The new Rugby Reloaded looks at the current state of rugby league in Britain, asks 'What's going on?' and tries to provide some answers by looking at how the history of the sport can give us some insights into what the game could and should be doing. It also looks at the problems of being in the post-industrial north of England, the challenges of other sports, and the internal issues that the game has never confronted.

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

This week we sit down with Kevin Fitzpatrick, a member of the Oldham Rugby League Heritage Trust, to talk about his documentary on Oldham's Hall of Fame. It's a fascinating look at the history of the club and the town since the club was a founding member of the Northern Union in 1895, told through the individual stories of the players inducted into the club's Hall of Fame.

He talks about the club, the ins and outs of making the documentary, and the plans to celebrate Oldham's 150th anniversary next year. You can buy the documentary via download from https://oldhamhalloffame.bandcamp.com/album/the-oldham-rugby-league-hall-of-fame or on CD from [email protected].

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

This week we delve deep into the origins of the football codes across Britain, Europe and the Americas with Thomas Adam, author of the new book The Global Spread of football from the 1860s to the 1880s.

His book looks at the emergence of football in England, Germany, Argentina and the United States in the 1860s and 1870s, and looks at the decisive influence of education and educators in the rise of the game. The book is code-agnostic, and so looks at ‘football’ as nineteenth century observers did: one game with many different ways to play. Along the way we also discuss the roads not taken, such as how Germany could have become a rugby nation and the US a soccer bastion.

For more details about the book, go to https://anthempress.com/books/the-global-spread-of-football-from-the-1860s-to-the-1880s-hb

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

With rugby league's Ashes series imminent, part two of Rugby Reloaded's look at the cultural history of Anglo-Australian rugby league moves onto the post-World War 2 period.

It was an era when the balance of power moved down under, with British players moving to Aussie clubs in the 1960s and 1970s, and the decline of Britain's ability to consistently compete with Australia in test matches.

After 1970, the Lions never won a test series and British efforts to compete were hampered by changes in the British sports economy and poor leadership. But as we look toward the upcoming Ashes series, is there a way forward?

Our new episode investigates the origin story of football in America, in conversation with Mike Cronin and Kevin Marston, authors of 'Inventing the Boston Game: Football, Soccer, and the Origins of a National Myth'.

It's a tale of early football, elite myth-making, and the creation of a tradition that was claimed by both gridiron and soccer.

As the book explains, what began as the youthful memories of a group of Boston Brahmins continues today as a culture war between the two eleven-a-side versions of football.

To find out more about the book, click here: https://www.umasspress.com/9781625348432/inventing-the-boston-game/

As the countdown for the Rugby League Ashes series begins, the new 'Rugby Reloaded' is the first of two episodes taking a deep dive into the cultural history of the Ashes to ask what it can tell us about Anglo-Australian relations over the past century.

There was a time that it was seen as a contest between two 'British' nations fighting for rugby supremacy, and when the sheer ferocity of matches reflected the underlying tensions between the 'Mother Country' and the upstart Dominion. Even in the 1950s, Australian rugby league officials were telling RFL officials that they were just a British as them!

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony

On this week's episode I talk to David Goldblatt about his new book 'Injury Time: Football in a State of Emergency' published this month by Mudlark.

It's a look at English soccer over past decade, examining its response to Brexit, Covid and climate change, and looking at the rise of the women's game and the changing role of the sport in society.

In our wide-ranging discussion, we talk about how football has become the new soap opera, the impact of social media, differences between the men's and women's game, and what the future holds for the game.

If you want to find out more, 'Injury Time' is available from https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/injury-time-football-in-a-state-of-emergency-david-goldblatt?variant=55169175650683

Today's episode is an edited version of a talk about rugby union's concussion crisis which I gave to the North of England Medico-Legal Society in Newcastle in April 2025, for which I'd like to thank Alex Littlefair for the invitation.

It looks at the history of concussion in men’s rugby union, examines how it has changed over the past fifty years, investigates the impact of professionalism, and looks at the weight of cultural traditions which have held back the sport’s ability to deal with the crisis confronting it.

As well as looking at the evolution of its attitudes to concussion, I also look at how rugby union’s hyper-masculine traditions - inherited from its founders in the mid-nineteenth century - have shaped its understanding of injuries and have remained essentially unchanged over almost two centuries.

Perhaps we can find the roots of the problem not only in today’s hyper-professional sport but also in its roots as the symbol of nineteenth-century manhood?

This episode talks to Dr Nick Halafihi about the life and career of his father, Nanumi (Nan) Halafihi, the first Tongan to play at Wembley and the first-ever Tongan to play professional rugby league.

This is a fascinating story of how Nan travelled with his brother Sione, a world-ranked cruiserweight boxer, and family friend Sam Felatu, and made a home in the north of England. He began his career with Doncaster in 1958 and then moved to Roy Francis’s Hull, where he established himself as attacking left-centre and played in the 1960 Challenge Cup final at Wembley.

This is about much more than rugby talent - it’s a tale of crossing hemispheres and cultures, of the warm welcomes he received but also of the racism he and his family faced. Most of all, it’s about someone whose career who paved the way for hundreds of other Tongan rugby players who would follow the path laid down by Nan Halafihi.

We travel back to the 1940s and 1950s to look at how France came back into the Five Nations following its expulsion in the 1930s. As you will hear, it was a difficult return to the rugby union fold for the French, as controversy flowed and led the game to to the brink of another split.

But ultimately the fear of rugby league and further international isolation led to a compromise between France and the British rugby union nations which forever removed the threat of a new split.

For more on the history of rugby and the other football codes, take a look at www.rugbyreloaded.com (where you can find the links for this episode) and follow me on Twitter at @collinstony