User:Grover cleveland/History of the laws of the game/Cambrige Rules

The Cambridge Rules refer to various formulations of the rules of football made at the University of Cambridge during the nineteenth century.

Context
During the nineteenth century, public schools each had their own rules. blah blah.

1838-1842
Edgar Montagu, an old-boy of Shrewsbury School who attended Cambridge from 1838 to 1842, wrote in an 1899 letter: "I was one of seven who drew up the rules for football, when we made the first football club, to be fair to all the schools."

1846
According to the History of the Football Association, two Shrewsbury alumni, J. C. Thring and Henry de Winton, "succeeded in making some Old Etonians join them to form a club. Matches, such as they were, were few and took place on Parker's Piece, but the club did not survive for long". Thring wrote in 1861: "[I]n 1846, when an attempt was made to introduce a common game, and form a really respectable club, at Cambridge, the Rugby game was found to be the great obstacle to the combination of Eton, Winchester, and Shrewsbury men in forming a football club."

Cambridge Rules of 1848
In 1897, H. C. Malden wrote the following letter:

"I went up to Trinity College Cambridge. In the following year an attempt was made to get up some football in preference to the hockey that was then in vogue. But the result was dire confusion, as every man played the rules he had been accustomed to at his public school. I remember how the Eton men howled at the Rugby men for handling the ball. So it was agreed that two men should be chosen to represent each of the public schools, and two who were not public school men, for the 'Varsity. G. Salt and myself were chosen for the 'Varsity. I wish I could remember the others. Burn of Rugby, was one; Whymper of Eton, I think, also. We were 14 in all I believe. Harrow and Eton Rugby, Winchester, Shrewsbury were represented. We met in my rooms after Hall, which in those days was at 4.pm.; anticipating a long meeting, I cleared the tables and provided pens, ink and paper. Several asked me on coming in whether an exam was on! Every man brought a copy of his school rules, or knew them by heart, and our progress in framing new rules was slow. On several occasions Salt and I, being unprejudiced, carried or struck out a rule when the voting was equal. We broke up five minutes before midnight. The new rules were printed as the "Cambridge Rules", copies were distributed and pasted up on Parker's Piece, and very satisfactorily they worked, for it is right to add that they were loyally kept, and I never heard of any public school man who gave up playing from not liking the rules."

These 1848 rules have not survived. It is possible that it is to these rules that W. C. Green, who attended King's College Cambridge between 1851 and 1854, refers in his published memoirs: "There was a Football Club, whose games were played on the Piece, according to rules more like the Eton Field rules than any other. But Rugby and Harrow players would sometimes begin running with the ball in hand or claiming free kicks, which led to some protest and confusion. A Trinity man, Beamont (a Fellow of his College soon after), was a regular attendant, and the rules were revised by him and one or two others, with some concessions to non-Etonians. Few from King's College ever played at this University game: about the end of my time there began to be other special Rugby games on another ground."

Cambridge Rules of 1856
In 1856, there was another attempt to draw up common rules. According to a letter written by F. G. Sykes in 1897:

"The Laws were drawn up in the Michaelmas Term of 1856, I believe. The meeting took place in W. H. Stone's rooms in Trinity College. Up to that time University Football consisted in a sort of general melée on Parker's Piece, from 1.30 to 3.30 p.m. [...] There were no rules. [...] When we met in sufficient numbers we chose two sides, and stragglers adopted the weaker side, or did as requested. The hand was freely used, everyone adopting his own view, until a crisis was reached in 1856, resulting in the drawing up of these rules. I never heard of an accident, and though the game was played vigorously, there was no violence, the ball being the objective, not the persons of the players."

It is notable that the players were initially playing with "no rules", implying that they were not making use of the earlier 1848 laws. Curry and Dunning suggest that "[t]he regularity with which new rules were issued at [Cambridge] indicates a probable lack of effectiveness in the 'laws'".

