From a regional to a national sport (1930–1958)

From a regional to a national sport (1930–1958)

In the early 1930s, the college game continued to grow, particularly in the south, bolstered by fierce rivalries such as the "Third Saturday in October"—a rivalry between Alabama and Tennessee. While prior to the mid-1920s most national powers came from the northeast or the midwest, the trend changed when Wallace Wade's 1925 Alabama team won the 1926 Rose Bowl en route to its first national title. College football quickly became the most popular spectator sport in the South. Several major modern college football conferences rose to prominence during this time period. The Southwest Athletic Conference had been founded in 1915. Consisting mostly of schools from Texas, the conference saw back-to-back national champions with Texas Christian University (TCU) in 1938 and Texas A&M in 1939.[30][31] The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC), a precursor to the Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10), had its own back-to-back champion in the University of Southern California which was awarded the title in 1931 and 1932.[30] The Southeastern Conference (SEC) formed in 1932 and consisted mostly of schools in the Deep South.[32] As in previous decades, the Big Ten continued to dominate in the 1930s and 1940s, with Minnesota winning 5 titles between 1934 and 1941, and Michigan (1933 and 1948) and Ohio State (1942) also winning titles. As it grew beyond its regional affiliations in the 1930s, college football garnered increased national attention. Four new bowl games were created: the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, the Sun Bowl in 1935, and the Cotton Bowl in 1937. In lieu of an actual national championship, these bowl games, along with the earlier Rose Bowl, provided a way to match up teams from distant regions of the country that did not otherwise play. In 1936, the Associated Press began its weekly poll of prominent sports writers, ranking all of the nation's college football teams. Since there was no national championship game, the final version of the AP poll was used to determined who was crowned the National Champion of college football.[34]
The 1930s saw growth in the passing game. Though some coaches, such as General Robert Neyland at Tennessee, continued to eschew its use, several rules changes to the game had a profound effect on teams' ability to throw the ball. In 1934, the rules committee removed two major penalties—a loss of five yards for a second incomplete pass in any series of downs and a loss of possession for an incomplete pass in the end zone—and shrunk the circumference of the ball, making it easier to grip and throw. Players who became famous for taking advantage of the easier passing game included Alabama receiver Don Hutson and TCU passer "Slingin" Sammy Baugh In 1935, New York City's Downtown Athletic Club awarded the first Heisman Trophy to Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger, who was also the first ever NFL Draft pick in 1936. The trophy was designed by sculptor Frank Eliscu and modeled after NYU player Ed Smith. The trophy recognizes the nation's "most outstanding" college football player and has become one of the most coveted awards in all of American sports.[36]
During World War II, college football players enlisted in the armed forces. As most of these players had eligibility left on their college careers, some of them returned to college at West Point, bringing Army back-to-back national titles in 1944 and 1945 under coach Red Blaik. Doc Blanchard (known as "Mr. Inside") and Glenn Davis (known as "Mr. Outside") both won the Heisman Trophy, in 1945 and 1946 respectively. On the coaching staff of those 1944–1946 Army teams was future Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi.[33][37]
The 1950s saw the rise of yet more dynasties and power programs. Oklahoma, under coach Bud Wilkinson, won three national titles (1950, 1955, 1956) and all ten Big Eight Conference championships in the decade while building a record 47 game winning streak. Woody Hayes led Ohio State to two national titles, in 1954 and 1957, and dominated the Big Ten conference, winning three Big Ten titles—more than any other school. Wilkinson and Hayes, along with Robert Neyland of Tennessee, oversaw a revival of the running game in the 1950s. Passing numbers dropped from an average of 18.9 attempts in 1951 to 13.6 attempts in 1955, while teams averaged just shy of 50 running plays per game. Nine out of ten Heisman trophy winners in the 1950s were runners. Notre Dame, one of the biggest passing teams of the decade, saw a substantial decline in success; the 1950s were the only decade between 1920 and 1990 when the team did not win at least a share of the national title. Paul Hornung, Notre Dame quarterback, did however win the Heisman in 1956, becoming the only player from a losing team ever to do so

Modern college football (1958–present)

Following the enormous television success of the National Football League's 1958 championship game, college football no longer enjoyed the same popularity as the NFL, at least on a national level. While both games benefited from the advent of television, since the late 1950s, the NFL has become a nationally popular sport while college football has maintained strong regional ties.

