both nations are usually strong in cricket as well.

Since 1931, the overall winner of the annual test matches -- between 1 and 3 games in any given year -- between the All Blacks and the Wallabies takes possession of the Bledisloe Cup, named after Charles Bathurst, 1st Viscount Bledisloe, Governor-General of New Zealand from 1930 to 1935, who donated the trophy.

There has been a Rugby World Cup every 4 years since 1987. Australia and New Zealand were joint hosts the 1st time. New Zealand have hosted alone in 2011, and won in 1987, 2011 and 2015. Australia have hosted alone in 2003; and won in 1991 and 1999.

In 1996, with the fall of apartheid in South Africa, the Tri-Nations Championship was founded, with New Zealand taking the 1st tournament. In 2012, Argentina were invited to make it a 4-team competition, titled simply "The Rugby Championship," in effect the title for the Southern Hemisphere.

As of August 15, 2022, New Zealand have won 120 matches, Australia 45, and there have been 8 draws.

UPDATE: As of New Zealand's 28-14 win in Perth on October 4, 2025, they lead, 128-45-8, having won the last 11. Australia's last win over New Zealand was on November 7, 2020 in Brisbane.

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August 15, 1903 was a Saturday. In America, these games were played in baseball that day:

* The New York Highlanders lost to the Cleveland Naps, 6-5 at the 1891-1909 version of League Park in Cleveland. Willie Keeler went 2-for-4 with an RBI for the Highlanders, who officially became the New York Yankees in 1913.

The Cleveland team was named for its manager and 2nd baseman, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, who went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs on this day. They became the Cleveland Indians in 1915, and the Cleveland Guardians in 2022.

* The New York Giants lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 8-3 at the 1890-1911 version of the Polo Grounds. Frank "Noodles" Hahn outpitched Joe "Iron Man" McGinnity.

* The Brooklyn Superbas swept a doubleheader from the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-0 and 4-3 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. Oscar Jones pitched a 7-hit shutout in the 1st game. The Superbas became the Dodgers in 1911.

* The Boston Americans beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-3 at Bennett Park in Detroit. The Americans became the Red Sox in 1908.

* The Washington Senators beat the St. Louis Browns, 5-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-1 at South Side Park in Chicago. Eddie Plank outpitched Patsy Flaherty.

* A doubleheader was split at the 1894-1914 version of the South End Grounds in Boston. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the opener, 5-1. The Boston Beaneaters won the nightcap, 8-5. Over the 2 games, Honus Wagner went 3-for-8 with a walk. The Beaneaters went through some name changes until 1912, when they became the Boston Braves.

* And the Philadelphia Phillies were supposed to be playing the Chicago Cubs at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. However, a partial stadium collapse moved this weekend's games to at West Side Park in Chicago, for September 18. The Cubs won the 1st game, 6-5. The Phillies won the 2nd game, 10-0. Charles "Chick" Frasier pitched a no-hitter.

June 24, 1995: The Rugby Match That United a Nation

Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar

June 24, 1995: A nation in search of reconciliation finds a moment to rally around -- as its President knew it could.

During the years of apartheid in South Africa, soccer was seen as the sport of the nation's black people, while cricket and rugby were the sports of its white people. Cricket appealed to the white people of British descent, while rugby appealed to both them and the people of Dutch descent, the Afrikaners whose Afrikaans language was a derivation of Dutch.

But Nelson Mandela, elected President in the country's 1st all-races election in 1994, saw that he was going to host the Rugby World Cup the following year. He knew that sport had the power to bring people together. In some cases -- soccer in Germany in 1954 and England in 1966, hockey in Canada in 1972 and America in 1980 -- it could bring an entire country together, or even the entire world.

So he wanted South Africa's famed rugby team, the green-and-gold-clad "Springboks" (a springbok is an antelope native to southern and western Africa), to bring the country together, by becoming racially integrated for the 1st time in its history, and face the other world powers of rugby, all integrated, and beat them on home soil.

Chester Williams, a 24-year-old left wing from Cape Town, was the 1st black Springbok. In club matches, some opponents had made racist remarks about him. That was not the case when those opponents joined him on the national side: "When we were together as a team, the team-spirit was good. We partied together, we had fun together, we stuck by one another. Those other things happened while we were playing against one another in the Currie Cup, or domestic competitions. But that's in the past now. We have all moved on, and everybody's happy." Mandela could be seen in the stands wearing Williams' Number 11 shirt.

Chester Williams

South Africa were put in a group with Australia, Romania and Canada, but beat them all. They beat Western Samoa in the Quarterfinal, 42-14; and a tough France team in the Semifinal, 19-15. They would host the Final on June 24, at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, the home of South African rugby.

