Rugby Reloaded

Mel Reuben has been a Leeds rugby league fan for almost 80 years. In this episode of 'Rugby Reloaded' he looks back at his life in the game, discusses his favourite memories and reflects on what rugby league means to him.
Along the way, we find what it was like to stand on the terraces in the 1940s, travelling to away matches before motorways, the importance of the game to Leeds' Jewish community, watching players such as Gus Risman, Lewis Jones and Brian Bevan, and much much more!
For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on X via @collinstony

In this episode we talk to Martin Whitcombe and Huw Richards about their long-awaited book on Great Britain's 1946 tour to Australia and New Zealand, 'The Indomitables - Rugby League's Greatest Tour' (St David's Press). It's a huge and hugely important book on an extraordinary trip across the hemispheres less than a year after the end of World War 2.
The players underwent deprivation on the journey followed by a hero's welcome as they made their way across Australia, returning as the only British team to go through an Ashes series undefeated. It's probably the best book ever written about a rugby tour in any code!
For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on X via @collinstony

Super League's York rugby league club are one of the oldest rugby clubs in Britain. As with all clubs at that time they were formed by young men of the middle classes, but barely twenty years later they had become dominated by working-class players and spectators.
Ian Lockwood's new book - 'The History of York RL 1868-1914' - tells the story of the club's first five decades, its struggles, it successes and the controversies that saw it transformed from an elite rugby union club to a stalwart of rugby league.
If you enjoy this episode, check out the book, which costs £10 + £2 P&P. Email Ian at ilockwood65@gmail.com for details or send a cheque for £12 to Ian at 5 Alma Terrace, Skipton BD23 1EJ. Don't forget to include an address to send the book to!

As the FIFA World Cup reaches its climax, 'Rugby Reloaded' takes an in-depth look at the life of Ebenezer Cobb Morley, the founding secretary of the Football Association and the man who many claim is 'the father of football'.
Unearthing new research, we look at how Morley rejected his family's deeply religious background to live in a pub and pursue leisure interests his parents would think 'unGodly'.
The episode also examines the myths that surround Morley's career with the FA, and highlights how he was not actually the founder of football but one of many people involved in its organisational origins.
For more on the early history of football, rugby and the other codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on X via @collinstony

Where did the term 'Derby Match' come from? How did it become so widely used? And is the St Helens versus Wigan match the 'Original' Derby? This week's 'Rugby Reloaded' delves back into history to discover why matches between local rival teams are dubbed Derbies and asks how much substance is there to the claim that Saints against Wigan is the daddy of all Derbies.

It's an intriguing story that takes us back to the 1700s and all the way to present day via ploughing, go-karts and TV's Kevin Brown. Intrigued? It's more interesting than you think!

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on X via @collinstony

The Sydney Cricket Ground has played a pivotal role in the histories of cricket, rugby league, and many other sports. But the story of its origins and development in nineteenth century Sydney is as fascinating as it complex. Geoff Armstrong's new two-volume history of the SCG, 'A Thing of Beauty: The Founding of the SCG 1851-1898', explores the first fifty years of the stadium in vivid detail. As our discussion demonstrated, this is a book about more than sporting arena - it's about the emergence of modern sport in Australia, code battles between Aussie Rules and rugby, women's emergence as sports spectators, the social history of Sydney, and the legacy of the British Empire. It's the history of Sydney written from the SCG's famous Hill.

Our guest today in rugby league journalist and analyst Mike Meehall Wood, who launched his new Substack [https://mikemeehallwood.substack.com/p/six-tackles-and-superstructure-why] with 'Six Tackles & Superstructure: Why Rugby League needs more philosophy'. It's a fascinating look at how rugby league (with the help of others) denies its intellectual culture.

In an age when soccer coaches talk about their philosophies and rugby union is awash with tactical analysis, the rugby league media are content to keep talking about physicality and putting your body on the line. But the game is a complex and subtle sport with a deep and rich culture - so why don't we talk about it more?