As professional football became a national television phenomenon, college football did as well. In the 1950s, Notre Dame, which had a large national following, formed its own network to broadcast its games, but by and large the sport still retained a mostly regional following. In 1952, the NCAA claimed all television broadcasting rights for the games of its member institutions, and it alone negotiated television rights. This situation continued until 1984, when several schools brought a suit under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act; the Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA and schools are now free to negotiate their own television deals. ABC Sports began broadcasting a national Game of the Week in 1966, bringing key matchups and rivalries to a national audience for the first time.[43]
New formations and play sets continued to be developed. Emory Bellard, an assistant coach under Darrell Royal at the University of Texas, developed a three-back option style offense known as the wishbone. The wishbone is a run-heavy offense that depends on the quarterback making last second decisions on when and to whom to hand or pitch the ball to. Royal went on to teach the offense to other coaches, including Bear Bryant at Alabama, Chuck Fairbanks at Oklahoma and Pepper Rodgers at UCLA; who all adapted and developed it to their own tastes.[44] The strategic opposite of the wishbone is the spread offense, developed by professional and college coaches throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Though some schools play a run-based version of the spread, its most common use is as a passing offense designed to "spread" the field both horizontally and vertically.

Growth of bowl games

In 1940, there were only five bowl games (Rose, Orange, Sugar, Sun, and Cotton). By 1950, three more had joined that number and in 1970, there were still only eight. The number grew to eleven in 1976. At the birth of cable television and cable sports networks like ESPN, there were fifteen bowls in 1980. With more national venues and increased available revenue, the bowls saw an explosive growth throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In the twenty years from 1960 to 1980, seven bowl games were added to the schedule. From 1980 to 2006, an additional 17 bowl games were added to the schedule.[46][47] Some have criticized this growth, claiming that the increased number of games has diluted the significance of playing in a bowl game. Yet others have countered that the increased number of games has increased exposure and revenue for a greater number of schools, and see it as a positive development.[48]
With the growth of bowl games, it became difficult to determine a national champion in a fair and equitable manner. As conferences became contractually bound to certain bowl games (a situation known as a tie-in), match-ups that guaranteed a consensus national champion became increasingly rare. In 1992, seven conferences and independent Notre Dame formed the Bowl Coalition, which attempted to arrange an annual #1 versus #2 matchup based on the final AP poll standings. The Coalition lasted for three years, however several scheduling issues prevented much success; tie-ins still took precedence in several cases. For example the Big Eight and SEC champions could never meet, since they were contractually bound to different bowl games. The coalition also excluded the Rose Bowl, arguably the most prestigious game in the nation, and two major conferences—the Pac-10 and Big Ten—meaning that it had limited success. In 1995, the Coalition was replaced by the Bowl Alliance, which reduced the number of bowl games to host a national champion to three—the Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange Bowls—and the participating conferences to five—the ACC, SEC, Southwest, Big Eight, and Big East. It was agreed that the #1 and #2 ranked teams gave up their prior bowl tie-ins and were guaranteed to meet in the national championship game, which rotated between the three participating bowls. The system still did not include the Big Ten, Pac-10, or the Rose Bowl, and thus still lacked the legitimacy of a true national championship

Bowl Championship Series

In 1998, a new system was put into place, the Bowl Championship Series. For the first time, it included all major conferences (ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10, and SEC) and all four major bowl games (Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta). The champions of these six conferences, along with two "at-large" selections, were invited to play in the four bowl games. Each year, one of the four bowl games served as a national championship game. Also, a complex system of human polls, computer rankings, and strength of schedule calculations was instituted to rank schools. Based on this ranking system, the #1 and #2 teams met each year in the national championship game. Traditional tie-ins were maintained for schools and bowls not part of the national championship. For example, in years when not a part of the national championship, the Rose Bowl still hosted the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions.[49]
The system continued to change, as the formula for ranking teams was tweaked from year to year. At-large teams could be chosen from any of the Division I conferences, though only one selection—Utah in 2005—came from a non-BCS affiliated conference. Starting with the 2006 season, a fifth game—simply called the BCS National Championship Game—was added to the schedule, to be played at the site of one of the four BCS bowl games on a rotating basis, one week after the regular bowl game. This opened up the BCS to two additional at-large teams. Also, rules were changed to add the champions of five additional conferences (Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference and the Western Athletic Conference), provided that said champion ranked in the top twelve in the final BCS rankings

