Tell a lie enough and everyone will believe it. Even rugby players.

Fake news might be in our faces right now, but it is disingenuous to tag this a Trump (or Gupta/Bell Pottinger) invention. Even the much loved sport of rugby is a victim.

Most who follow the now global game believe a story of how, during a football match at Rugby School in 1823, one William Webb Ellis ignored the rules and ran with the ball. This version is so well accepted the sport’s ultimate trophy is named for the lad who became an Anglican clergyman. Indeed, when Ellis’s neglected grave was discovered in the South of France (he died in 1872), the French Rugby Federation restored it to ensure visitors could pay homage during the 2007 World Cup Finals hosted in the country.

The Webb Ellis myth, however, bears little scientific scrutiny. Scholars point out that it stems from an old boy’s letter to the school magazine written half a century after the supposed historic event and quotes an “unnamed source”. The Old Boys Society which investigated the claim was “unable to procure any first hand evidence”, but did interview a couple of former students from the 1830s who said when they were there handling the ball was “strictly forbidden.”

Other evidence also point towards a more collaborative but less marketable birth. But don’t expect any old files to be re-opened or Rugby School’s famous Webb Ellis plaque to be removed. Too much has been invested in the legend. Fake news, unless nipped in the bid early, tends to create that kind of reality. As Joseph Goebbels used to preach – Tell a lie enough times and eventually everyone believes it. Even rugby players.

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