Rugby World Cup: The Webb Ellis myth is celebrated
There is no actual evidence that William Webb Ellis "picked up the ball and ran" during a game of football at Rugby School but that has not prevented a legend building up around him.
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To all intents and purposes the Victorian vicar has been adopted as the Father of Rugby. The 20 teams gathering in France this year will battle it out for the Webb Ellis Cup no less.
Not that he knew any of this in his lifetime.
The claims for Webb Ellis only began in 1876, four years after his death in the French town of Menton (whose rugby club is obviously named after him).
The legend grew through a series of letters to the school magazine that he had picked up the ball in a game of football in 1823. And with international rugby just opening its arms to the world with England's meeting with Scotland in 1871, it stuck.
Not surprisingly, Rugby School, founded in 1567 when another Warwickshire legend William Shakespeare was still very much in short trousers and still going strong, took the opportunity this June of staging a bicentenary match to mark the occasion.
England's 2003 World Cup winning flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson was just one of the guests as the pupils - boys and girls - recreated some of the key moments in the early history of the game.
Pool A
France, New Zealand, Italy, Uruguay, Naimbia
Pool B
South Africa, Ireland, Scotland, Tonga, Romania
Pool C
Wales, Australia, Fiji, Georgia, Portugal
Pool D
England, Japan, Argentina, Samoa, Chile
The last time the World Cup was played in France in 2007, England played their way to the final where they were beaten by South Africa.
They also reached the final four years ago in Japan where, once