Professional football

In the early twentieth century, football began to catch on among the general population of the United States and was the subject of intense competition and rivalry, albeit of a localized nature. Although payments to players were considered unsporting and dishonorable at the time, a Pittsburgh area club, the Allegheny Athletic Association, surreptitiously hired former Yale All-American guard William "Pudge" Heffelfinger. On November 12, 1892, Heffelfinger became the first known professional football player. He was paid $500 to play in a game against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. Heffelfinger picked up a Pittsburgh fumble and ran 35 yards for a touchdown, winning the game 4–0 for Allegheny. Although observers held suspicions, the payment remained a secret for years.[50][51][3][4]
On September 3, 1895 the first wholly professional game was played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club. Latrobe won the contest 12–0.[3][4] In 1897, the Latrobe Athletic Association paid all of its players for the whole season, becoming the first fully professional football team. In 1899, the Morgan Athletic Club, on the South side of Chicago, was founded. This team later became the Chicago Cardinals, and now is known as the Arizona Cardinals, making them the oldest continuously operating professional football team.[4]
The first known professional football league, known as the National Football League (not the same as the modern league) began play in 1902 with teams from the Mid Atlantic region. Several baseball clubs formed football teams to play in the league, including the Philadelphia Athletics and the Philadelphia Phillies. A five-team tournament, known as the World Series of Football was organized by the league. The league and the World Series only lasted two seasonsThe game moved west into Ohio which became the center of professional football during the early decades of the twentieth century. Small towns such as Massillon, Akron, Portsmouth, and Canton all supported professional teams. In 1915, the Canton Bulldogs signed former Olympian and Carlisle Indian School standout Jim Thorpe to a contract. Thorpe became the face of professional football for the next several years and was present at the founding of the National Football League five years later

History of American football

History of American football

The history of American football, the most popular spectator sport in the United States,[1] can be traced to early versions of rugby football. Both games have their origin in varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, in which a ball is kicked at a goal and/or run over a line.
American football resulted from several major divergences from rugby football, most notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp, considered the "Father of American Football". Among these important changes were the introduction of the line of scrimmage and of down-and-distance rules.[2][3][4] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, gameplay developments by college coaches such as Amos Alonzo Stagg, Knute Rockne, and Glenn "Pop" Warner helped take advantage of the newly introduced forward pass. The popularity of collegiate football grew as it became the dominant version of the sport for the first half of the twentieth century. Bowl games, a college football tradition, attracted a national audience for collegiate teams. Bolstered by fierce rivalries, college football still holds widespread appeal in the US.
The origin of professional football can be traced back to 1892, with William "Pudge" Heffelfinger's $500 contract to play in a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. In 1920 the American Professional Football Association was formed. This league changed its name to the National Football League (NFL) two years later, and eventually became the major league of American football. Primarily a sport of Midwestern, industrial towns in the United States, professional football eventually became a national phenomenon. Football's increasing popularity is usually traced to the 1958 NFL Championship Game, a contest that has been dubbed the "Greatest Game Ever Played". A rival league to the NFL, the American Football League (AFL), began play in 1960; the pressure it put on the senior league led to a merger between the two leagues and the creation of the Super Bowl, which has become the most watched television event in the United States on an annual basis

Early years

First games
Although there are mentions of Native Americans playing ball games, modern American football has its origins in traditional ball games played at villages and schools in Europe for many centuries before America was settled by Europeans. There are reports of early settlers at Jamestown, Virginia playing games with inflated balls in the early 17th century.
As is the case with many sports, football-like games were popularized in the USA by students at and/or from elite schools and universities. These appear to have had much in common with the traditional "mob football" played in England, especially on Shrove Tuesday. The games remained largely unorganized until the 19th century, when intramural games of football began to be played on college campuses. Each school played its own variety of football. Princeton students played a game called "ballown" as early as 1820. A Harvard tradition known as "Bloody Monday" began in 1827, which consisted of a mass ballgame between the freshman and sophomore classes. Dartmouth played its own version called "Old division football", the rules of which were first published in 1871, though the game dates to at least the 1830s. All of these games, and others, shared certain commonalities. They remained largely "mob" style games, with huge numbers of players attempting to advance the ball into a goal area, often by any means necessary. Rules were simple and violence and injury were common.[5][6] The violence of these mob-style games led to widespread protests and a decision to abandon them. Yale, under pressure from the city of New Haven, banned the play of all forms of football in 1860, while Harvard followed suit in 1861.[5]