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

In this episode I'm joined by Lee Robinson to talk about his new book 'Jonty: The Life of Jonathan Parkin', arguably the greatest rugby league scrum-half of all time.

Jonty's career began as a teenager with Wakefield Trinity before World War One and ended in 1932, by which time he had become the first player ever to tour Down Under three times, twice as captain, and had played in every international match in which he could be selected before his international retirement in 1930.

He did all this during what was arguably Trinity's poorest ever decade. Perhaps most importantly, Jonty was the archetype of the typical scrum-half - combative, tricky and with an inbuilt hostility to authority - and his influence is till felt today.

The book is available from https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/136704396053 and you can discover a whole lot more about Wakefield Trinity's history at https://www.trinityheritage.co.uk

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

This week's episode looks at how soccer emerged in Scotland in the mid-1800s. By the early 1880s not only was Glasgow the world capital of football, but Scottish players playing for English clubs had revolutionised sport south of the Border. But is it the case that the Scots actually invented modern soccer? As I argue in this episode, the truth is more complicated than that - and simple explanations underplay the complexities of how sports develop and the contributions made by ordinary people. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

Links to books and websites mentioned in the show:
John Hutchinson and Andy Mitchell ‘1824 The World’s Oldest Football Club’:
https://www.scottishsporthistory.com/worlds-first-foot-ball-club.html

Richard McBrearty ‘Glasgow Before The Explosion … football cultures in the city prior to 1873’:
https://scottishfootballorigins.org/2021/08/26/glasgow-before-the-explosion-the-role-of-migration-and-immigration-in-the-development-of-football-cultures-in-the-city-prior-to-1873/

Matthew McDowell ‘A cultural history of association football in Scotland 1865-1902’:
https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/a-cultural-history-of-association-football-in-scotland-1865-1902-/

This week we talk to Dr Liam O’Callaghan about the newly published paperback edition of his superb history of rugby in Ireland ‘Blood and Thunder’.
It’s a classic work which looks at the history of the sport in the context of Irish history over the past 150 years.
As well as detailing the history of the sport itself, it also examines the relationship of the game to the complex political history of Ireland and explains how the sport has remained united on a disunited island.
It’s a superb book that is the latest landmark work from a series of high quality works about the history of sport in Ireland. It’s published by Penguin and you can find more details at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/458098/blood-and-thunder-by-ocallaghan-liam/9780241999769.
For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

The new Rugby Reloaded looks at the current state of rugby league in Britain, asks 'What's going on?' and tries to provide some answers by looking at how the history of the sport can give us some insights into what the game could and should be doing. It also looks at the problems of being in the post-industrial north of England, the challenges of other sports, and the internal issues that the game has never confronted.

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

This week we sit down with Kevin Fitzpatrick, a member of the Oldham Rugby League Heritage Trust, to talk about his documentary on Oldham's Hall of Fame. It's a fascinating look at the history of the club and the town since the club was a founding member of the Northern Union in 1895, told through the individual stories of the players inducted into the club's Hall of Fame.

He talks about the club, the ins and outs of making the documentary, and the plans to celebrate Oldham's 150th anniversary next year. You can buy the documentary via download from https://oldhamhalloffame.bandcamp.com/album/the-oldham-rugby-league-hall-of-fame or on CD from orlheritagetrust@gmail.com.

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

This week we delve deep into the origins of the football codes across Britain, Europe and the Americas with Thomas Adam, author of the new book The Global Spread of football from the 1860s to the 1880s.

His book looks at the emergence of football in England, Germany, Argentina and the United States in the 1860s and 1870s, and looks at the decisive influence of education and educators in the rise of the game. The book is code-agnostic, and so looks at ‘football’ as nineteenth century observers did: one game with many different ways to play. Along the way we also discuss the roads not taken, such as how Germany could have become a rugby nation and the US a soccer bastion.

For more details about the book, go to https://anthempress.com/books/the-global-spread-of-football-from-the-1860s-to-the-1880s-hb

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

With rugby league's Ashes series imminent, part two of Rugby Reloaded's look at the cultural history of Anglo-Australian rugby league moves onto the post-World War 2 period.

