The Cambridge Rules were several formulations of the rules of football made at the University of Cambridge during the nineteenth century.
Cambridge Rules are believed to have had a significant influence on the modern football codes. The 1856 Cambridge Rules are claimed by some to have had an influence in the origins of Australian rules football. The 1863 Cambridge Rules is said to have had a significant influence on the creation of the original Laws of the Game of the Football Association.
Context
The playing of football has a long history at Cambridge. In 1579, one match played at Chesterton between townspeople and University students ended in a violent brawl that led the Vice-Chancellor to issue a decree forbidding them to play "footeball" outside of college grounds.History on Cambridgeshirefa.com (Archive, 8 July 2011) In 1631 John Barwick, a student at St John's College, broke the collar-bone of a fellow-student while "playing at Football". According to historian Christopher Wordsworth, football "was not, I think, played much in the [eighteenth] century" at the university. There is more evidence of the game in the early part of the nineteenth century. George Elwes Corrie, Master of Jesus College, observed in 1838, "In walking with Willis we passed by Parker's Piece and there saw some forty Gownsmen playing at football. The novelty and liveliness of the scene were amusing!" On the other hand, a former Rugby School pupil, Albert Pell, who attended Trinity College from 1839 to 1841, claimed that "football was unknown" when he arrived at Cambridge, but that he and his companions "established football at Cambridge", using the Rugby rules.
During the early nineteenth century, each school tended to use its own rules of football.Searby (1997), p. 668 These school codes began to be written down in the 1840s, beginning with Rugby School in 1845. When Cambridge students who had attended different schools wished to play each other at football, it was necessary to draw up a compromise set of rules drawing features from the various codes.Curry and Dunning (2015), pp. 63-64
1838–1842 Edgar Montagu, an old-boy of Shrewsbury School who attended Cambridge from 1838 to 1842, recalled in an 1897 letter: "I and six other representatives of the School made a Club, and drew up rules that should equalise the different game. [...] It was then we had two matches on Parker’s Piece".Curry and Dunning (2015), p. 64 In a later letter dating from 1899, he wrote: "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." The rules have not survived. On the basis of these letters, Curry and Dunning suggest that "the first Cambridge University Football Rules should, at present, be dated tentatively as having been constructed in 1838".
1846
According to N. L. Jackson, in 1846 "two old Shrewsbury boys, Messrs. H. de Wintonde Winton attended Trinity College between 1842 and 1846: A and J. C. Thring,Thring attended St John's College between 1843 and 1848: persuaded some Old Etonians to join them and formed a club. Matches were few and far between, but some were played on Parker's Piece. Unfortunately, the game was not popular at the 'Varsity then, and the club did not last long"..
Thring himself wrote in 1861: "in 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". No rules from this attempt at codification have survived.Curry and Dunning, p. 66
Green describes this development as "the first positive step to create an identity of views and a common code of laws [of football] acceptable to as many as possible", and laments the absence of a plaque "to commemorate this historic moment".Green (1953), p. 15
1848
Henry Charles Malden attended Trinity College between 1847 and 1851.. Son of Charles Robert Malden. In 1897, he wrote a letter in which he described his memories of creating a set of football rules at Cambridge in 1848. The letter was subsequently published by C. W. Alcock in an 1898 newspaper article:
Though the 1848 rules described in Malden's letter have not survived,Curry and Dunning (2015), p. 69: "The 1848 regulations, though we cannot be sure as no copy survives, may have been generally satisfactory for the players who reflected the balance of power among Cambridge undergraduates at that time"Green (1953) p. 16: "The tragedy, from the point of view of research, is that no copies exist of either the 1846 or 1848 rules, but from the following copy of the University Rules of circ 1856 a comparison can be made" [followed by a list of the 1856 rules]Even though no copy of the 1848 rules has survived, some sources describe the 1856 laws (see below) as the "Cambridge Rules of 1848". These include
The website for the Parker's Piece Public Art Commission () The monument installed on Parker's Piece in 2018 (see "Monument" section below)
Some other sources, such as Witty (1960), p. 143, assume that the 1848 rules must have been similar or identical to the 1856 rules, though the basis for this belief is unclear. they have attracted significant interest from historians of the game. Alcock commented that "Mr. Malden's account of the original movement in favour of a uniform code of football is of the greatest interest, from the fact that none has previously seen the light. [...] In any case, it certainly establishes the existence of a unified code fifty years ago". N. L. Jackson, writing in 1899, stated the rules described in Malden's letter "establish[ed] that the Association Game owes its origin to Cambridge University". It has even been suggested that the meeting that produced the 1848 rules "deserves to be remembered as much as [the revolutionary events of the same year in] Frankfurt, Paris, and Kennington Common".
