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Rugby union in the Scottish Borders has a long, and significant history. The region has been responsible for several major innovations, and a presence in the national game which is disproportionately large, because it is the one part of Scotland where rugby is the main sport and played by all classes. ==History== For centuries Borderers had been playing various forms of folk football, that were extremely similar to rugby. Some of these are still played very occasionally, such as the game in Jedburgh. Undoubtedly their popularity paved the way for that of rugby. Ned Haig, for example played Fastern's Eve Ba'. Throughout the mid- to late 1870s, another almost parallel world of club rugby grew up in the Scottish Borders. This brand of rugby, imported from Yorkshire through the burgeoning woollen industry, was a world away from the refined old boy circuit of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Borders remains the only part of Scotland – outside the predominantly middle-class atmosphere of the Edinburgh elite – where rugby really managed to take root in Scotland. In small towns where there was little or no association football, clubs such as Gala, Hawick, Selkirk, Jed Forest, and Melrose, soon became the sporting focus for the hardy farming communities nearby. Although the population of the Borders is only 100,000, its unique cauldron of local rivalries has produced some of the best players to come out of Scottish, or even European rugby. Many of the greatest Scottish sides, including those who won the Grand Slam of 1990, contained a substantial number of Borderers. It says much for the quality of play in the area that the three most enduring club sides in Scotland - Hawick, Gala(shiels) and Melrose – have populations of 14800, 12300 and 1670 respectively. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rugby union in the Scottish Borders」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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