When the Lions came to play footy

The 1888 British Lions rugby union team that toured the southern hemisphere. Source: Getty Images

The cover of 'The First Lions of Rugby' by Sean Fagan. Source: Getty Images

JAMES Lillywhite captained England against Australia in cricket's inaugural Test match at the MCG in 1877.

Alfred Shaw bowled 90 overs for the visitors in that match, including the first delivery in Test cricket.

Arthur Shrewsbury was the finest batsman of the era, rated so by none other than the great W. G. Grace.

This trio of Englishmen would go on to organise three successful Australian tours for England's professional cricketers in the 1880s. But a fourth tour, in 1887-88, proved such a financial disaster that Lillywhite was moved to declare that cricket was played out in Australia and to observe that crowds were now flocking to football.

While in Melbourne, at that time easily Australia's biggest city, the Englishmen declared that on their next tour they would bring out a team of rugby players to take on the colonials, and in particular to challenge Victorian teams playing under their own code of rules.

In the 1880s, the differences between rugby and Australian rules were not substantial, the main variations being: 20 players instead of 15, the ability to call a mark after catching a kick, the absence of an offside rule and the need to bounce the ball every seven yards while running with it.

Richmond FC captain Frank Adams had explored the idea of bringing out an England football team in 1879, while one of the fathers of the Australian code, Henry Colden Harrison, had tried unsuccessfully to organise a tour to the mother country in 1884.

Both times the sticking point had been that each nation was determined to play under its own superior rules.

Now, though, the genuine possibility of international football was being met with great enthusiasm: Rugby devotees in Australia were convinced the tour would prove the superiority of their game, whereas advocates of the Victorian code felt certain it would pave the way for the sport to gain a foothold in Britain, a dream being encouraged by the English promoters.

An article in Sydney's The Referee at the time explained the difference between the camps: Those of the Victorian faith term themselves the liberals, while the rugby followers are considered out -and-out conservatives.

The Englishmen sailed home, leaving behind Shrewsbury to smooth out logistics.

Copies of the Victorian rules were dispatched to Colombo for Lillywhite to collect on the way through. He declared: "A little examination showed us that there was not a great deal to learn that our players did not know, so we decided to go for it.''

Upon returning to England the promoters posted letters to elite players, promising that should they express interest a tour taking in a 54-match schedule of both rugby and Australian football matches "we will communicate terms to you, which I feel sure will prove satisfactory".

The 22-man British Isles squad was dominated by northern English county players, as well as two from Edinburgh, one from Wales and another from the Isle of Man.

Also included was Arthur Paul, the Belfast-born son of an army officer who had been among the British forces when they confronted rebellious miners at the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat 34 years earlier.

Several leading players declined the offer, but the first major hurdle came when the Rugby football Union refused to sanction the undertaking and promised to scrutinise the squad's amateur status.

One player, Jack Clowes, was banned for accepting 15 pounds in clothing expenses from a tour agent.

The party set out from Gravesend aboard the steamship Kaikoura on March 8, taking 46 days to reach Dunedin for the opening leg of the expedition, nine matches in New Zealand.

Next followed five rugby matches in New South Wales, before the squad boarded the train for Spencer Street Station, where hundreds of Melburnians greeted them with a rousing three cheers.

Yet there were more obstacles to negotiate. The VFA declined to grant its patronage, the individual clubs and host grounds each wanted a third of the gate-takings, and Shrewsbury would later claim the Melbourne Cricket Club did all they could to thwart the scheme in many little annoying ways.

The Brits had only managed to squeeze in four Australian football training sessions during the tour, one of them a scratch match in Sydney. But they had enlisted the services of former Essendon players Jack Lawler and Fred McShane as coaches.

Apart from challenging the colonials at their own game, the motivation for the Victorian leg was financial. As captain Robert Seddon noted, football in Victoria had reached a height of popularity unknown in any part of the world.

They discovered as much in their first match, played just two days after arriving.

Whereas the Sydney matches had attracted crowds of maybe one or two thousand, the MCG was overflowing with more than 26,000 spectators as the visitors prepared to take on the strong Carlton team.

The local players came out wearing lace-up guernseys with chamois shoulders, the British were decked out in loose, long-sleeved woollen jumpers, with red, white and blue hoops.

As was the norm in that era, the game began and was restarted after every goal  with the teams in their respective halves, with one kicking off to the other. Only goals counted in the score (behinds were recorded but did not influence results).

A mark could be paid as long as the ball travelled at least two yards, and Carlton used that tactic to advantage. In contrast, the Lions made the mistake of playing their forwards in attack, and they were generally poor kickers, so struggled to convert any chances.

Seddon suggested that had the tourist come with the sole purpose of playing the local game they would have picked a vastly different squad.

Carlton led 7 goals to 0 at half time, then eased off to win 14.17 to 3.8. By the low-scoring standards of the day, it was an absolute belting.