"Boston game"

While the game was being banned in colleges, it was growing in popularity in various New England prep schools. In 1855, manufactured inflatable balls were introduced. These were much more regular in shape than the handmade balls of earlier times, making kicking and carrying easier. Two general types of football had evolved by this time: "kicking" games and "running" (or "carrying") games. A hybrid of the two, known as the "Boston game", was played by a group known as the Oneida Football Club. The club, considered by some historians as the first formal football club in the United States, was formed in 1862 by schoolboys who played the "Boston game" on Boston Common. They played mostly among themselves, though they organized a team of non-members to play a game in November 1863, which the Oneidas won easily. The game caught the attention of the press, and the "Boston game" continued to spread throughout the 1860s.[5][7]
The game began to return to college campuses by the late 1860s. Yale, Princeton, Rutgers, and Brown all began playing "kicking" game during this time. In 1867, Princeton used rules based on those of the English Football Association.[5] A "running game", resembling rugby, was taken up by the Montreal Football Club in Canada in 1868.[3]

Rutgers v. Princeton (1869)

On November 6, 1869, Rutgers University faced Princeton University in a game that is often regarded as the first game of intercollegiate football.[3][4][5][8] The game was played at a Rutgers field under Rutgers rules. Two teams of 25 players attempted to score by kicking the ball into the opposing team's goal. Throwing or carrying the ball was not allowed. The first team to reach six goals was declared the winner. Rutgers crossed the line first and went on to win by a score of six to four. A rematch was played at Princeton a week later under Princeton rules (one notable difference was the awarding of a "free kick" to any player that caught the ball on the fly). Princeton won that game by a score of eight to zero. Columbia joined the series in 1870, and by 1872 several schools were fielding intercollegiate teams, including Yale and Stevens Institute of Technology.[5]

Rules standardization (1873–1880)

On October 19, 1873, representatives from Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Rutgers met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City to codify the first set of intercollegiate football rules. Prior to this meeting, each school had its own set of rules and games were usually played using the home team's own particular code. At this meeting, a list of rules, based more on soccer than on rugby, was drawn up for intercollegiate football games.[5]
Harvard, which played the "Boston game", a version of football that allowed carrying, refused to attend this rules conference and continued to play under its own code. Harvard's voluntary absence from the meeting made it hard for them to schedule games against other American universities, so it agreed to play McGill University, from Montréal, in a two-game series. The McGill team traveled to Cambridge to meet Harvard in a game played under "Boston" rules, followed by a game of rugby. On May 14, 1874, the "Boston"-style game, was won easily by Harvard. The next day, the two teams played rugby to a scoreless tie, quite a feat considering that the Harvard team was unfamiliar with the game Harvard quickly took a liking to the rugby game, and its use of the touchdown which, until that time, was not used in American football. In late 1874, the Harvard team traveled to Montréal to play McGill in rugby, and won by three touchdowns. A year later, on June 4, 1875, Harvard faced Tufts University in the first game between two American colleges played under rules similar to the McGill/Harvard contest.[9] The first edition of The Game—the annual contest between Harvard and Yale—was played on November 13, 1875, under a modified set of rugby rules known as "The Concessionary Rules". Yale lost 4 to 0, but found that it too preferred the rugby style game. Spectators from Princeton carried the game back home, where it also became popular.[5]
On November 23, 1876, representatives from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia met at the Massasoit House in Springfield, Massachusetts to standardize a new code of rules based on the rugby game first introduced to Harvard by McGill University in 1874. The rules were based largely on the Rugby Union Code from England, though one important difference was the replacement of a kicked goal with a touchdown as the primary means of scoring. Three of the schools—Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton—formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, as a result of the meeting. Yale did not join the group until 1879, due to an early disagreement about the number of players per team