Malden's claim that the 1848 rules worked "very satisfactorily" is doubted by Dunning and Sheard, on the grounds that a new set of rules had to be created in 1856 (see below). Peter Searby also suggests that while "[p]erhaps these rules were adopted for some games ... the variety of practice that Malden described in fact continued for some time".Searby (1997), p. 669 Searby cites the recollections of T. G. Bonney, who attended St. John's College from 1852 to 1856, that he "often ... played football on Parker's Piece, without uniform or regular organization"., also cited at Searby (1997), p. 670.
1851–54 Another reference to compromise rules appears in the published memoirs of W. C. Green, who attended King's College Cambridge between 1851 and 1854:Curry and Dunning (2015), pp. 67-68
1856
In 1856, there was another attempt to draw up common rules. Frederic G. Sykes, who attended St John's College between 1853 and 1857, described their creation in an 1897 letter published in a magazine for St John's College alumni:
Sykes was unaware of any compromise rules earlier than his own 1856 code (which he suggests might be "the first attempt at combination") and stated that before their enactment "University Football" had "no rules". 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'".Curry and Dunning (2015), p. 26
A copy of the 1856 Cambridge Rules survives at Shrewsbury School:Curry and Dunning (2015), p. 73 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 a free kick from a fair catch; otherwise the ball may be handled only to stop it. Holding, pushing, and tripping are all forbidden. The offside rule requires four opponents to be between a player and the opponents' goal. A goal is scored by kicking the ball "through the flag posts and under the string".
Use outside Cambridge In 1861, Forest Football Club (which would later become Wanderers F.C.), issued a set of printed laws based on the Cambridge rules of 1856 with a small number of additions.Witty (1960), p. 144 A notice, issued by the same club in September 1862, sought opponents for the upcoming season who would play "on the rules of the University of Cambridge".Harvey (2005), p. 73
1862
In November 1862, a football match took place at Cambridge between a team of Old Etonians and a team of Old Harrovians., as found at A set of rules, drawn up specifically for this match by a committee, mixed features of the Eton and Harrow rules, while being shorter and simpler than either:See and
all handling (other than "stopping" the ball) was forbidden, as in the Eton Field Game the dimensions of the ground, the width of the goals, and the terminology "bases" for goals, followed Harrow rules a player was offside unless four opponents were between him and the opponents' goal, as at Eton when the ball went out of play, the game was restarted with a kick-in, as at Harrow
The complexities of Eton's "rouge" tie-breaker and Harrow's free-kick for a fair catch were both excluded from the rules for this game, which ended in a draw.
1863
In October 1863, a new set of rules was drawn up by a committee of nine players representing Shrewsbury, Eton, Rugby, Marlborough, Harrow, and Westminster schools.The date of October 1863 comes from the introduction to the later 1867 Cambridge rules: see The following month, it was published in the newspapers, with an introduction stating:
Like the earlier 1856 laws, the 1863 rules disallowed rugby-style running with the ball and hacking. Nevertheless, there were 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, with a free kick awarded for a fair catch, while the 1863 laws forbade this (both codes allowed the ball to be handled to "stop" it). 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 awarded a throw-in when the ball went out of play over the side lines, while the 1863 laws used a kick-in. The 1863 laws awarded a free kick from 25 yards after a touch-down behind the opponent's' goal-line (somewhat similar to a conversion in present-day rugby), while the 1856 laws did not.
There is little textual similarity between the two sets of laws: in general the 1863 laws are longer and more detailed, but the 1856 rule that "[e]very match shall be decided by a majority of goals" has no equivalent in the later code.
The Field published a detailed report of a game played under these rules on Tuesday 1 December 1863. The author concluded that while "[w]e do not consider [the Cambridge rules] the best game that might be had, [...] it is a good one", and suggested that it could be adopted by some of the schools.
Influence on the Football Association laws
The publication of the 1863 Cambridge rules happened to coincide with the debates within the newly formed Football Association (FA) over its own first set of laws. At this time, some football clubs followed the example of Rugby School by allowing the ball to be carried in the hands, with players allowed to "hack" (kick in the shins) opponents who were carrying the ball. Other clubs forbade both practices. During the meetings to draw up the FA laws, there was an acrimonious division between the "hacking" and "non-hacking" clubs.