The Surprising History of Jersey Innovation

Story written & researched by Sean Fagan for SaintsAndHeathens

CLOWNS AT THE CIRCUS

We are all long accustomed to seeing the numbered jerseys of players on the field, even in school or junior club rugby, but there was a time when this was a startling new innovation.

In the rugby heartlands of Australia and New Zealand, it was an established custom from the early 1900s onwards in representative matches and club competitions such as in Sydney.

In Britain, though, it was a post-World War One era development.

The trouble centred on the fact that having jersey numbers appealed to the interest of spectators and gamblers, and that was not what amateur rugby union was about. Critics of rugby league and professionalism called it “circus entertainment” for the reason that it was aimed at attracting the crowd.

ORDER IN NUMBERS

Good sense of a kind though soon came, as London’sThe Field observed in 1923:

“It is gradually becoming possible to extract a good deal of entertainment from that most excellent practice, which is daily becoming more and more prevalent, of numbering the players in a Rugby match.

“For instance, it is already evident that the method of allocating numbers to their representatives differs in different clubs. Most clubs seem content to give a newcomer to the fifteen the next highest number to that allotted to the newcomer who preceded him, so that if, in the course of a season, the personnel of a side changes fairly often, it is quite easy for the numbers to run into the 50s.

“The Blackheath Club, however, has apparently decided to use the first fifteen numbers and no more, for on Saturday they turned out against the London Scottish numbered from 1 to 15. What is more, they were numbered in sequence from back to forward. Forsyth, the full-back, was 1; the four three-quarters were 2 to 5; the halves were 6 and 7; and the eight forwards were 8 to 15. This, no doubt, involves a good deal of trouble and some expense week by week, but even from a purely aesthetic point of view it seems worth while.

“By comparison there was something “higgledy-piggledy” about the Scottish numbers, which ranged from 5 to 58, all except three being double figures.”

The trick, of course, was to prepare and preferably sell to the gathered onlookers a match programme with the players’ names and corresponding numbers.

WHAT THE KING HEARD

There are some short passages floating around that pass as legendary anecdotes about jerseys and numbers, but their original sources cannot be found anywhere.

The first is of the celebrity name-dropper kind. Perplexed by why the Scotland team did not have jersey numbers as England did, King George V was supposedly told by the President of the Scottish Football Union, J. Aikman Smith, that “This, sir, is a rugby match, not a cattle sale” or “They are rugby players, Your Majesty, not a herd of cattle.” But as to which particular post-WWI match this was, and whether it really happened, remains a mystery.

The other is a stray quote: “Numbers are not necessary and they savour of professionalism and the circus”. As noted earlier, these sentiments do hold some pre-WWI era truth, but whether it was actually uttered, and by whom, is a search that ends in a cul-de-sac of empty houses.

LIONS & WALLABIES TAGGED & RELEASED

Far away from the reach of the Home Unions, the 1899 British Lions wore numbers on their backs in the 1st Test match in Sydney against Australia. Now recognised as the Wallabies debut, this is the earliest instance of opposing teams wearing numbered jerseys in an international match. The Lions were also seen with numbers in Melbourne and Brisbane games.

But these 1899 contests weren’t the first time numbers had been used in Australian and New Zealand rugby.

PENNY BLACKS & BLUES

Player numbers in white squares were added to the NSW (light blue) and New Zealand (all blacks) jerseys for the first game of their July 1897 three-match series at the Sydney Cricket Ground (crowd 24,500). In addition to the opening contest on 1 July, two subsequent matches were held on 10 and 29 July; however, whether numbering was used again is not presently known.

As reported in The Referee newspaper (7 July 1897), it was the NSWRU who had introduced the innovation, although not all of its committee men had been in favour:

“The innovation as far as this colony is concerned, of allotting each player on the field a number affixed to his jersey, and publishing cards at a penny each giving the names corresponding with the numbers, was appreciated by the public. The Union was, however, not unanimous about introducing it.”

This aid to rugby viewing (and presumably gambling) was not just confined to those who purchased the team list card, but was available to all in the ground via the use of the SCG’s original (1895-1905) scoreboard, as explained by The Australian Town and Country Journal (10 July 1897):

“Each player wore on his back a distinguishing number, which corresponded with numbers placed on the scoring board opposite the names of the men of the two fifteens.”

In effect, the above evidence, plus photos, shows both teams were numbered 1 to 15, although by what allocation remains unknown.

TWO RUGBY XVs, BUT ONLY ONE No.8

In the Queensland vs New Zealand contest held in Brisbane on 15 July 1897 (misreported in various contemporary sources as the first instance), the players were individually numbered from 1 to 30.

The home side were numbers 16 to 30, and the visitors 1 to 15, with only a notional observance of ordering the numbering of the forwards, who in that era were still more of a collection (pack) of generalists, rather than individuals expert in a specific role.

The Brisbane Courier (17 July 1897) adding:

“With a view of enabling the public to recognise the various players, a number will be placed on each player’s back, and cards bearing the names and corresponding numbers will be distributed.”

A LADY’S FAVOUR

The pioneering British Lions tour in 1888 saw the first innovation towards identifying players on the field for spectators, a decade before jersey numbers.

As told in The First Lions of Rugby, for the match in Christchurch in New Zealand, the Canterbury Rugby Union devised a scheme where each of the British XV that afternoon was supplied with a different coloured armband ribbon, necessitating the purchase of a matchday programme so the spectators could align the names of the footballers to the ribbons.

In one sense, it was no innovation at all, being a modern twist on the chivalric era and knights wearing a “lady’s favour”, except here the pairing up worked in reverse.

This very colourful and romantic branch on the rugby tree of life was short-lived, though jersey numbers still allow one to quietly select out by eye the whereabouts and movements of their personal chosen ‘champion’.

© Sean Fagan