User:Grover cleveland/History of the laws of the game/J. C. Thring

John Charles Thring (11 June 1824 – 3 October 1909), known during his life as "Charles Thring", was an English clergyman and teacher, notable for his contributions to the early history of association football.

Life and early career
Thring was born 11 June 1824 in Alford, Somerset, where his father served as rector. . He studied at Winchester College, Shrewsbury School and St John's College, Cambridge, graduating as a Bachelor of Arts in 1847. The next year, he was appointed as an assistant curate to his brother Godfrey Thring at Alford-with-Hornblotton, Somerset. He was ordained deacon in December 1849. In 1857, he was appointed curate of Overton and Fyfield, Wiltshire. He married Lydia Meredith in May 1858.

In 1859, Thring was appointed Assistant Master of Uppingham School, joining his brother Edward who was headmaster there.

Shrewsbury
At the time Thring attended (1836-1843), Shrewsbury School played its own distinctive code of football, of which Thring later provided one detail: "the goals at one end of the field were marked on a wall". A later description of the game from 1863 shows it as disallowing all handling of the ball except for catching, and using an exceptionally wide goal of 40 feet, with a goal allowed to be scored at any height.

No record exists of football matches from Thring's time at Shrewsbury, but he is known to have played on the school cricket team in 1842 and 1843.

Cambridge
While at Cambridge, it seems that Thring was involved in an attempt to introduce a common football code. He 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."

This attempt recounted by Thring precedes by two years the Cambridge rules that were drawn up in 1848 between representatives of some of the same schools (a surviving copy of the rules from 1856 bears the signatures of men from Eton, Rugby, Harrow and Shrewsbury schools).

The Simplest Game
During his time as a resident master at Uppingham (1859-1864), Thring became intensely involved in efforts to create a common code of football. His interest seems to have been stimulated by the publication in the December 14, 1861 issue of The Field of an article calling for such a common code. Thring immediately responded with a letter criticizing the Rugby code in strong terms, referring to its allowance of "hacking" (kicking opponents' shins) as "a blot", "thoroughly un-English", and "barbarous". In its place, Thring urged the following as the "very first principles of football":


 * the ball should be kept on the ground as much as possible
 * players should be "always behind the ball" (Thring objected to the Rugby offside law as being too lax, since it allowed an offside player to rejoin play after an opponent touched the ball)

Thring went on to describe in some detail the features of his proposed game, which featured a round ball, a "barrel-shaped" playing area, a goal scored by kicking the ball under rather than over the bar, and an extremely strict offside law.

During the first half of 1862, Thring continued to engage in discussion of the merits of different rules of football via correpondence published in The Field. This culminated in his publication, in October of 1862, of a pamphlet entitled ''The Rules of Foot-ball: The Winter Game. Revised for the use of schools''. The pamphlet proposed a set of laws for what Thring called "The Simplest Game":

"# A goal is scored whenever the ball is forced through the goal and under the bar, except it be thrown by hand.
 * 1) Hands may be used only to stop a ball and place it on the ground before the feet.
 * 2) Kicks must be aimed only at the ball.
 * 3) A player may not kick the ball whilst in the air.
 * 4) No tripping up or heel kicking allowed.
 * 5) Whenever a ball is kicked beyond the side flags, it must be returned by the player who kicked it, from the spot it passed the flag line in a straight line towards the middle of the ground.
 * 6) When a ball is kicked behind the line of goal, it shall be kicked off from that line by one of the side whose goal it is.
 * 7) No player may stand within six paces of the kicker when he is kicking off.
 * 8) A player is 'out of play' immediately he is in front of the ball, and must return behind the ball as soon as possible. If the ball is kicked by his own side past a player, he may not touch or kick it, or advance, until one of the other side has first kicked it, or one of his own side, having followed it up, has been able, when in front of him, to kick it.
 * 9) No charging allowed when a player is out of play; that is, immediately the ball is behind him."

The extent to which Thring's laws were actually put into practice at Uppingham is not clear. Contemporary descriptions of Uppingham football seem to indicate a more rugby-like game than is suggested by Thring's rules:


 * in addition to the goal, the "bully" was a method of scoring.
 * the ball was oval rather than round.
 * the ball could be "carried" and "leapt upon".

Uppingham would eventually abandon its own rules for rugby in 1889.

Football Association
When the Football Association formed late 1863, Thring was an enthusiastic participant, sending multiple letters from Uppingham to the Association's secretary Ebenezer Morley. In a letter dated November 13, Thring wrote that Uppingham School was "extremely desirous of joining" the association. In another communication dated the following day, he promised to send the necessary subscription. These letters made a notable contrast with the generally negative attitude of other public schools (Charterhouse and Harrow had both refused to participate, Shrewsbury would subsequently do so, and Rugby, Eton and Winchester failed to reply at all).

Despite his enthusiasm, Thring was unsuccessful in persuading Uppingham School to participate in the Association. He wrote on November 20: "I am sorry to hear that Uppingham was not represented on Tuesday. They say the time is very inconvenient, but the fact is they do not like to do so, as all the other schools have refused, and there is talk of a school congress, which they hope to attend."

Thring also offered several suggestions as to the rules the FA ought to adopt. He advocated for the use of a crossbar (the FA's 1863 rules had none, permitting a goal to be scored at any height), and objected to the draft rules' allowance of hacking and carrying the ball. . The FA would subsequently remove hacking and carrying from its draft rules, under the influence of the Cambridge Rules of November 1863.

Thring also requested permission to print the FA's rules, along with his own and those of Cambridge, in a reissue of The Winter Game. He would go on to bring out this second edition of his work in December 1863.

Subsequent career and death
Thring continued to serve as master at Uppingham until 1868 or 1869,, but in 1864 he and his wife ceased to live at the school, instead residing at the Chantry House at Bradford-on-Avon. Thring later moved to Dunmow, Essex for the last decade of his life. He died there in 1909.

useful links

 * http://www.thring.co.uk/Victorian%20Grandmothers.htm#_ftn30