Walter Camp: Father of American football

Walter Camp is widely considered to be the most important figure in the development of American football.[2][3][4] As a youth, he excelled in sports like track, baseball, and soccer, and after enrolling at Yale in 1876, he earned varsity honors in every sport the school offered.[2]
Camp became a fixture at the Massasoit House conventions where rules were debated and changed. He proposed his first rule change at the first meeting he attended in 1878: a reduction from fifteen players to eleven. The motion was rejected at that time but passed in 1880. The effect was to open up the game and emphasize speed over strength. Camp's most famous change, the establishment of the line of scrimmage and the snap from center to quarterback, was also passed in 1880. Originally, the snap was executed with the foot of the center. Later changes made it possible to snap the ball with the hands, either through the air or by a direct hand-to-hand pass.[2]
Camp's new scrimmage rules revolutionized the game, though not always as intended. Princeton, in particular, used scrimmage play to slow the game, making incremental progress towards the end zone during each down. Rather than increase scoring, which had been Camp's original intent, the rule was exploited to maintain control of the ball for the entire game, resulting in slow, unexciting contests. At the 1882 rules meeting, Camp proposed that a team be required to advance the ball a minimum of five yards within three downs. These down-and-distance rules, combined with the establishment of the line of scrimmage, transformed the game from a variation of rugby or soccer into the distinct sport of American football.[2]
Camp was central to several more significant rule changes that came to define American football. In 1881, the field was reduced in size to its modern dimensions of 120 by 53 1/3 yards (109.7 by 48.8 meters). Several times in 1883, Camp tinkered with the scoring rules, finally arriving at four points for a touchdown, two points for kicks after touchdowns, two points for safeties, and five for field goals. In 1887, gametime was set at two halves of 45 minutes each. Also in 1887, two paid officials—a referee and an umpire—were mandated for each game. A year later, the rules were changed to allow tackling below the waist, and in 1889, the officials were given whistles and stopwatches.[2]
After leaving Yale in 1882, Camp was employed by the New Haven Clock Company until his death in 1925. Though no longer a player, he remained a fixture at annual rules meetings for most of his life, and he personally selected an annual All-American team every year from 1898 through 1924. The Walter Camp Foundation continues to select All-American teams in his honor.[10]

Expansion (1880–1904)

College football expanded greatly during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. In 1880, only eight universities fielded intercollegiate teams,[11] but by 1900, the number had expanded to 43.[12] Several major rivalries date from this time period, including Army-Navy (1890), Minnesota-Wisconsin (1890), the Border Showdown between Kansas-Missouri (1891), California-Stanford's Big Game (football) (1892), the Iron Bowl between Alabama-Auburn (1893), Michigan-Ohio State (1897). In 1879, the University of Michigan became the first team west of Pennsylvania to establish a college football team. Other Midwestern schools soon followed suit, including the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Minnesota. The nation's first college football league, the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives (also known as the Western Conference), a precursor to the Big Ten Conference, was founded in 1895.[13]
Led by legendary coach Fielding Yost, Michigan became the first "western" national power. From 1901 to 1905, Michigan had a 56-game undefeated streak that included a 1902 trip to play in the first college football post-season game, the Rose Bowl. During this streak, Michigan scored 2,831 points while allowing only 40.[14] Another legendary coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg of the University of Chicago, spent most of his career in the Western Conference. He coached first at the Springfield International YMCA Training School, then Chicago, and later at the University of the Pacific for a record total of 57 years. As of 2007, he still ranked seventh on the list of winningest football coaches of all time, with 314 wins

Violence and controversy (1905)

From its earliest days as a mob game, football was a violent sport.[5] The 1894 Harvard-Yale game, known as the "Hampden Park Blood Bath", resulted in crippling injuries for four players; the contest was suspended until 1897. The annual Army-Navy game was suspended from 1894–1898 for similar reasons.[16] One of the major problems was the popularity of mass-formations like the flying wedge, in which a large number of offensive players charged as a unit against a similarly arranged defense. The resultant collisions often led to serious injuries and sometimes even death.[17]
The situation came to a head in 1905 when there were 19 fatalities nationwide. President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to shut the game down if drastic changes were not made. One rule change introduced in 1905, devised to open up the game and reduce injury, was the introduction of the legal forward pass. Though it was underutilized for years, this proved to be the last—and one of the most important—rule changes in the establishment of the modern game.[18] On December 28, 1905, 62 schools met in New York City to discuss rule changes to make the game safer. As a result of this meeting, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, later named the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), was formed.

