Cambridge Rules - Cambridge University Football Club

Cambridge University Football Club

The playing of football had always been popular in Cambridge and in 1579 one match played at Chesterton between townspeople and Cambridge 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. Despite this and other decrees, football continued to be popular in Cambridge, as Dr G.E. 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!" A former Rugby School pupil, Albert Pell, was organising football matches at the university in 1839 but, because of the different school variations, a compromise set of rules had to be found and these are held to have been the origin of the Cambridge Rules. As a result of its role in the formation of the first football rules, Parker's Piece, Cambridge, remains hallowed turf for football fans and historians.

In 1846, H. de Winton and J.C. Thring, who had both attended Shrewsbury School, succeeded in making some old Etonians join them to form a football club at Cambridge University. Only a few matches were ever played, but in 1848 interest in the sport was renewed. The story of how the 1848 rules were formulated was related by Mr H.C. Malden in a letter dated 8 October 1897.

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. Well Sir, years afterwards someone took these rules, still in force at Cambridge, and with a very few alterations they became the Association Rules. A fair catch, free kick (as still played at Harrow) was struck out. The offside rule was made less stringent. "Hands" was made more so; this has just been wisely altered.

The creators of the Cambridge rules sought to formulate a game that was acceptable to students who had played various codes of public school football. The public school games included a wide range of rules, from the Rugby game (with ball handling and backwards passing) through the Eton game (which favoured dribbling and had a tight offside rule) to the Charterhouse football (that involved dribbling and whose representatives favoured rules permitting forward passing). The off-side rule adopted by the Cambridge rules stated that:

"If the ball has passed a player and has come from the direction of his own goal, he may not touch it till the other side have kicked it, unless there are more than three of the other side before him. No player is allowed to loiter between the ball and the adversaries' goal." (1856, probably earlier)

This rule was subsequent adopted in essence by the Football Association in 1867, but weakening from "more than three" to "at least three". This off-side rule, which permitted players to move in front of the ball opened the way to the subsequent development of the Combination Game.

The Cambridge Rules were the first formulated rules of football and the predecessor of modern Association Football. They were very influential in the creation of the modern rules of football drawn up in London by Ebenezer Cobb Morley for the Football Association, as shown in the following praise:

'The Cambridge Rules appear to be the most desirable for the Association to adopt'

'They embrace the true principles of the game, with the greatest simplicity'

A plaque has been mounted at Parker's Piece, Cambridge to document its unique role in the creation of modern football. It bears the following inscription:

Here on Parker's Piece, in the 1800s, students established a common set of simple football rules emphasising skill above force, which forbade catching the ball and 'hacking'. These 'Cambridge Rules' became the defining influence on the 1863 Football Association rules.

The Cambridge University Association Football Club also played a key role in developing modern passing football. The side is credited with "transforming the tactics of association football and almost single-handedly inventing the modern game" in 1882. Contemporaries described Cambridge as being the first "combination" team in which each player was allotted an area of the field and played as part of a team in a game that was based upon passing" In a discussion by CW Alcock on the history of a "definite scheme of attack" and "elaborate combination" in early football playing styles (including references to "Northern" teams, including Queens Park), Alcock states (in 1891): "The perfection of the system which is in vogue at the present time however is in a very great measure the creation of the last few years. The Cambridge University eleven of 1883 were the first to illustrate the full possibilities of a systematic combination giving full scope to the defence as well as the attack"