Talk:Football/Archive 2

General comments on Cambridge, Sheffield & Australian rules
I agree with some of the above comments, but would like to make a few points:

1. A "league" can be a generic word meaning an organisation, as in the Temperance League, the Anti-Nazi League or the Canadian Football League, rather than necessarily being a competition. The fact that there was no Premier League prior to 1992, does not mean that that there was no "league" in the generic sense.


 * Fair enough. dictionary.com says - League - An association of teams or clubs that compete chiefly among themselves. However, to me league suggests a league competition as opposed to a knockout competion, and this didn't appear until the formation of The Football League.

2. Re. the game "not banned" in Ireland: I take your point, but the original par speculated that it was a Norman game, which cannot be said with any certainty either.
 * True. Fair to take out the Norman reference altogether. Although I'm sure that I read somewhere about a possible Norman link that led me to write it in the first place.

3. Being very familiar with both Aussie Rules and soccer, I can say out of the 10 substantive Sheffield Rules, only four are at all similar to present day soccer, whereas six are identical or partly similiar to Aussie Rules (not counting the one about caps, although they were worn by Aussie Rules in the early years :-). Of course it doesn't prove a direct link between Sheffield and Aussie Rules, but that's not what I said in the text.


 * Ok, ignoring rule 11 about caps, 1,2,6,7,9,10 are all akin to rules in the Association game. Rule 8 can be interpreted as either allowing brief touches of the ball or as banning holding the ball whilst running. For sure these rules could be said to be ancestral to all subsequent games, but they definitely favour the kicking game, but they are a bit of a distraction as far as the Association game is concerned as the rules of Thring and other people at Cambridge were used by the FA.


 * Comments: 1. But it's the absence of offside which makes the Sheffield Rules so different to soccer. 2. Aussie Rules is both "handling" and "kicking".

4. The fullpointsfooty.net site is an excellent, if still-developing source, in regard to the later history of Aussie Rules, and it's true that the game between Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar is a historical red herring. However, Geoffrey Blainey's (1990) A Game of our Own: The Origins of Australian Football (Information Australia, Melbourne) is regarded as fairly authoritative. I don't have a copy with me at the moment but Blainey describes a trial game played by Tom Wills and friends at the "Richmond Paddock" in Melbourne on July 31, 1858. There had to be provisional rules for that to occur. Wills (1836-72) had been educated at Rugby and had played cricket for Cambridge, so he would have been familiar with many varieties of football played in England in the early 1850s. H.C.A. Harrison was Wills's cousin, they were close in 1858, and they were named in 1906 as official "fathers of the game", but that does appear to have been generous to Harrison. I will do some more digging on him.


 * has this to say about the Richmond Paddock game - "There were few rules, just men determined to have a kick. Some had experience of football from English public schools, some had no football experience at all. On the same day, Melbourne Grammar School played football against a group of men who called themselves the St Kilda club and the lack of rules caused a fight that ended the game.". I think this match can be pretty much ignored as far as being a significant date is concerned. It's only real significance is that Wills was involved in it and he was obivously the real driving force behind the development of the Australian game. His influence as you quite rightly point out would have almost certainly been from his experiences in England. Any allusion to a connection between Aussie and Gaelic football is in my opinion a complete red-herring. Aussie rules main influence was clearly the English public school rules, through Wills and presumably others (you yourself point out the similarly between the Aussie rules and the Cambridge rules). I think you definitely have to look at May 1859 with the most significance. In a similar way I have not brought up the fact the Thring and de Winton (both ex-Shrewsbury) established a club with some old Etonians in 1846. They would presumably had some agreed rules to play by. Mintguy (T) 22:45, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

PS: What exactly are the advantages of creating a user account?

Grant65 (T) March 9, 2004.

With an account you get access to certain features that anonymous users don't see Why create an account?. Mintguy (T) 20:06, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm aware of the MCG site -- it's sketchy at best, and overall I don't think it's as factually reliable as it should be. You may interested to know that Blainey also decries the influence of Gaelic (and Marn Grook) on Aussie Rules. However (a big however), the similarities are as plain as the nose on your face, as demonstrated by the "International Rules" compromise -- a compromise between either of these games and either rugby or soccer would be impossible. If you represent the history as a dichotomy between "kicking" v. "handling" then the above games appear as nothing more than compromises between the two tendencies. However, what contrasts them to the other games more than anything is the total absence of an offside rule; a huge difference. And I'm not aware of anyone explicitly suggesting the opposite: i.e. that the 1884 Gaelic rules came from nowhere, or were influenced by Aussie Rules, Sheffield rules or one of their public school predecessors! Thats would be unlikely, considering the political implications. To me it is far more logical that localised Irish games influenced one or more of the English public school games. (Since the Irish peasantry would not have been as well-travelled as English schoolmasters.) Of course there is probably no way of proving this.

People like simple solutions to historical questions: "A led to B", but few questions can be answered so simply. Some can't be answered at all. Grant65 (T) March 10, 2004.

Firstly please create an account. Mintguy (T) 10:40, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think by "handling" we mean running whilst carrying the ball. As I understand it you can't do this in Aussie rules.

You should note that the original 1863 FA rules still included the concept of "a fair catch" and a "mark" - ''8. If a player makes a fair catch, he shall be entitled to a free kick, providing he claims it by making a mark with his heel at once; and in order to take such a kick he may go back as far as he pleases, and no player on the opposite side shall advance beyond his mark until he has kicked.''

Offside (lack of in Australian, Sheffield and Gaelic rules)
I take your point about offside. I had not recognised the significant fact that both Aussie and Gaelic football lack offside rules. The drafting and interpretation of the offside law has always caused problems. The Cambridge off-side rule of 1848, required three players in front of goal. It is significant that the original FA rules of 1863 stipulated only one. When a player has kicked the ball, any one of the same side who is nearer to the opponents' goal line is out of play and may not touch the ball himself nor in any way whatever prevent any other player from doing so until the ball has been played, but no player is out of play when the ball is kicked from behind the goal line. By 1866 the FA had reverted to the Cambridge rule of three players (it remained as such until 1925). The 1857 rules were only adhered to by Sheffield, and apparently the lack of an offside rule was only a temporary state of affairs. According to The History of the Football Association (1951) an 1866 game between Sheffield and an FA side from London caused problems because the FA wanted to use the three players rule whilst the Sheffield side were using the one player rule. In the end they played two legs with different rules in each game. The published rules of Sheffield FC from 1870 (in the appendix of the above book) show a rule specifically labelled "offside". So it appears that the Sheffield 1857 rules (lacking offside) were soon abandoned. Thus the lack of offside in the Sheffield rules is a bit of an anomaly. The club was formed by players from Harrow and Harrow had an offside rule. By 1878 they agreed to not use their own rules anymore and stick with the FA rules. But offside was still causing problems in thr mid 1880s when England played Scotland.

For sure, now it would be difficult to imagine a compromise set of rules between the association game and rugby, despite the common ancestry, and the similarlity between Aussie rules and Gaelic football is striking. But I just cannot see that there is a real connection. There are so many similarities (right up to the specific wording of the rules) between the first Aussie rules and the early rules devised in England (even the first FA rules include taking a"mark"), that there can be little doubt that the public school rules were the major and perhaps exclusive influence. Is the similarly between Gaelic and Aussie footbal simply a case of parrallel evolution. I wonder if the English game had developed without offside would that too have evolved along the same lines as those two games.

So the question is, why did Wills et al not have offside in their game? He was from Rugby and Cambridge and would have been exposed the offsde rule. Are you suggesting that the Irish in Australia influenced Wills, so that he didn't include offside? I might suggest that since offside is such a contentious and difficult rule to interpret he thought it better to leave it out. As for the Irish game, the "folk game" had all but disappeard by the time the GAA drew up their rules (much like the "mob" football in England). Their intention was to create a game different to the "foreign" (read English) games of rugby and association football, what better way to do this than to avoid the offside rule. You dismiss Gaelic football's connection to the early English games, but Michael Cusack (founder of the GAA) played rugby before becomming disillusioned with the protestant domination of the 'English' games. Mintguy (T) 10:40, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

GAA rules of 1887
 * 1.There shall not be less than 15 or more than 21 players a side.


 * 2. There shall be two umpires and a referee. Where the umpires disagree, the referee's decision shall be final.


 * 3. The ground shall be at least 120 yards long and by 80 yards in breadth and properly marked by boundary lines. Boundary lines to be at least five yards from the fences.


 * 4. Goal-posts shall stand at each end in the centre of the goal-line. They shall be 15 feet apart, with cross-bar eight feet from the ground.


 * 5. The captains of each team shall toss for choice of sides before commencing play and the players shall stand in two ranks opposite each other, until the ball is thrown up, each man holding the hand of one of the other side.


 * 6. Pushing or tripping from behind, holding from behind, or butting with the head shall be deemed foul and players so offending shall be asked to stand aside and may not afterwards take any part in the match, nor can his side substitute another man.


 * 7. The time of actual play shall be one hour. Sides to be changed at half-time.


 * 8. The match shall be decided by the greater number of goals. If no goal is kicked, the match shall be deemed a draw. A goal is scored when the ball is kicked through the goal-posts under the cross-bar.


 * 9. When the ball is kicked over the side-line it shall be thrown back in any direction by a player of the other side. If kicked over the goal-line by a player of the other side, the goal-keeper whose line it crosses shall have a free kick. No player on the other side to approach nearer than 25 yards of him till the ball is kicked.


 * 10. The umpires and referee shall have, during the match, full power to disqualify any player or order him to stand aside and discontinue play for any act which they may consider unfair as set out in Rule 6.

Hmm, I have created an account and as far as I know I was logged in last time I edited, so I'm not sure what else you want me to do, or why(?)

The short answer to your questions is that I don't know, and I don't think anyone does. The offside thing could be parallel evolution, but there are too many other similarities between Gaelic and Aussie Rules. Watch one of each and you will see what I mean. Both of them allow handling/running with the ball under certain conditions (bouncing and/or kicking it to oneself). One of the main differences between the two is the absence of tackling in Gaelic (which causes problems in the International Rules games), but Gaelic did allow tackling in its early years. Cusack may have been disillusioned with rugby, but where did he get such a radically different game from, if not from traditional Irish games? That was what the Gaelic Athletic Association was all about.

There were very large numbers of Irishmen in Victoria in the 1850s, following the Famine of 1847-51 and the Australian goldrushes (see Australia) from 1851. Wills may have seen them playing their own varieties of football. But, as I said above: "To me it is far more logical that localised Irish games influenced one or more of the English public school games. (Since the Irish peasantry would not have been as well-travelled as English schoolmasters at least before 1847.) Of course there is probably no way of proving this." That is, the relationship may have occurred indirectly, by way of now-forgotten public school games, based on Irish versions of "football". I think the anomalies of the Sheffield rules support this idea to an extent. But I don't know. Grant65 (T) March 11, 2004


 * Hi. If you look at the history of this page, you'll see that your last edit was the only one where you were logged in. If youy want to sign you don't have to do it manually, just put for your name and ~ for you name and the datestamp.

I've never doubted that there were plenty of Irish in Australia at the time. But because the "traditional" game had virtually died out by Cussack's time, I sorely doubt that they were all ardent football enthusiasts, over and above their English contempories. Football on the public roadways had been suppressed in Britian by the Highways act and this would have affected Ireland too. It seems to me bizarre to suggest the the GAA rules were in anyway a model of the "folk games" played in Ireland, any more than the public school rules were were a model of the traditional mob games in England. I suspect the English mob football and the Irish folk games were indistinguishable. Aside from this the rules of this time are so flimsy as to be open to a great deal of interpretation, the GAA rules in particular seem to have very little to say about the actual play. Mintguy (T) 16:27, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There is no offside rule in hurling either. And although their rules were not officially codified until 1870, it is a very old game and this adds some weight to the idea that it was an Irish tradition to have players from both teams roaming freely on a playing field. Especially as there are offside rules in the related sports of ice hockey and shinty (which is also very old).

I don't see why it's a "bizarre idea" that individual Irish villages couldn't come up with their own local rules. And if traditional Irish football games had "virtually died out" by 1884, it's still not the same thing as actually dying out.

Also, I wouldn't like to assume that all of the English medieval games were "mob games" and/or had no rules to speak of. Just because there were no written rules, or few written rules it doesn't means that there weren't any unofficial rules, accepted practices/standards of play, something which still happens in many sports today.

Anyway, I'll go to the library in the next few days and have a look at some histories of Aussies Rules and Gaelic to see if there is more light to be shed on this. Grant65 14:50, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Generally the only rule in mob football was that you had to get the ball to some marker by any means possible. The number of players were unlimited. This is certainly how the games that remain and are still played on Shrove Tuesday are played. Engravings from the period certainly suggest that this was the case. You have to remember that we are talking about the early 19th century. Generally working class people had to work six days a week often for 12 hours a day and had neither the time nor the inclination to involve themselves in sport as we know it. This is why the mob games of England were generally played on special days like Shrove Tuesday. It wasn't until the Factories Act of 1850 the people were given a half-day holiday on saturday afternoons. This is why football games in Britain, generally start at 3pm on a saturday afternoon. The only place where people had the leisure time or inclination to "create" and play modern type games with strict rules were in the priviledged schools. The English public schools were the breeding grounds for these games. If some form of game with strict rules developed amongst the peasantry in Ireland it would be unique in the world. Mintguy (T) 19:00, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Grant, please see the comment on your talk page. Mintguy (T) 14:44, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Amateurism
Grant, I like you recent edits BTW, these are things I meant to get around to, but like everything else I didn't. As you've added about Rugby League's formation coming as a result of the pressure of professionalism, and the RFU rejecting professionalism, it might be worth mentioning how the FA embraced professionalism (at first relucatantly) making the game what it is today, but I'm not sure where best to put this. Mintguy (T) 13:20, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Glad you approve. Professionalism is obviously more relevant to the split in rugby, but if you can see a way to include it (economically) in relation to soccer, I think that would be fine. Possibly the best place would be at the end of the section on the FA(?) Grant65 (Talk) 16:39, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
 * Well I would have added it at that point but it breaks the chronology of the whole article. This is significant! The Amatuer Football Federation objected to the increasing professionalism of the game and broke away from the FA in 1907 (taking with them many of the public school teams) and became the Amateur Football Association (AFA). The AFA were refused admittance to FIFA in 1908 and the organization limped along until just before the First World War. The increasing professionalism had the effect of making many of the public schools reject the Association game as a game for the working classes, and hence adopted the strictly amateur Rugby Union code. Meanwhile the professionalism in the Association game meant that the standard of play became much higher, the game attracted a larger following with 'star players'. Basically the game exploded. Mintguy (T)


 * My feeling at the moment is that the stuff about amateurism in soccer would be more relevant to The Football Association page, but I still have an open mind about this...Grant65 (Talk) 04:28, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)

Development of association football in Australia
BTW just found this in the History of the FA book.
 * The first reference to be found to an oversea organization in the Minutes of The Football Association is on November 5th 1883, when C.W. Alcock read a letter to a Special Committee Meeting held at 28, Paternoster Row. It came from the Anglow-Australia Football Club of Melbourne, and in reply Alcock was instructed to convey to this body the "gratification of the FA Committee at the development of the Association game in the Colonies." ... The Anglo-Australian Association was admitted to Membership of The FA in 1884. 