But they would have to play New Zealand. They are known as the All Blacks, referring to their uniforms, as they are multicultural, with players of Samoan descent often leading them in a fierce-looking pregame haka dance. (The New Zealand soccer team is the All Whites, again for their uniforms, not their racial makeup.)

The All Blacks had won the 1st Rugby World Cup, in 1987; and finished 3rd in 1991. They came into this edition as the favorites, mainly because they had the man then regarded as the best player in the world: Jonah Lomu. Scotland player Kenny Logan put it this way: "You could talk about Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, that's what Jonah was, someone who could change games if you gave him the ball, wherever he was."

A New Zealander of Tongan ancestry, Lomu had been an all-around track and field star as well. At 6-foot-5 and 262 pounds of solid muscle, Lomu was so effective, his playing style attracted attention from NFL scouts and suggested that he might be able to make the transition to American football. He never tried it, though.

Jonah Lomu

(While a few NFL players had played rugby at a scholastic or collegiate level, only 1 professional rugby player has ever played in the NFL: Hayden Smith, an Australian who played 8 seasons for Saracens in London, and 5 games as a tight end for the New York Jets in 2012. Most of those who've tried out have been cut, or only made the practice squad, never getting into a game.)

New Zealand beat Ireland, Wales and Japan in the Group Stage, their win over Japan being a shocking 145-17. They beat Scotland in the Quarterfinal, and England in the Semifinal. So they had beaten all 4 of the United Kingdom's "Home Nations," given that the Ireland team was a combination of players from the Republic of Ireland and British-controlled Northern Ireland. The Semifinal win over England was 45-29, and that 16-point margin was the closest anyone had come to beating them. Lomu scored 4 tries (touchdowns) in that game. He and teammate Mark Ellis had each scored 7 over the course of the tournament.

(For the sake of perspective: In the Spring tournament then known as the Five Nations Championship, England went 4-0, Scotland 3-1, France 2-2, Ireland 3-1, and Wales 0-4. In 2000, Italy were admitted to the competition, giving it the current name: The Six Nations Championship.)

Essentially, it looked like a battle of a great offense against a great defense: New Zealand had outscored their opponents, 315-104; while South Africa had outscored theirs, 129-55. Average that out, and you get New Zealand 180, South Africa 116. Of course, sports usually doesn't work out anywhere near that way, but enough people thought it would that, despite the Springboks being the hosts, the All Blacks were the worldwide betting favorites. The match kicked off at 1:30 PM local time -- 11:30 AM in London, 6:30 AM on the U.S. East Coast, and 11:30 PM in New Zealand.

South Africa played their own game, relying on their defense. This led to Ruben Kruger, Mark Andrews and Joost van der Westhuizen preventing much progress. Nevertheless, Andrew Mehrtens scored a penalty just 6 minutes in, giving New Zealand a 3-0. In the 11th minute, Joel Stransky tied the game. Each of these men added another penalty to make it 6-6, and in the 32nd minute, Stransky added another, allowing South Africa to take a 9-6 lead into halftime. The policy of "bend, but don't break" seemed to be working.

In the 55th minute, Mehrtens scored another drop goal, to tie it at 9-9. He just missed another late in regular time, but it was still tied at full time, putting the game into extra time. According to the rules, if extra time finished with scores still level, with no side having scored more tries than the other, then the team with the better overall disciplinary record during the tournament would win. That tiebreaker belonged to New Zealand. So South Africa had to score.

But early in the first half, the Springboks were penalized for chasing a Stransky kick from an offside position. From just inside the half-way line, Mehrtens kicked truly to give New Zealand a 12–9 lead. As half-time approached, Stransky put a high kick for his teammates to chase, and from the resultant play, referee Morrison penalized the All Blacks for diving to the ground near the tackle. Right on the stroke of half-time of extra time, Stransky levelled the scores at 12–12.

Joel Stransky

With 7 minutes remaining, Stransky scored a drop goal from 30 meters out (about 33 yards, in U.S. football terms). No tries were scored in the entire match, but South Africa had won, 15-12. They had held a team that had averaged 63 points a match thus far to 1/5th of that.

After the match, Mandela, wearing a Springbok jersey and cap, as head of state for the host nation, presented the Webb Ellis Cup to Captain Pienaar, to the delight of the diverse crowd of 59,870 people.

The story was depicted in the book Playing the Enemy: Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, by British journalist John Carlin. A screenplay based on that book was filmed as Invictus in 2009, with Clint Eastwood directing. Morgan Freeman as Mandela, Matt Damon as Pienaar, McNeill Hendricks (who had played 2 matches for the Springboks) as Williams, Eastwood's son Scott Eastwood as Stransky; and Isaac Fe'aunati (credited as Zak Fe'aunati), who made 13 appearances for the Samoa national team, as Lomu.

