Football | Cambridge University Football Rules, [1863]

Football

Cambridge University Football [...] Rules. [Cambridge: n.p., ?October 1863] 

Printed leaflet, 4to (226 x 189mm), single bifolium ("Towgood's Extra Super" watermark), with introductory comments advertising an opening match on 20 November 1863, a list of nine committee members, and a series of 14 rules for the game, 3 pages plus one blank, creased, dust staining

A PREVIOUSLY UNRECORDED LEAFLET, BELIEVED TO BE THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF THE RULES OF FOOTBALL THAT FORMED THE BASIS OF THE FIRST RULES OF THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION. This leaflet publishes the set of rules for the game of football that were established by a committee in October 1863 for use at Cambridge University Football Club. Football had become increasingly popular in Cambridge over the middle decades of the 19th century, but it tended to be played by the very different rules of the various public schools. The 1863 rules were an attempt to bring consistency to how the game was played. Most notably, the club promoted a game that did not allow for the handling of the ball (Rule 13) and allowed only limited physical contact (Rule 14). This leaflet was printed for circulation around the university both to advertise the club and its next match, and to give players an opportunity to familiarise themselves with the new rules. 

Cambridge was one of the locations where the modern game of football was incubated, along with the city of Sheffield and certain public schools, so these new rules had an impact far beyond the university. The text of the leaflet was reproduced in the sporting paper Bell's Life in London on 21 November 1863, which ensured that the new Cambridge rules gained wider national notice. Hitherto, the Bell's text has been the only known appearance of the 1863 Cambridge Rules in print, but it is likely that the text in Bell's was set from a copy of this leaflet (which correctly names one of the committee as "H.L. Williams", rather than "H.L. William" in Bell's). These rules are important not just because they mark a step towards the modern game of football, but because of the fortuitous timing of their publication. In the last quarter of 1863 the newly formed Football Association established its own rules, and the Cambridge rules had a profound influence on the FA and thus on the future development of the world's most popular sport. Many of the original members of the FA played a much more physical game - exemplified by the game played at Rugby School - but the FA's first secretary, E. Morley, declared that the Cambridge rules "embrace the true principles of the game with the greatest simplicity". This was the opinion that triumphed and as a result the FA promulgated a game that largely followed the rules established in Cambridge, and which would go on to conquer the world. 

Leaflets promulgating early football rules are all exceptionally rare, unsurprisingly given their ephemeral nature. A unique copy of an earlier set of Cambridge University rules, printed in 1856, survives at Shrewsbury School. Those rules allowed the drop kick and did not specify the size of either the pitch or the goals. Two copies are known of the 1859 rules printed for the world's first football club, Sheffield FC, and both have been sold in these rooms (14 July 2011, lot 10 (part lot) and 20 July 2021, lot 141).