Rugby
From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
Arthur Conan Doyle played Rugby as a forward in his school team. Unfortunately no photos of him playing Rugby is known so far. In 1921, during his stay in Paris, he saw the Anglo-French rugby match at Colombes where England won. He dedicated a Sherlock Holmes story to Rugby in The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter (1904).
Interestingly, on 21 january 1888 in Portsmouth, Arthur Conan Doyle watched a rugby match (Southsea Victoria v. United Services) and examined an injured player (see article).
Conan Doyle about Rugby
- « If boxing is the finest single man sport, I think that Rugby football is the best collective one. Strength, courage, speed and resource are great qualities to include in a single game. I have always wished that it had come more my way in life, but my football was ruined, as many a man's is, by the fact that at my old school they played a hybrid game peculiar to the place, with excellent points of its own, but unfitting the youngster for any other. All these local freak games, wall games, Winchester games, and so on are national misfortunes, for while our youths are wasting their energies upon them — those precious early energies which make the instinctive players — the young South African or New Zealander is brought up on the real universal Rugby, and so comes over to pluck a few more laurel leaves out of our depleted wreath. In Australia I have seen in Victoria a hybrid, though excellent game of their own, but they have had the sense in other parts to fall into line, and are already taking the same high position which they hold in other branches of sport. I hope that our headmasters will follow the same course. » (Some Recollections of Sport, 1909)
- « I can say, however, that I have played for my university in both cricket and Rugby football. » (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Tells of His Career and Work, 1907)
- « I have played both Rugby and Soccer, and I have seen the American game at its best, but I consider that the Victorian system has some points which make it the best of all — certainly from the spectacular point of view. [..] During our stay in Paris we went to see the Anglo-French Rugby match at Coulombes (Colombes). The French have not quite got the sporting spirit, and there was some tendency to hoot whenever a decision was given for the English, but the play of their team was most excellent, and England only won by the narrow margin of 10 to 6. I can remember the time when French Rugby was the joke of the sporting world. » (The Wanderings of a Spiritualist, 1921)
Articles
- (Rugby) Football Accident (1888)
Fictions with some Rugby
- The Firm of Girdlestone (1889)
- The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter (1904)
- The Adventure of the Three Students (1904)
- The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire (1924)
Misc.
- "Conan Doyle" (born 7 october 1985) is an Irish rugby union footballer for Garryowen F.C.