A surprising number of players from that Final have died young: Ruben Kruger from cancer in 2010, at 39; Joost van der Westhuizen from ALS (known in British Commonwealth countries as "motor neurone disease" and in America as "Lou Gehrig's disease) in 2017, at 45; both James Small and Chester Williams from heart attacks in 2019, at 50 and 49, respectively. South Africa's manager, George "Kitch" Christie, died in 1998, from leukemia, at 58. Mandela died in 2015, at 95.

New Zealand star Jonah Lomu married a white South African woman, but it didn't last. Despite all his fame, and an ability to speak 7 languages, he suffered from kidney disease and lost all his money trying to treat it. He died in 2015, only 40 years old.

*

June 24, 1995 was a Saturday. On this same day, the New Jersey Devils beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-2, at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This completed a 4-game sweep, and gave the Devils their 1st Stanley Cup. I have a separate entry for this event.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat those pesky Toronto Blue Jays, 10-2 at Yankee Stadium. The only home run in the game was hit by the Jays' Joe Carter. But, for the Bronx Bombers, Luis Polonia, Wade Boggs and Dion James each got 2 hits. Boggs got 3 RBIs, and James and Paul O'Neill each got 2. This was in support of Melido Perez.

* The New York Mets, as they so often did in those days, lost to the Atlanta Braves, 5-4 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-0 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Carlos Perez, brother of Melido and Pascual, pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-5 at Camden yards in Baltimore.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Florida Marlins, 5-2 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-3 at the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-9 at Busch Memorial Stadium.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-5 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Oakland Athletics, 6-5 at The Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Houston Astros, 5-2 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Colorado Rockies, 2-0 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Joey Hamilton pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 7-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Hideo Nomo had the night's best pitching performance, pitching a 2-hit shutout and striking out 13.

* And the Seattle Mariners beat the California Angels, 3-2 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

June 20, 1987: The 1st Rugby World Cup Final

Captain David Kirk with the Webb Ellis Cup

June 20, 1987: The Final of the 1st Rugby World Cup is held. New Zealand, co-hosts with Australia, defeat France, 29-9.

Legend has it that, in 1823, at Rugby School in Warwickshire, a England, a 16-year-old student named William Webb Ellis got frustrated during a football match, whose rules forbid carrying the ball, so he picked the ball up, and ran toward the other team's goal, and through the sticks (no goal nets in those days), and put the ball on the ground, thus inventing the touchdown. The other players decided they liked the idea, and rewrote the rules to create "the Rugby game." In his memory, the trophy for the Rugby World Cup is named the William Webb Ellis Cup.

This sounds a lot like the origin story for baseball, supposedly invented by Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown, New York in 1839. Well, the parallels continue: Like General Doubleday, Webb Ellis was a real person, and became a distinguished gentleman. He was from Salford, outside Manchester. He did attend and graduate from the Rugby School, graduated from Oxford University, became a good cricket player, was ordained as a minister, and became one of the most honored Protestant clergymen of the Victorian age.

But, again like Doubleday, he never claimed to have invented the sport in question, nor there is any official record of him having played it. And, again like Doubleday, he was conveniently dead and unable to deny the story once it came out: He died in 1872, and the story was first published in 1876.

And, again like baseball, there is no definitive truthful origin story. The ancient Greeks played a football-like game at least as far back as the 4th Century BC. The Chinese also did so at that time. So while the English popularized "football" all over the world, when they say they invented the sport -- either soccer or rugby -- that's, to borrow their own word, bollocks.

There are actually two "codes" of "rugby football," both of which use an oval ball, from which the oblong "prolate spheroid" of "gridiron football" evolved, and both of which prohibit forward passing. The 2 forms split in 1895. 

Rugby union has 15 men on a side, and goalposts; rugby league is 13-a-side, and doesn't have goalposts. Rugby league has a longer and wider pitch than rugby union. A try (touchdown) is 5 points in rugby union, 4 points in rugby league, followed in both by an attempt for a 2-point conversion. Both sports have a position called a hooker, which may seem funny to us. Rugby league is said to be simpler and quicker.

In each case, matches are 80 minutes, divided into halves. There's also a form of the sport called Rugby sevens, with 7-minute halves. Rugby union features an annual competition, held on weekends every February and March, called the Six Nations: England, Wales, Scotland, a combined Ireland team (players from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland), France and Italy. 

It also has a World Cup, held every 4 years, in the year before leap years. Outside the Six Nations, the leading powers are South Africa (the Springboks), Australia (the Wallabies) and New Zealand (the All Blacks, referring to their uniforms, as they are multicultural, with players of Samoan descent often leading them in a fierce-looking pregame haka dance). Argentina are usually the best national team in rugby in the Western Hemisphere.

