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Charles Reid (rugby union)


Charles Reid, nicknamed Hippo, was a Scottish international rugby player. He was capped twenty times for Scotland between 1881-88. Reid vies with Ninian Finlay for the title of the youngest player ever to be capped for Scotland - he was seventeen years and thirty six days old when he was capped against Ireland on 19 February 1881; however, Reid had lived through an extra leap year day, when he was capped in 1881, so Finlay generally gets that title. He played at second row/lock.

Reid attended Edinburgh Academy, which he was attending when capped. On his second cap, against England, he actually played against Frank Wright who was also seventeen at the time, but was a boarder from Manchester. He later played for Edinburgh Academicals RFC.

As Allan Massie says,

Reid was 15 to 16 stone in weight, and 6 ft 3in. The first historian of Scottish rugby, R.J. Phillips says that Reid "carried no superfluous weight and was as active as a well-trained ten-stone man", but that also, from his viewpoint in the 1920s, he was "Scotland's greatest forward."

He played alongside some of the greats of the era including Ninian Finlay, Andrew Don Wauchope and Bill Maclagan. He was said to be a proficient tackler, excellent at dribbling and Scotland only lost four times in his twenty one caps. He captained Scotland in 1887 to their first Home Championship win, and also won scored tries.

He maintained an interest in rugby long after retiring from the game, and after the positional changes in the early 1890s, he wrote boldly:

However, Massie disagrees with this statement, and says that over-dependence on aggressive forward play such as that supported by Reid led to European sides being beaten thoroughly by New Zealand and South Africa when they toured.


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