Rugby Reloaded

It's Wembley Week for British rugby league - and to celebrate the game's annual day in the sun, this week's podcast takes ten minutes in the time tunnel to discover why and how rugby league's big day out ended up in London. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

As a preview for my new book 'How Football Began', I'm looking at the origin myths of football - and this week I'm investigating the claim that Sheffield is the true birthplace of modern soccer. Take a ten-minute tour of the early history of sport in the Steel City and discover Sheffield's intriguing football history - and how rugby played a vital role in its early years.

This week's ten-minute time tunnel looks at the career of John Sutcliffe - from Bradford and England rugby, to Manchester United and England soccer, to European football management. Sutcliffe's life tells the story of football's incredible development in the space of a single lifetime. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

How did soccer became the global game - but not rugby? This week we take a ten minute world tour and compare the fate of soccer and rugby in Argentina and Brazil. Take a listen and discover how soccer defeated rugby to become the undisputed champion of the football world. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

How did soccer avoid a split over professionalism in 1885 but rugby tore itself apart over the same issue in 1895? In a special prview of my new book 'How Football Began' this week's ten-minute meander through sporting history explains why soccer stayed united but rugby split. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

This week's ten-minute time tunnel looks at rugby union's one hundred war against rugby league. From 1895 to 1995 rugby union excluded rugby league players from playing its game, developing a system that even rugby union's Danie Craven described as 'the strictest form of apartheid'. How and why could this happen? For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

Take ten minutes to discover how the Wallabies and Kangaroos battled it out for Australian rugby supremacy. This was a war that was fought on the playing fields of Britain as much as it was was on the paddocks of Sydney - and it left rugby league the winner. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

This week's half-time history talk looks at why league has a six tackle rule. Was limited tackle rugby brought in to stop St George's domination of Australia in the 1960s or does it have deeper links with American football's four downs system (and Canada's three downs)? It's a six-tackle history in just ten minutes. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

What links Walter Camp, Lucius Banks and Harry Sunderland? As our latest ten-minute history tour explains, they've all played parts in rugby league's dream of establishing itself in the United States. Listen to the complete story of how league almost came to America in the 1930s. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

This is the story of Wally McArthur, the first Aboriginal rugby league player to play for an English club. Born a son of Australia's Stolen Generation, Wally blazed a trail for Aboriginal players when he signed for Rochdale Hornets in 1953 and went on to prove that true greatness is about much more than what happens on the pitch. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

From the Wallaroos to the Kangaroos, discover how Australian rugby union's embrace of amateurism ripped the game apart and why the popularity of the game led to the creation of rugby league - all in just ten minutes. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

This week our half-time history talk looks at the beginnings of sevens, nines and sixes - the 'short form' versions of rugby - in a journey that takes us from the Scottish Borders to downtown Batley. Once again, we discover that the truth about rugby history is rarely pure and never simple. To discover more about the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

Take ten minutes out of your day to discover the amazing story of the 1888 NZ Native Touring Team to the British Isles. Pioneers of Māori rugby, the tourists won the hearts of many supporters but incurred the wrath of the English rugby authorities, leading to rugby's own mini 'Bodyline'-style controversy. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

This week's ten minute time tunnel takes us back to 1895 and the aftermath of Rugby's Great Split. We take a quick tour of how the split unfolded across the north over the next few years, and look at how rugby union started to re-organise after its near-death experience. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

Spend ten minutes in rugby's time tunnel as we look at the first-ever British rugby tour to Australia and New Zealand. Although now claimed as the first tour of the rugby union British Lions, the tour was in reality opposed by the rugby authorities. Listen to how this unofficial team changed the face of international rugby forever. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

Take ten minutes out to discover how the word 'Broken' and 'Time' tore rugby in two in the 1890s. Why did broken time become the issue that broke the game apart? We go all 'fly on the wall' at the 1893 RFU annual meeting to find out what was going on. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

This week your ten minute rugby history fix looks at how rugby league came to France, almost conquered a nation, but was then forcibly 'deleted' from French sport and society by the Vichy government during World War Two. For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony and at www.rugbyreloaded.com

This week’s Rugby Reloaded ten-minute history talk looks at how world rugby blew apart in 1907 and led to the birth of International rugby league - and how Albert Baskerville took a great leap into the unknown to change rugby forever. To discover more about the history of rugby and the other football codes, follow me on Twitter @collinstony or take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com

Our ten minute rugby history podcast this week goes way back to explore how rugby evolved in Victorian times, giving birth to both rugby league and rugby union. Stand by for way too much detail on the history of scrums and points systems. For more, follow me on Twitter @collinstony or visit www.rugbyreloaded.com

In the second of our Easter weekend specials, we follow up the recent BBC Wales 'Rugby Codebreakers' documentary and asks why, if Welsh rugby had a similar industrial and social history to Northern England, is rugby union, and not rugby league, the national sport of Wales? For more, follow me on Twitter @collinstony or visit www.rugbyreloaded.com