History
In a effort to make competitive rugby available to boys grades 9 through 12 in the Carlisle area. Carlisle Thunder Rugby was founded in the spring of 2006 by Scott Avery, Jack Kranchich, Vern Wojciechowski and Robert Reitzel. We are affiliated with the Old Gaelic Rugby Club based in South-central Pennsylvania. We are made up from athletes from Carlisle, Boiling Springs and Big Spring High Schools and play in the Susquehanna division within the Eastern Pennsylvania Rugby Union (EPRU). Our goal has been and will always be to provide young men with a chance to play competitive rugby and to become part of something special both on and off the field.
History of Rugby
An early form of Rugby football played at Rugby School between 1750 and 1823 permitted handling of the ball, but no-one was allowed to run with it in their hands towards the opposition’s goal. Additionally, there was no fixed limit to the number of players per side and sometimes there were hundreds taking part in a kind of enormous rolling maul. The innovation of running with the ball was introduced some time between 1820 and 1830, traditionally after William Webb Ellis broke the local rules by running forwards with the ball in a game in 1823. Shortly after this the Victorian mind turned to establishing written rules for the sports which had earlier just involved local agreements, and boys from Rugby School produced the first written rules for their version of the sport in 1845.Around this time the influence of Dr Thomas Arnold, Rugby’s greatest headmaster, was beginning to be felt around all the other boarding schools, and his emphasis on sport as part of a balanced education naturally encouraged the general adoption of the Rugby rules across the country, and, ultimately, the world.
Four interesting Rugby Facts:
- Rugby has been played in all seven contintents, including Anartica!
- Rugby began in 1823
- Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush played Rugby
- Rugby is the second most popular sport in the world behind soccer