'Why did Rugby Union rather than Rugby League prosper in the working-class communities of Wales?’

The Way We See Sport, The Way We See Life

In 1895, Rugby's Great Split occured. Working class players situated largely in Northern England broke away from the sport's governing body - The Rugby Football Union (RFU) - due to the fact that the RFU's unwillingness to compensate players for the "broken time" incurred through playing the sport.

The RFU and Rugby Union were very much synonymous with the English Public School system from which the game of rugby stemmed and the breakaway 'Northern Union' that ultimately became the Rugby Football League (RFL) was clearly aligned with the working classes. Therefore, a schism that lasted for a century was established, with boundaries firmly set around class distinctions. Whilst the advent of professional rugby has somewhat thawed rugby's Cold War (with England internationals such as George Ford and Owen Farrell being the sons of esteemed Rugby League players) the respective codes of rugby remain largely representative of a North-South divide in England.

As the esteemed author and rugby historian, Tony Collins states the Welsh "national side has traditionally comprised of miners, steelworkers and manual labourers, exactly the type of person who made Rugby League what it is in Northern England." This begs the question 'Why did Rugby League not become popular in Wales’s working-class communities?' and that is what we focus on in this episode.

We explore how the emergence of the Northern Union and the controversy of 'The Arthur Gould affair' led to the development of Rugby League in Wales. Given South Wales's similarities with the Rugby League heartlands of Lancashire and Yorkshire, there was belief that Wales could adopt the breakaway code of Rugby League rather than continue to play Rugby Union. Why did this not happen?

Whilst the majority of those playing rugby in Wales were from working class communities, the governing forces in Wales, the Welsh Football Union (WFU) later to become the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) was controlled by a "leadership […] (which) was privately educated in England, Conservative in politics, Anglican in religion.” In essence, they shared the same background and prejudices of the RFU leaders and therefore a compromise was reached.

The WFU's cause was no doubt supported by the Welsh national side being the only home nation to defeat the all-conquering New Zealand tourists in 1905 in a match that was dubbed 'The Match of The Century'. The WFU were able to cleverly position Rugby Union and Wales's national team as "the pre-eminent expression of Welsh consciousness and a signifier of Welsh nationhood.” This presented Rugby League with a great challenge, one which it struggled with for the remainder of the Twentieth Century – “To challenge Welsh Rugby Union was to challenge Welsh national identity itself”.

Whilst Welsh star players were always liable to 'Go North' and crossover to Rugby League, the game was never able to truly establish itself at club level in the Welsh heartlands, despite repeated attempts to do so. We explore the attempts to set up clubs and a Welsh Rugby League competition and why these were unable to take off.