Charles Theodore 'Theo' Harding (1860 – 13 July 1919) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

-born international rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 player who played club rugby for Newport and international rugby for Wales

Wales national rugby union team

The Wales national rugby union team represent Wales in international rugby union tournaments. They compete annually in the Six Nations Championship with England, France, Ireland, Italy and Scotland. Wales have won the Six Nations and its predecessors 24 times outright, second only to England with...

. Harding was an all-round sportsman and also captained Newport Hockey Club in their very first season.

Rugby career

Harding was one of the first Newport players and was given the captaincy of the club in the 1887/88 and the 1888/89 season. During the 1888 Harding twice faced the first overseas touring team the New Zealand Māoris

1888-1889 New Zealand Native football team

The 1888–1889 New Zealand Native football team was a New Zealand football team that toured Britain, Australia and New Zealand in 1888 and 1889. The team was composed mainly of players of Māori ancestry, although several Pakeha were included in the squad. The tour was a private endeavour, and was...

. The first occasion was also Harding's first cap for Wales, when under the captaincy of Frank Hill

Frank Hill (rugby player)

Frank Hill was a Welsh international rugby union forward who played club rugby for Cardiff. Hill won 15 caps for Wales over a period of ten years and was given the team captaincy on four occasions....

, the Welsh team beat the tourists five points to nil. Four days later, on 26 December, Harding led his Newport team against the Māori's, but without star player and Welsh legend Arthur Gould, Newport's supporters were not optimistic of success. They were proven right when the Māoris won three tries

Try

A try is the major way of scoring points in rugby league and rugby union football. A try is scored by grounding the ball in the opposition's in-goal area...

 to nil.

In 1889, Harding was selected to represent Wales twice as part of the Home Nations Championship

1889 Home Nations Championship

The 1889 Home Nations Championship was the seventh series of the rugby union Home Nations Championship. Three matches were played between 2 February and 2 March. It was contested by Ireland, Scotland and Wales...

. Wales lost both games of the tournament against Scotland and Ireland, and Harding was not chosen to represent his country again.