Is rugby upper class and football lower class?

Answer 1

I think that Rugby has been integrated into the grammar schools and therefore more upper class tend to attend these schools. Football is a more down to earth game i feel and reaches more issues with the working class. Football gives the working classes an avenue through which people can get release from life.

Originally rugby developed in English Public (i.e. Private) school. It was for a very long time a strictly amateur sport. This meant that it could only be played at a high level by those who had enough money to afford to spend much unpaid time on the pitch. This excluded the working classes for much of the game's history. In the north, rugby league has been a working man sport. It is professional.

Association Football by comparison has long been professional. Working class men could afford to be full time players as they would be paid for their appearances. This contributed to soccer's popularity among the working classes.

Moreover it was felt in the education system that the upper classes needed to develop aggression, thus it was right to teach upper class boys to play a full contact sport. The working classes, it was felt, needed their aggresion reinned in, so the powers that be encouraged soccer.

Nowadays these stereotypes are breaking down, rugby is progessional and the traditional divsions are not so important. Still the tradition remains.