Since the mid-eighteenth-century Rugby School has been playing a form of football distinctive from other forms of football. Association Football/Soccer was not played at the School until the late nineteenth century, and only as an unofficial option until the late 1960s.

In 1888 Montague Sherman (in Athletics and Football) suggested that before the 1820s Rugby School was playing a football game which closely resembled an older form of football, which allowed players to pick up the ball and run with it, and anyone could try to stop them. In 1823 William Webb Ellis caught the ball and ran forward with it instead of following the rules at the time. Handling of the ball was allowed in 1828, according to a OR writing to The Old Rugbeian Society in 1895, which is not a feature of Association Football. Also, other ORs writing at the same time alluded to instances of handling of the ball before the game was codified at the School in 1845. Thus, the boys were over time developing their own form of football, which could have had many influences. In the 1920s/30s it was suggested that William Webb Ellis had been influenced by Gaelic Football which allowed picking up and running with the ball. Rugby School did not play a game similar to those private schools which became Association Football in the 1860s.

Association Football was established in 1863 by the following clubs: Barnes, Civil Service, Crusaders, Forest of Leytonstone (later to become Wanderers F.C.), N.N. (No Names) Club (Kilburn), the original Crystal Palace, the original Blackheath, the original Kensington School, the original Perceval House (Blackheath), the original Surbiton F.C. and the original Blackheath Proprietary School, around the same time the Cambridge Rules were codified for Rugby football and The Rugby Union was founded in 1871. 

From the 1880s/90s Universities and Public Schools were abbreviating Association Football to “Soccer” and Rugby to “Rugger”. The word soccer originated at Oxford in the 1880s. 

“Charles Wreford Brown (Charterhouse 1800-1885, Oriel BA 1889) is credited with first using the word c1888. When asked one morning what he was going to do, perhaps play "some rugger", he replied that "after brekker he would go and play some soccer"”. Catherine Smith Charterhouse Archivist.

Schools such as Winchester, who also had their own form of Football, were using the word Soccer from 1889. The abbreviation had reached Rugby School by 1894, probably through Old Rugbeians who were playing Association Football at University. Originally, they were playing and organising games between the School and The Rugby Home Mission (later known as The Rugby Clubs).

At first it appears there is no official School XI, instead there are a series of mentions of teams being formed for specific events such as meetings with the Home Mission Clubs (later known as The Rugby Clubs); The Bradby Club, OCT (later CCF) camps and to play in local school competitions. The option to play Soccer (no longer in inverted commers) at Rugby School on a more regular basis isn’t mentioned till March 1968. The team carried on as an unofficial one until 1972 when it played its first match against Uppingham. By this point the UK was referring to Association Football as Football rather than Soccer. However, Rugby School continued using the abbreviation of Soccer, apart from a brief period between 1997 and 2013 when the team was called the Association Football XI. To this day Rugby School continues to use the word Football to refer to Rugby Football.