Over the next 17 days the Lions played seven matches against Victorian clubs: during the week they headed to gold rush towns such as Castlemaine, Bendigo and Ballarat where they included Lawler and McShane in their line-up, and back to Melbourne for Saturday matches against VFA clubs South Melbourne, Fitzroy and Port Melbourne. Next were four matches in Adelaide, followed by another five back in Victoria.

As the tour progressed they became more proficient at the local code and tactics, with the highlight a one-goal win over the powerful Port Adelaide team at Adelaide Oval.

British three-quarter Jack Anderton admired the Victorian game for the speed and splendid kicking abilities required, but felt that agile Lancashire forward Sam Williams was the only one who could play the game equal to the Australians.

As the weeks passed, the enthusiasm for the cross-code experiment dwindled among the players and spectators.

The last match of the southern leg was against Essendon (the eighth VFA club the Brits faced). A game against Melbourne had been cancelled because of tensions between the touring party and the MCC, and not only did a meagre crowd attend the Essendon match, but three of the touring team members were disciplined after reporting for the match drunk.

The Brits ended their time in Australian football's heartland with a rugby match against a Victorian representative team at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground (football officials responded by promptly scheduling a rival match between Carlton and Melbourne at the neighbouring MCG).

Seddon departed by saying Victorians were wedded to their game and think there is no game in the world but their own.

He had admiration for the game, but was critical of the short-passing rule and the inability to have a shot after the bell. The latter rule was changed later that year, while the minimum length of kicks was changed to ten yards in 1897.

The visitors headed north for more rugby matches in New South Wales and Queensland, before concluding the tour with an unbeaten return to New Zealand for the final 10 matches.

In all they were away from home for 249 days, returning to England in mid-November.

Upon their return there was negligible interest in the Australasian matches, rather the central focus was upon whether the players would retain their amateur status, which they did (provided they supplied a signed affidavit to say that their only allowance, besides the travelling and hotel expenses, was two shillings a day).

In Australia, the rival codes continued to boom in their own heartlands.

The Illustrated Sydney News wrote that the visit of the English team has been of infinite use in giving ocular demonstration of two styles of play - their own, the game of today, and ours, the game of two years ago.

The game they play in heaven was played with renewed gusto in the northern states and New Zealand, and there are several examples of towns, regions and schools in NSW and Queensland abandoning Australian football.

In Melbourne, the formation of the all-powerful Victorian Football League was less than a decade away. But dreams of taking Aussie rules to the world have barely moved forward some 125 years later.

The tourists did nothing to push the game's cause back in Britain. The next British Isles tour, this time sanctioned by authorities, was to South Africa in 1891.

In 1888 there had not been a single rugby club in Victoria. By the 1930s the state was supplying 13 players to the Wallabies, including Edward Weary Dunlop.

There exists a photograph of that trailblazing British squad, assembled on a playing field in Flinders Park looking defiantly down the lens. It is dated June 25, 1888.

When the 2013 British Lions come to town, they are scheduled to play against the Melbourne Rebels, across the road at AAMI Park. The match will be played on June 25.

THE TOUR CARD

The touring Lions of 1888 played 54 matches in Australasia, winning 33, losing 14 and drawing seven. That included 18 games of Australian rules, of which they won 5, lost 12 and drew one (in these matches only goals counted, even though behinds were recorded).

JUNE
LOST: 3.8 to Carlton 14.17 at the MCG
WON: 5.16 to Bendigo 1.14 at Back Creek CG, Bendigo
DREW: 1.2 with Castlemaine Reps 1.4at Camp Res Ground, Castlemaine
LOST: 3.7 to South Melbourne 7.20 at Sth Melb CG
LOST: 3.11 to Maryborough 4.12 at Princes Park, Maryborough
LOST: 3.7 to 7.18 to South Ballarat at Eastern Oval, Ballarat
LOST: 3.4 to Fitzroy 12.10 at Fitzroy CG

JULY
LOST: 6.11 to Port Melbourne 7.15 at East Melbourne CG
LOST: 5.9 to South Adelaide 8.9 at Adelaide Oval
WON: 8.8 to Port Adelaide 7.8 at Adelaide Oval
LOST: 3.5 to Adelaide 6.13 at Adelaide Oval
LOST: 3.1 to Norwood 5.8 at Adelaide Oval
WON: 6.5 to Horsham 0.2 at Horsham Recreation Reserve
LOST: 1.2 to Ballarat Imperial 4.15 at Saxon Paddock, Ballarat
WON: 3.3 to Sandhurst 2.10 at Back Creek CG, Bendigo
WON: 2.7 to Kyneton 1.5 at Kyneton Racecourse
LOST: 3.5 to Essendon 7.16 at East Melbourne CG

AUGUST
LOST: 4.5 to Northern District Reps 9.19 at Albion Ground, Maitland, NSW

FOR those wishing to read a comprehensive account of the 1888 tour, a new book titled 'The First Lions of Rugby', by Sean Fagan, has been published by the Slattery Media Group
 

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