It was an era when the balance of power moved down under, with British players moving to Aussie clubs in the 1960s and 1970s, and the decline of Britain's ability to consistently compete with Australia in test matches.

After 1970, the Lions never won a test series and British efforts to compete were hampered by changes in the British sports economy and poor leadership. But as we look toward the upcoming Ashes series, is there a way forward?

Our new episode investigates the origin story of football in America, in conversation with Mike Cronin and Kevin Marston, authors of 'Inventing the Boston Game: Football, Soccer, and the Origins of a National Myth'.

It's a tale of early football, elite myth-making, and the creation of a tradition that was claimed by both gridiron and soccer.

As the book explains, what began as the youthful memories of a group of Boston Brahmins continues today as a culture war between the two eleven-a-side versions of football.

To find out more about the book, click here: https://www.umasspress.com/9781625348432/inventing-the-boston-game/

As the countdown for the Rugby League Ashes series begins, the new 'Rugby Reloaded' is the first of two episodes taking a deep dive into the cultural history of the Ashes to ask what it can tell us about Anglo-Australian relations over the past century.

There was a time that it was seen as a contest between two 'British' nations fighting for rugby supremacy, and when the sheer ferocity of matches reflected the underlying tensions between the 'Mother Country' and the upstart Dominion. Even in the 1950s, Australian rugby league officials were telling RFL officials that they were just a British as them!

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

On this week's episode I talk to David Goldblatt about his new book 'Injury Time: Football in a State of Emergency' published this month by Mudlark.
It's a look at English soccer over past decade, examining its response to Brexit, Covid and climate change, and looking at the rise of the women's game and the changing role of the sport in society.
In our wide-ranging discussion, we talk about how football has become the new soap opera, the impact of social media, differences between the men's and women's game, and what the future holds for the game.
If you want to find out more, 'Injury Time' is available from https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/injury-time-football-in-a-state-of-emergency-david-goldblatt?variant=55169175650683

Today's episode is an edited version of a talk about rugby union's concussion crisis which I gave to the North of England Medico-Legal Society in Newcastle in April 2025, for which I'd like to thank Alex Littlefair for the invitation.
It looks at the history of concussion in men’s rugby union, examines how it has changed over the past fifty years, investigates the impact of professionalism, and looks at the weight of cultural traditions which have held back the sport’s ability to deal with the crisis confronting it.
As well as looking at the evolution of its attitudes to concussion, I also look at how rugby union’s hyper-masculine traditions - inherited from its founders in the mid-nineteenth century - have shaped its understanding of injuries and have remained essentially unchanged over almost two centuries.
Perhaps we can find the roots of the problem not only in today’s hyper-professional sport but also in its roots as the symbol of nineteenth-century manhood?

This episode talks to Dr Nick Halafihi about the life and career of his father, Nanumi (Nan) Halafihi, the first Tongan to play at Wembley and the first-ever Tongan to play professional rugby league.

This is a fascinating story of how Nan travelled with his brother Sione, a world-ranked cruiserweight boxer, and family friend Sam Felatu, and made a home in the north of England. He began his career with Doncaster in 1958 and then moved to Roy Francis’s Hull, where he established himself as attacking left-centre and played in the 1960 Challenge Cup final at Wembley.

This is about much more than rugby talent - it’s a tale of crossing hemispheres and cultures, of the warm welcomes he received but also of the racism he and his family faced. Most of all, it’s about someone whose career who paved the way for hundreds of other Tongan rugby players who would follow the path laid down by Nan Halafihi.

We travel back to the 1940s and 1950s to look at how France came back into the Five Nations following its expulsion in the 1930s. As you will hear, it was a difficult return to the rugby union fold for the French, as controversy flowed and led the game to to the brink of another split.

But ultimately the fear of rugby league and further international isolation led to a compromise between France and the British rugby union nations which forever removed the threat of a new split.

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony