Talk:Sheffield Rules

offside
The 1870 rules did include offside but Sheffield had an offside rule before 1870. Firstly as previously stated on the Football page "by 1866, when Sheffield played a combined FA side, they were employing their own version of offside that differed from the FA rule" - I did have a cite for that but I can't find it at the moment, and secondly - in The Code War - ISBN - 1874427658 page 28 it states that in 1867 Sheffield made proposal to chage the FA rules including an offside rule that "any player found to be behind the goalkeeper when the ball was played to be ruled offside" Jooler 18:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The 1866 match was played under rules that were a merger of the Sheffield and London rules. Found this page about the offside rule including a reference to the 1866 match. Such suggestions seemed to go on all the time and eventually led to them aggreeing on a commnon set of rules. The 1870 date I got from this timeline. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshurtree (talk • contribs)


 * See Talk:Football/Archive 2 - Jooler 21:49, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * 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.

I've looked it up and finally have the full quote from The History of the Football Association (1951) page 41 - "Briefly it [a letter from the Secretary of Sheffield (W.J. Chesterman)] proposed a match between London and Sheffield. True, Sheffield at the moment abided by their own rules of play which differed somewhat from those of The Football Association (Sheffield, for instance in their off-side law required only ONE defender to be between an attacker and the goal), but still this was a start and it was seized upon by the Association. The Secretary [of the FA], now R.W. Willis, or Barnes, who had taken Morley's place, was instructed to accept the challenge, and arrange the match at Battersea Park, 11-a-side, on either March 17 or 31st". The first leg was played in Battersea Park on 31st March 1866 under FA rules- the FA won by 2 goals and four touchdowns to nil. The return leg was played in Sheffield under Sheffield rules but no date or scoreline is given. Jooler 22:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The only records I can find state that the return leg never happened . It seemed that rules were often experimented with and the one-man offside may have been tried but not officially adopted until 1870. I've ordered a couple of books on football history in Sheffield. Hopfully they could bring some clarrity to the subject. josh (talk) 23:31, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay in 'The Code War' (as above) - it says - "When in November of 1866 the FA wrote to Sheffield proposing a another match no agreement could be reached over the playing rules, and as a result no further formal challenges between Sheffield and London were possible before the end of the decade." So that bears out what you say but disagrees with the The History of the Football Association (1951). So I reckon the latter book is probably incorrect aboutthe return leg. Note according The History of the Football Association (1951) - they don't mention a change in the original offside law until the publication of the rules in 1873 where the three player rule was adopted. Jooler 23:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * 1863: 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.''


 * 1873: When a player kicks the ball, any one of the same side who, at such a moment of kicking, 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, unless there are at least three of his opponents nearer the goal-line; but no player is out of play when the ball is kicked from the goal line.''

Got 'Football in Sheffield' and it seems that it is a similar situation as above. The rules were continually updated but not always published. It concurs with your book about the Secretary of Sheffield suggesting another match in Nov '66 and an amendment (in FA meeting on 12th Febuary 1867) but doesn't state whether Sheffield teams were already using this rule or it was meant to be a compremise. The next set of rules to be published were in 1870 and contained the one-man offside rule. Perhaps we could say something along the lines of "It is unclear exactly when Sheffield Rules first adopted the offside rule but a one-man version was suggested to the FA by them in 1867. The next publication of the rule book, in 1870, included the rule." josh (talk) 19:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

early passing game
I think this page should mention Sheffield's role in the early passing game. See Combination Game —Preceding unsigned comment added by Footballwecan80 (talk • contribs) 12:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Assessment
I can see that the A-rating pre-dates the A-class review system, and I agree that the absence of a review is no reason to re-grade the article. However, if the article does not meet the criteria, then there is no reason for it to retain A-class status either since ratings can change at any time, depending on the shifting quality of the article and changes in the grading schemes.

I don't believe this article does meet the current standard, specifically because it contains claims which may be disputed. The sentence claiming that the first inter-club game was played with these rules lacks a citation. As the date of foundation of the oldest football club is contested, the date of the first game may also be contested. Further confusion is introduced because of the different forms of football. Presumably, university college "football" clubs were playing each other before these rules were drawn up.

Potentially contentious statements without cites include "disliked due to the lack of goal scoring opportunities"; "to prevent the Sheffield game looking boring"; "The FA accepted the Sheffield rule...[and]...in return the FA's use of a three man offside was adopted" (implies a quid pro quo, but was it just accepting the best each had to offer without any deal being done?); "in financial trouble"; "set up to test the use of the lights" or to launch the ground as a marketing ploy?; "credited with creating the original rules". DrKiernan (talk) 16:39, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

halfway line
At the end of the third paragraph under Birth of competition, “halfway line” is linked to the Association football pitch article. The latter article has no reference to “halfway line”. Mathyeti (talk) 00:21, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Sheffield Rules. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080509072137/http://www.sheffieldfc.com/the-club-c22.html to http://www.sheffieldfc.com/the-club-c22.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:55, 8 January 2018 (UTC)