A copy of the 1856 Cambridge Rules survives in the library of Shrewsbury School: another copy, dated from 1857, was included by Sykes with his letter. The rules bear the signatures of ten footballers: two each from Eton, Rugby, Harrow, Shrewsbury, and the University of Cambridge. The rules allow the ball to be caught or stopped with the hand, but no other form of handling the ball is allowed. Holding, pushing, and tripping are all forbidden. The offside rule requires four opponents to be between a player and opponents' goal. A goal can be scored by kicking the ball "through the flag posts and under the string".

Cambridge Rules of 1863
In November 1863, a new set of rules was drawn up by a committee of nine players representing Shrewsbury, Eton, Rugby, Marlborough, Harrow, and Westminster schools. Unlike the earlier rules, this set was published in the newspapers, with an introduction stating that: "[i]t having been thought desirable to establish a general game for the University of Cambridge, the accompanying rules have been drawn up for that purpose. The first game will be played on Friday, Nov 20, at 2:15 p.m. on Parker's Piece. All members of the University who take an interest in the game, and are desirous of attending, can do so on payment of a subscription of one shilling per term."

Like the earlier 1856 laws, the 1863 rules disallow rugby-style running with the ball and hacking. Nevertheless, there are several differences between the two codes:


 * The 1856 laws had a "string" below which the ball had to go to score a goal, while the 1863 laws permitted a goal to be scored at any height.
 * The 1856 laws permitted players to catch the ball, while the 1863 laws forbade this.
 * The 1856 laws permitted a player to be onside when there were four opponents between him and the opponents' goal-line, while the 1863 laws had a strict offside law whereby any player ahead of the ball was out of play.
 * The 1856 laws had a throw-in when the ball went out of play over the side lines, while the 1863 laws had a kick-in.

There is little textual similarity between the two set of laws: in general the 1863 laws are longer and more detailed, but some details in the 1856 laws (for example, the stipulation that "[e]very match shall be decided by a majority of goals") are absent in 1863.

Influence on the Football Association laws
The publication of the 1863 Cambrige rules happened to coincide with the debates within the Football Association (FA) over its first set of laws. The first draft of proposed FA laws drawn up by its secretary Ebenezer Morley allowed rugby-style "hacking" and running with the ball. This draft was introduced by Morley and considered by the FA at meetings on 10 and 17 November 1863. A meeting on 24 November had been scheduled in order to "settle the laws of the [Football] association". The Cambridge Rules were published three days earlier, on 21 November.

The records of the crucial 24 November FA meeting note the following: "Mr, hon. secretary, said that he had endeavoured as faithfully as he could to draw up the laws according to the suggestions made, but he wished to call the attention of the meeting to other matters that had taken place. The Cambridge University Football Club, probably stimulated by the Football Association, had formed some laws in which gentlemen of note from six of the public schools had taken part. Those rules, so approved, were entitled to the greatest consideration and respect at the hands of the association, and they ought not to pass them over without giving them all the weight that the feeling of six of the public schools entitled them to."

This led to a proposal that the FA should form a committee to communicate with Cambridge on the subject. While it is not clear that any such communication took place, it did lead to the approval of the original FA draft (featuring hacking and running with the ball) being postponed until an additional meeting on 1 December. At this later meeting, the FA voted to forbid hacking and running with the ball, which were thus banned in the final version of the FA's 1863 rules. As the newspaper report of a later meeting put it, 'the appearance of some rules recently adopted at Cambridge seemed to give tacit support to the advocates of "non-hacking".' In addition to this influence, the text of the Cambridge offside law was copied almost verbatim into the FA laws, replacing the quite different text in Morley's first draft.

Subsequent developments
Cambridge University Football Club continued to play according to its own rules. In March 1867, it summoned a meeting at which it was hoped that "Oxford would agree with Cambridge in adopting a common set of rules", with the intention that these rules "would in time become widely adopted throughout the country". Curry and Dunning suggest that Cambridge's decision to revise its own set of rules, rather than using those of the FA, reflects "the relative weakness of the FA at that time". In 1869, the Cambridge club wrote to the FA suggesting a match between the two bodies, but insisted on playing its own rules, a condition to which the FA would not agree.

Cambridge University Football Club would eventually play by FA rules when it took part in the third edition of the FA Cup, in the 1873-4 season.