Rugby Reloaded

Rugby Reloaded

The social history podcast which explores the history of rugby league, rugby union, and the other football codes around the world.

Episodes

203. The Boston Game and the Origins of Football in America

October 4, 2025 • 55 mins
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 ...
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202. A Cultural History of the RL Ashes (Part 1)

September 24, 2025 • 10 mins
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 tension...
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201. David Goldblatt on soccer in Injury Time

September 12, 2025 • 32 mins
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 op...
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200. Rugby Union and Concussion

September 3, 2025 • 24 mins
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 trad...
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199. Nan Halafihi, the Tongan Trailblazer

August 25, 2025 • 35 mins
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 mo...
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198. France's Expulsion from the 5 Nations (part 2)

August 4, 2025 • 11 mins
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...
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197. Harry Jepson: A Life in League

February 28, 2025 • 98 mins
In Richard Hoggart's classic book 'The Uses of Literacy', he describes the scenes in May 1934 when Hunslet returned triumphantly with the Rugby League Challenge Cup followed by thousands of young boys. Harry Jepson (1920-2016) was one of those youths. This is an interview I did with him in 2009 about his extraordinary life in rugby league. Born in Hunslet at the start of the 1920s, Harry became a teacher while at the same time ser...
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196. France's Expulsion from the 5 Nations.mp3

September 11, 2023 • 10 mins
The Rugby Union World Cup has kicked off in France this week, so this episode of 'Rugby Reloaded' goes back in time to look at when France was expelled from the international game in 1931. Not only was France kicked out of the Five Nations but its clubs were banned from playing British teams. We look at how and why this happened, and explore how deep-rooted British suspicions of the French led to rugby union's greatest crisis sinc...
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195. Rugby League in Thatcher's Britain with Anthony Broxton

August 29, 2023 • 50 mins
Rugby Reloaded is back for a brand new series and we kick-off with a blockbuster interview with Anthony Broxton about his new book ‘Hope and Glory: Rugby League in Thatcher’s Britain’. Anthony’s book explores the history of the sport during a pivotal decade for Britain. It was the era of Hanley and Offiah, when the pro game expanded as far as Kent, but it was also the decade of the miner’s great strike and social devastation acros...
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194. Football in South America with Matthew Brown

February 6, 2023 • 29 mins
The latest 'Rugby Reloaded' talks to Professor Matthew Brown about his new book 'Sports in South America. A History'. It's a panoramic view of the birth of modern sport on the continent from the mid-1800s to the first FIFA world cup in 1930. The book covers the full range of sports but our interview focuses on some of the key themes of football history: why ideas about 'fathers of football' are mistaken, questioning the importanc...
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193. Cricket & Class with Duncan Stone

December 19, 2022 • 36 mins
Duncan Stone's new book 'Different Class: The Untold Story of English Cricket' is both a history of cricket from the grassroots and an analysis of the roots of the sport's attitudes to race and class. Duncan uncovers the reality of cricket behind the myth, and reveals the true story of working-class cricket in the south of England. For anyone wanting to understand English cricket's current crisis 'Different Class' is essential read...
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192. Geoff Armstrong on the history of St George Dragons

November 28, 2022 • 44 mins
This week's episode talks to Geoff Armstrong about his latest book, the second volume of 'Spirit of the Red V', his in-depth history of St George Dragons. St George are one of the most significant clubs in the history of Australian rugby league. Famous for its unparalleled run of 11 straight premierships in the the 1950s and 1960s, the club's fortunes have risen and fallen as much with off-field trends as they have due to on-fiel...
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191. Huddersfield: A Town, A Club, and Rugby's Great Split

November 14, 2022 • 37 mins
On 5 November I was invited to give a talk about Huddersfield and its role in rugby's split of 1895 by the Huddersfield Local History Society (https://www.huddersfieldhistory.org.uk). In it, I look at the growth of rugby in the town, the rise of the rugby club, the role of its most infamous administrator Frank Marshall, and how the split played out in the town during the 1890s. For more on the history of rugby and the other foo...
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190. Roy Francis, George Bennett, Race and Rugby League

October 24, 2022 • 35 mins
On Friday, the 21 October 2022, I gave a talk at the Museum of Wigan Life titled 'Roy Francis, George Bennett, race and rugby league' as one of the museum's Black History Month events. The talk looks at the lives of the two players, examines the impact of the 1919 racist riots on their lives and the sport, and for the first time reveals how George Bennett was excluded from the 1936 Lions tour to Australia because of racism. For ...
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189. The 'Roaring Red Front' of football clubs

September 12, 2022 • 39 mins
The new Rugby Reloaded talks to Stewart McGill and Vince Raison about their fascinating new book, 'The Roaring Red Front: The World's Top Left-Wing Football Clubs' (Pitch Publishing). They travelled around the world visiting soccer clubs which have a reputation for left-wing politics, sampling the match-day atmosphere, and exploring the histories of a diverse range of clubs, from Dulwich Hamlet to Detroit City, Boca Juniors In Ar...
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188. Why is the rugby ball oval?

June 13, 2022 • 8 mins
Rugby History 101: the shape of the ball. The latest 'Rugby Reloaded' investigates why the rugby ball is oval - and, as usual, the answer is not as obvious as you might think. It's a long story where technology, traditions and tournaments converged in an evolutionary process to create the oval world. 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...
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187. Farewell to Maurice Lindsay, administrator extraordinaire

May 23, 2022 • 10 mins
The new 'Rugby Reloaded' looks at the career of Maurice Lindsay, who died last week. From Wigan to the RFL to Super League, Maurice changed the face of rugby league as radically as he divided opinion about himself. Part visionary, part inveterate self-publicist, Maurice created the greatest British rugby league team in generations, spearheaded the move to Super League, and became a household name in rugby league in two hemisphere...
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186. The History of South African Rugby Union with Jonty Winch

April 25, 2022 • 41 mins
The latest 'Rugby Reloaded' talks with Jonty Winch about his new book 'World Champions: The Story of South African Rugby'. For the first time, Jonty tells the complete story of South African rugby union from its beginnings to the present day by including all sections of society, black, white, 'coloured', and women. It's a major publication for the history of rugby, and Jonty takes us through some of the key issues in that story. ...
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185. Rugby's Concussion Crisis: A Short History (part two)

March 21, 2022 • 10 mins
In the second episode of our two-part special on the history of rugby union and concussion, we take a look how attitudes changed with the coming of professionalism in the 1990s. For a sport that came into the world with deep links to the medical profession, the 21st century saw it abandon its past in favour of new relationships with sports scientists - and it would be the players who lost out. For more on the history of rugby an...
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184. Rugby's Concussion Crisis: A Short History

March 14, 2022 • 10 mins
This week's episode is the first of a two-part special looking at the history of rugby union's changing attitude towards head injuries. The sight of Wales' Tomas Francis staggering around Twickenham during February's England-Wales match after a head clash has reignited the debate about rugby's treatment of concussion. I also have to declare a personal interest as I've done historical research on concussion and rugby for Ryland's ...
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