Modernization and innovation (1906–1930)

After the 1905–1906 reforms, which made mass formation plays illegal and forward passes legal, several coaches emerged who took advantage of these sweeping changes. Amos Alonzo Stagg introduced such innovations as the huddle, the tackling dummy, and the pre-snap shift.[20] Other coaches, such as Pop Warner and Knute Rockne, introduced new strategies that still remain part of the game.
Besides these coaching innovations, several rules changes during the first third of the twentieth century had a profound impact on the game, mostly in opening up the passing game. In 1914, the first roughing-the-passer penalty was implemented. In 1918, the rules on eligible receivers were loosened to allow eligible players to catch the ball anywhere on the field—previously strict rules were in place only allowing passes to certain areas of the field.[21] Scoring rules also changed during this time: field goals were lowered to three points in 1909[4] and touchdowns raised to six points in 1912.[22]
Star players that emerged in the early twentieth century include Jim Thorpe, Red Grange, and Bronko Nagurski; these three made the transition to the fledgling NFL and helped turn it into a successful league. Sportswriter Grantland Rice helped popularize the sport with his poetic descriptions of games and colorful nicknames for the game's biggest players, including Grange, whom he dubbed "The Galloping Ghost," Notre Dame's "Four Horsemen" backfield, and Fordham University's linemen, known as the "Seven Blocks of Granite".[23]

Pop Warner

Glenn "Pop" Warner coached at several schools throughout his career, including the University of Georgia, Cornell University, University of Pittsburgh, Stanford University, and the Temple University.[24] One of his most famous stints was at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where he coached Jim Thorpe, who went on to become the first president of the National Football League, an Olympic Gold Medalist, and is widely considered one of the best overall athletes in history.[25][26] Warner wrote one of the first important books of football strategy, Football for Coaches and Players, published in 1927.[27] Though the shift was invented by Stagg, Warner's single wing and double wing formations greatly improved upon it; for almost 40 years, these were among the most important formations in football. As part of his single and double wing formations, Warner was one of the first coaches to effectively utilize the forward pass. Among his other innovations are modern blocking schemes, the three-point stance, and the reverse play