 * 1887: Mr Crawley of the Anglo-Australian Association of Melbourne attended a Council Meeting at 51 Holborn Viaduct, and asked the patronage of The FA for a match to be played at the Oval in aid of the funds of his Association. The Council resolved that they could not see their way to assist. 


 * 1900: Letters received from The Football Association of Western Australia and the New Zealand FA asking The FA to send out teams to play exhibition matches with the view to popularizing the game.


 * 1901 (February) Upon the report od the International Selection Committeee, The FA Council decided not to entertain the Australian and New Zealand proposal; also that a suggestion should be made to them that they should take steps to perfect their organization.


 * ... there's more, but less interesting stuff about the Aussie and New Zealand assocations trying to get tours aranged, but it appears that the FA thought they were a bit Mickey Mouse. But then in 1924 we have this.

''1924: Challenge Cup presented by The FA to The Australian Football Association. The Following letter was received by the FA:''

To The Secretary, The Football Association Dear Sir,

I beg to acknowledge receipt of your communication in which you convey the information that you Council has generously donated to Australia a challenge Cup for Competition on Inter-State lines. I am directed by my Executive to convey to your Association the best thanks of the Football community of Australia.

Yours failthfully E.S. LUKEMAN Secretary Australian F.A.


 * Mintguy (T) 22:16, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Interesting. I guess the FA perceived that they had "lost the war" in Australia by the 1880s.Grant65 (Talk) 04:33, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)

Link to Association football and American football articles
This article is a little bit bogus in that it's a good academic treatment of all these kinds of football, but to most people today, "football" means one of two things, American football (in the US) or Soccer (elsewhere). Those games have good articles of their own and that terminology should be briefly explained and those articles should be linked in the very first paragraph of the "football" article.


 * If you think that needs adding then add it. However, your statement most people today, "football" means one of two things, American football (in the US) or Soccer (elsewhere), is just wrong or pehaps "a little bit bogus" - because it ignores Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. Mintguy (T) 08:24, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I disagree with what this anonymous commentator says; in fact the article is rather "soccer-centric", but that is justifiable because it's the most popular game by far, world-wide. I don't believe that many people outside the US (which has 5% of the worlds's population) mean American football when they say "football". Grant65 (Talk) 03:48, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)


 * I think that Jao's edit addresses the complaint quickly. I do think that it used to be kind of ridiulous.  If someone came here looking for information on 'football' quickly, the first section availble is something about medieval sports. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 14:07, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't this just link to diffrent countries versions of football? Rather than trying to explain all versions of it on one page (as it is kind of confusing)


 * Nope. That would provide a good deal less information that this current format does. Football codes do not exist in isolation and (IMO) this article does an excellent job of bringing the worldwide football movement into focus. There is plenty of scope for expanding on the individual codes, each within its own article. Tannin 13:19, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, okay.

American football and Rugby League
I think though we do need a mention of later developments in American football, such as the introduction of the forward pass (c.1905?).

There should also be a separate par (at least) on Rugby League, which is a significant code (played professionally in at least three countries) and has become a quite different game to Rugby Union (In fact RL has borrowed from the US game.) But I lack the in-depth knowledge to do this right now. Grant65 (Talk) 04:05, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)


 * I have since done most of this, but there is room for a bit more on later developments in Rugby League.Grant65 (Talk) 06:37, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)

Relationship of Gaelic and Australian Rules
I discovered that Thomas Croke, one of the founders of the GAA, was Archbishop of Auckland in the early 1870s, a time when Aussie Rules (or "Victorian Rules" as it then was) was at least as popular in New Zealand as rugby or soccer. This adds a little weight to the idea that Aussie Rules had a significant influence on the development of Gaelic football.

