St Helen’s ArchivePreserving the past for the future

The Early Football

The Gilbert Rugby Museum in Rugby Town

The Early Football

Early balls used in football of any description were made from a pig’s bladder, inflated and then encased in leather. The use of an inflated bladder was not a new phenomenon but had always been the preferred method of making a ball to be kicked or passed. The bladders were obtained from a local butcher. In the nineteenth century the footballs used in school games had an oval appearance due to the shape of the bladder which, not being of uniform size, neither were the balls. A fresh or “green” bladder could be inflated inside a leather casing by means of the stem of a clay pipe. The casing then would be sewn up. Shoemakers were the obvious choice to request a leather casing for a football, thus protecting the vulnerable bladder from puncture. In Rugby town, they did good business making the ball, complete with pig bladder interior.

William Gilbert (1799-1877) was a shoemaker in Rugby town and had the business sense in 1842 to move his premises from high street to Matthew Street, a short distance away from the school’s practice ground. He made boots and footballs for the boys. His leather football made of four stitched panels over a pig bladder was shown at the Great Exhibition in Crystal palace, London in 1851.

Richard Lindon (1816-1887) was another shoemaker who supplied the Rugby school boys with footballs. As a young man he had lived next door to William Gilbert’s shop in the High street. Moving to Lawrence Sherriff Street just a stone’s throw from Rugby School, he was able to supply Big Side footballs as well as punt about balls. He too had gone to the Great Exhibition of 1851 and had been impressed with the recently invented vulcanised rubber. He decided that it could be used to replace the pig bladder, thus allowing a consistent design to be achieved as the leather case would no longer have to comply with the dimensions of the bladder. The result in 1862 was his India rubber bladder fitted into a standardised case that was more rounded than previously possible. A flattened leather button at each end covered the intersection of the seven leather panels.

With the separation of the association code in 1863, the rugby football developed a more ‘egg-shaped’ appearance for ease of handling. The first laws laying down the criteria for a rugby football’s shape did not appear until the 1892-93 season when the RFU required that: The game shall be played with an oval ball of as nearly as possible the following dimensions: length 11ins. to 11 ¼ ins.; length in circumference 30 ins. to 31 ins.; width in circumference 25 ½ to 26 ins.; weight 12 ozs. To 13 ozs.; handsewn and not less than 8 stitches to the inch.

With Gilbert’s continuing to be the predominant supplier of club and international quality match balls in the northern hemisphere, the development of the ball lay literally in their hands and every advancement in production techniques and materials was adopted by them as the ball became lighter and more streamlined and eventually, with the introduction of manmade fabrics, more water-resistant.

International rugby balls were often kept by a winning captain or a renowned player, for example Billy Bancroft and the 1899 Wales v England ball (see: OT037) from the Welsh win at St Helen’s. Sometimes the opposing captains would compete to grab the ball passed by the referee, at the end of a match. The significance of a match or tour would often be marked by players signing a ball, which then became a valuable trophy. In this section you can see a collection of such trophies from battles long ago fought.

Text from “White Gold – Swansea RFC 1872-1887” by David Dow, reproduced by kind permission of the author.