I don't know why it took until 1987 for a sport as popular worldwide as rugby to have a genuine world championship tournament. There were 16 countries invited to the 1st one. The United States was one of them, but was placed in a "group of death," Pool 1, with Australia, England and Japan. (Traditionally, Japan aren't as good at the sport as Australia and England, but, usually, they're considerably better than the U.S.) The action got underway on May 22. The U.S. beat Japan, 21-18; but got pounded by Australia, 47-12; and blasted by England, 34-6. Japan didn't get out of the Pool, either.

Wales and Ireland advanced from Pool 2, while Canada and the Pacific Island nation of Tonga did not. New Zealand and the Pacific Island nation of Fiji advanced from Pool 3, while Italy and Argentina did not. France and Scotland advanced from Pool 4, while Romania and Zimbabwe did not. So, out of the Six Nations, only Italy did not make the knockout stage.

In the Quarterfinals, New Zealand beat Scotland, 30-3; Australia beat Ireland, 33-15; France beat Fiji, 31-16; and Wales beat England, 16-3. In the Semifinals, France upset Australia, 30-24; while New Zealand overwhelmed Wales, 49-6.

The Final was held on June 20, at Eden Park, New Zealand's largest stadium (attendance was 48,035), in Auckland, the country's largest city. (Its capital city is Wellington, which, like Auckland, is on the country's north island. Christchurch is the largest city on the south island.) The referee was Kerry Fitzgerald, from Australia, which should have made him neutral, although Australia and New Zealand, due to their status as neighbors, are rivals. No one has ever suggested that he officiated this game unfairly.

New Zealand, as traditional, wore all black. (Their soccer teams go the opposite way, and are known as the All Whites.) France's rugby team matched their soccer team, wearing blue shirts, white pants and red socks. It has been suggested that France used up most of their emotion in their Semifinal upset of Australia, and they played a bit too conservatively in the 1st half of the Final, playing mainly for territory and position.

In the 14th minute, Grant Fox scored on a drop kick, giving New Zealand a 3-0 lead, and settling whatever nerves they might have had. Just 3 minutes later, Michael Jones, a flanker of Samoan descent, and considered the best player in the sport at the time, scored a try. The score was 9-0 at halftime.

France got on the board with a penalty early in the 2nd half, but New Zealand still controlled the game. It was 29-3 before Pierre Berbizier scored a try on the last play of the game, and New Zealand won, 29-9.

New Zealand have now won it 3 times, also doing so in 2011 and 2015. South Africa have matched them with 3 wins, in 1995, 2007 and 2019. Australia have won it twice, in 1991 and 1999. England have won it once, in 2003. France have reached 3 Finals, but never won it. The U.S. have never gotten out of the Group Stage, and didn't even qualify for the 1995 edition. The next Rugby World Cup will be held in France, from September 8 to October 28, 2023, and the U.S. have failed to qualify.

*

June 20, 1987 was a Sunday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lose to the Boston Red Sox, 9-4 at Fenway Park in Boston. Al Nipper pitched a complete game, and Tommy John didn't get out of the 5th inning. Dwight Evans hit a home run for the Sox, Mike Pagliarulo for the Yanks. Don Mattingly and Rickey Henderson didn't play, and Dave Winfield went 1-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-2 at Shea Stadium. The Phils led 2-1 in the bottom of the 8th, but Howard Johnson tied it with a home run. Kevin McReynolds won it with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 9th. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-4.

* The Baltimore Orioles were leading the Detroit Tigers, 9-4 at Memorial Stadium, when a rain delay arrived in the top of the 9th. The game was suspended, and resumed the next night. The Tigers could not complete a comeback, and the Orioles won, 9-5. Eddie Murray went 0-for-4 with a walk. Cal Ripken went 2-for-4 with a walk. The Tigers then won the regularly-scheduled game, 9-3.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-6 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-2 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Robin Yount went 0-for-4, and Paul Molitor went 0-for-2 with a walk, and drove in a run with a sacrifice bunt.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Seattle Mariners, 9-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 8-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Montreal Expos beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-5 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 10-5 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 3-2 at the Astrodome in Houston. Mike Scott outpitched Tim Leary.

* The San Diego Padres beat the San Francisco Giants, 10-4 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Tony Gwynn went 3-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the California Angels, 8-4 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). George Brett went 1-for-3 with a home run, 2 walks and 2 RBIs.

* And the Texas Rangers beat the Oakland Athletics, 7-6 at the Oakland Coliseum. Reggie Jackson, in his last season, went 1-for-4 with 2 RBIs, and was hit with a pitch.