Passing (association football)
The
earliest reference to a game of football involving players passing the ball and
attempting to score past a goalkeeper was written in 1633 by David
Wedderburn, a poet and teacher in Aberdeen, Scotland. Nevertheless,
the original text does not state whether the allusion to passing as 'kick the
ball back' ('Repercute pilam') was in a forward or backward direction or
between members of the same opposing teams (as was usual at this time)
"Scientific"
football is first recorded in 1839 from Lancashire and in the modern
game in Rugby football from 1862 and from Sheffield FC
as early as 1865.The first side to play a passing combination game was
the Royal Engineers AFC in 1869/70 By
1869 they were "work[ing] well together", "backing up" and
benefiting from "cooperation". By 1870 the Engineers were
passing the ball: "Lieut. Creswell, who having brought the ball up the
side then kicked it into the middle to another of his side, who kicked it
through the posts the minute before time was called" Passing was a regular
feature of their style By
early 1872 the Engineers were the first football team renowned for
"play[ing] beautifully together" A
double pass is first reported from Derby school against Nottingham Forest in
March 1872, the first of which is irrefutably a short pass:
"Mr. Absey dribbling the ball half the length of the field delivered it to
Wallis, who kicking it cleverly in front of the goal, sent it to the captain
who drove it at once between the Nottingham posts" The first side to
have perfected the modern formation was Cambridge University AFC and introduced
the 2–3–5 "pyramid" formation.
Cambridge rules
In
1848, at Cambridge University, Mr. H. de Winton and Mr. J.C. Thring,
who were both formerly at Shrewsbury School, called a meeting at Trinity
College, Cambridge with 12 other representatives from Eton, Harrow,
Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury. An eight-hour meeting produced what
amounted to the first set of modern rules, known as the Cambridge rules. No copy of
these rules now exists, but a revised version from circa 1856 is held in the
library of Shrewsbury School. The rules clearly favor the kicking game.
Handling was only allowed when a player catches the ball directly from
the foot entitling them to a free kick and there was a primitive
offside rule, disallowing players from "loitering" around the
opponents' goal. The Cambridge
rules were not widely adopted outside English public schools and universities
(but it was arguably the most significant influence on the FootballAssociation committee members responsible for formulating the rules
of Association football).
Sheffield rules
By the
late 1850s, many football clubs had been formed throughout the
English-speaking world, to play various codes
of football. Sheffield Football Club, founded in 1857 in the English city
of Sheffield by Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest, was later
recognised as the world's oldest club playing association football. However, the
club initially played its own code of football: the Sheffield rules.
The code was largely independent of the public school rules, the most
significant difference being the lack of an offside rule.
The
code was responsible for many innovations that later spread to association football. These
included free kicks, corner kicks, handball, throw-ins and
the crossbar. By the
1870s they became the dominant code in the north and midlands of England. At
this time a series of rule changes by both the London and Sheffield FAs
gradually eroded the differences between the two games until the adoption of a
common code in 1877.
Australian rules
There is archival evidence of
"foot-ball" games being played in various parts of Australia
throughout the first half of the 19th century. The origins of an organized game
of football known today as Australian rules football can be traced back to 1858
in Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria.
In July 1858, Tom Wills, an Australian-born cricketer
educated at Rugby School in England, wrote a letter to Bell's
Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle, calling for a "foot-ball
club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during
winter. This is considered by historians to be a defining moment in the
creation of Australian rules football. Through publicity and personal contacts
Wills was able to co-ordinate football matches in Melbourne that experimented
with various rules, the first of which was played on July 31, 1858. One
week later, Wills umpired a schoolboys match between Melbourne Grammar
School and Scotch College. Following these matches, organized
football in Melbourne rapidly increased in popularity.
Wills
and others involved in these early matches formed the Melbourne Football
Club (the oldest surviving Australian football club) on May 14, 1859. Club
members Wills, William Hammersley, J. B. Thompson and Thomas H. Smith met with the
intention of forming a set of rules that would be widely adopted by other
clubs. The committee debated rules used in English public school games; Wills
pushed for various rugby football rules he learnt during his schooling. The
first rules share similarities with these games, and were shaped to suit to
Australian conditions. H. C. A. Harrison, a seminal figure in Australian
football, recalled that his cousin Wills wanted "a game of our own".
The code was distinctive in the prevalence of the mark, free kick, tackling,
lack of an offside rule and that players were specifically penalized for throwing
the ball.
The
Melbourne football rules were widely distributed and gradually adopted by the
other Victorian clubs. The rules were updated several times during the 1860s to
accommodate the rules of other influential Victorian football clubs. A
significant redraft in 1866 by H. C. A. Harrison's committee accommodated the Geelong
Football Club's rules, making the game then known as "Victorian
Rules" increasingly distinct from other codes. It soon adopted cricket
fields and an oval ball, used specialized goal and behind posts, and
featured bouncing the ball while running and spectacular high
marking. The game spread quickly to other Australian colonies. Outside of
its heartland in southern Australia the code experienced a significant period
of decline following World War I but
has since grown throughout Australia and in other parts of the world, and
the Australian Football League emerged as the dominant professional
competition.
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