PS I added sub-headings because the page is getting somewhat unwieldy. How do we break this up into editable sections? Grant65 (Talk) 04:28, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)

Ah, I see it's been done automatically.Grant65 (Talk) 04:38, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)


 * I have found an article called "The Shaping of Victorian Rules Football", by B.W. O'Dwyer in Victorian Historical Journal, v60, no1, March 1989. O'Dwyer says that Australian Rules has always been differentiated from rugby by the absence of any offside rule, the need to bounce/toe the ball while running, punching the ball rather than throwing it, and a few other things. "These are all elements of Irish football. There were several variations of Irish football in existence, normally without the benefit of rulebooks, but the central tradition in Ireland was in the direction of the relatively new game [i.e. rugby]...adapted and shaped within the perimeters of the ancient Irish game of hurling. This involved punching the ball rather than throwing it, bouncing and toeing it in the process of running ... [and] having no limitation on ball movement or team placement in the absence of any offside rule. They later became embedded in Gaelic football. Their presence in Victorian football may be accounted for in terms of a formative influence being exerted by men familiar with and no doubt playing the Irish game. It is not that they were introduced into the game from that motive [emulating Irish games]; it was rather a case of particular needs being met..." I haven't as yet been able to track down a good book on the history of Irish/Gaelic football to verify this. Grant65 (Talk) 06:37, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)

Greek error
There is an error in the transliteration of the Greek word "&alpha;&rho;&pi;&alpha;&sigma;&tau;&omicron;&nu;" in the Ancient Games sub-heading. It's given as "episkyros", but the actual transliteration of that sequence of Greek characters is "arpaston". "episkyros" would be "&epsilon;&pi;&iota;&sigma;&kappa;&upsilon;&rho;&omicron;&sigmaf;". I don't know whether the Greek should change or the transliteration. Deadlock (Talk) 16:43, Jul 08, 2004 (UTC)

Hi. It's been a very long time since I wrote that part of the article and I can't remember what the orignal source was. Searching on google for "&alpha;&rho;&pi;&alpha;&sigma;&tau;&omicron;&nu;" brings up a site which has a mirror of the Village pump when I asked a question about those sequence of letters. My question was "Anyone speak Greek? I need to know for a wiki article if '&#945;&#961;&#960;&#945;&#963;&#964;&#959;&#957;' would equate to 'pheninda'?" - The respoonse I got said. "I think I've found that it equates to 'episkyros', but could 'pheninda' be a Romanisation of this? " Looking in my EB11 it talks about "&epsilon;&pi;&iota;&sigma;&kappa;&upsilon;&rho;&omicron;&sigmaf;". So I'm sure this is correct. It also mentions that the Roman Harpastum is derived from the greek verb "&alpha;&rho;&pi;&alpha;&zeta;&omega;" (I seize), so I think i muddled these two up. Thanks for your help. Mintguy (T) 17:55, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You're welcome. For the record a direct transliteration of 'pheninda' would be '&phi;&epsilon;&nu;&iota;&nu;&delta;&alpha;'. Deadlock 17:30, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

let's bring this up to featured status
I would like to bring this article up to featured status. To help with this I think we really need some decent pictures. Has anybody got any opinions on what kind of pictures would be good? Mintguy (T) 14:27, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Hi Mintguy. Yes, it badly needs pictures, probably at least three, considering the size. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time on my hands at the moment. I think the main difficulty with modern pictures is going to be copyright, since we would be dealing with professional sport, and most pics are owned by photojournalists, news services etc. So what I suggest is that we might concentrate on historical illustrations/photos instead, as most of these will be out of copyright, and can therefore be scanned from books etc. Grant65 (Talk) 23:58, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * If we wanted a complete article and had the room then I would like to see a picture of Kemari, perhaps one of Marn Grook, one of mob football, (Alnwick or something), a picture of Calcio Storico some prints of football from the 18th and early 19th century or earlier and some pictures of the early FA and Rugby Aussie Rules and American football teams. Mintguy (T) 17:04, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I've modified /addded to the further reading section and made it references. References and sources are required for articles to have featured status. Mintguy (T)