Attempts to ban football games

Attempts to ban football games

Numerous attempts have been made throughout history to ban various kinds of football games, particularly the most rowdy and disruptive forms. These attempts were most common in Medieval and early modern Europe, especially in England, where a multitude of forms of folk or mob football were popular, among and between villages and urban districts.
Between 1314 and 1667, football was officially banned in England alone by more than 30 royal and local laws. King Edward II was so troubled by the unruliness of football in London that on April 13, 1314 he issued a proclamation banning it:
Forasmuch as there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls (grosses pelotes de pee} from which many evils may arise which God forbid; we command and forbid, on behalf of the King, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in the future.
The reasons for the ban by Edward III, on June 12, 1349, were explicit: football and other recreations distracted the populace from practicing archery, which was necessary for war, and after the great loss of life that had occurred during the Black Death, England needed as many archers as possible.
Football featured in similar attempts by monarchs to ban recreational sport across Europe. In France it was banned by Phillippe V in 1319, and again by Charles V in 1369. In England, the outlawing of sport was attempted by Richard II in 1389 and Henry IV in 1401. In Scotland, football was banned by James I in 1424 and by James II in 1457. Despite evidence that Henry VIII of England played the game — in 1526, he ordered the first known pair of football boots — in 1540 Henry also attempted a ban. All of these attempts failed to curb the people's desire to play the game.
By 1608, the local authorities in Manchester were complaining that:
With the ffotebale...[there] hath beene greate disorder in our towne of Manchester we are told, and glasse windowes broken yearlye and spoyled by a companie of lewd and disordered persons using that unlawful exercise of playing with the ffotebale in ye streets of the said towne, breaking many men's windows and glasse at their pleasure and other great inormyties.[1]
That same year, the modern spelling of the word "football" is first recorded, when it was used disapprovingly by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's play King Lear (which was first published in 1608) contains the line: "Nor tripped neither, you base football player" (Act I Scene 4). Shakespeare also mentions the game in A Comedy of Errors (Act II Scene 1):
Am I so round with you as you with me,
That like a football you do spurn me thus?
You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither:
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.
("Spurn" literally means to kick away, thus implying that the game involved kicking a ball between players.)
In the period following the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell had some success in suppressing football games, although they became even more popular following the Restoration, in 1660. Charles II of England gave the game royal approval in 1681 when he attended a fixture between the Royal Household and the Duke of Albemarle's servants.
During the 18th century, football was used as a political weapon by the lower classes. In 1740, "a match of futtball was cried at Kettering, of 500 men a side, but the design was to Pull Down Lady Betey Jesmaine's Mill's." And when a landowner enclosed the communal lands of peasants, they could retaliate by playing football on the enclosed lands. In 1764, 2,000 acres (8.1 km²) of land was enclosed at West Haddon, Northamptonshire. A game of football was called and after the kick off the mob set about tearing down and burning the fences amounting to £1,500 worth of damage. Dragoons drafted to halt the match were helpless.
Even in England's early modern era, efforts were made to ban football at a local level, and force it off the streets. In 1827, the annual Alnwick Shrove Tuesday game proceeded only after the Duke of Northumberland provided a field for the game to be played on. (The Duke also presented the ball before the match — a ritual that continues to this day.) In 1835, the British Highways Act banned the playing of football on public highways, with a maximum penalty of forty shillings. The very popular English women's football matches began in 1895 and were banned from FA grounds in 1921, stifling the game there for the following 40 years.

The Game (Harvard-Yale)

The Game (Harvard-Yale)

The Game (always capitalized) is a title given to several U.S. college football rivalry games, but most particularly the annual contest between Harvard and Yale. As of 2007, the Harvard Crimson and Yale Bulldogs have met 124 times beginning in 1875 – at a time when American football was evolving out of rugby. The Harvard-Yale game is played in November at the end of the football season, and the venue alternates between Harvard Stadium and the Yale Bowl. As of 2007, Yale leads the series 65-51-8. (For a list of games and results, see List of Harvard-Yale football games.)
The Game is the oldest and third-most-played college football rivalry, after The Rivalry between Lehigh-Lafayette and the Princeton-Yale game. In 2003, the rivalry was rated the sixth-best in college athletics by Sports Illustrated On Campus, after Army-Navy, Alabama-Auburn, Duke-North Carolina, UCLA-USC, and Cal-Stanford.

History

The first meeting of the teams occurred on November 13, 1875 at Hamilton Field in New Haven; Harvard won 4-0 by scoring four touchdowns and four field goals (at the time, a touchdown merely gave the scoring team the opportunity to gain one point by converting the field goal). This was the first intercollegiate football match between two U.S. teams (Harvard had played McGill University of Montreal the previous year, and acquired the rules of the game from that team; previous intercollegiate matches were played under the rules of soccer.) The rules that governed the early years of The Game were a modified version of the rules of rugby and made the game particularly brutal. In the second half of The Game of 1892, Harvard introduced the flying wedge formation, devised by chess master Lorin F. Deland, which so devastated Yale players that it was outlawed the following season (nevertheless, Yale won 6-0). After The Game of 1894, about which newspapers reported seven players carried off the field "in dying condition," the two schools broke off all official contact including athletic competition for two years. Since resuming in 1897, The Game has been played annually except during the First and Second World Wars. The first known reference to "The Game" occurs in an 1898 letter by former Harvard captain A. F. Holden (class of 1888) to Harvard coach Cam Forbes on the occasion of The Game being permanently moved to the end of the season ("it also makes the Yale-Harvard game the game of the season"). But capitalized reference to The Game appears to have been first made by columnist Red Smith in the late 1940s, and it first appeared on the cover of The Game program in 1960.
Yale ended its five-game losing streak against Harvard in 2006, winning 34-13 in the largest Eli victory of the last decade. Harvard's winning streak was third longest in the history of the series, after Yale's 1902-1907 six-game winning streak and Yale's 1880-1889 eight-game winning streak. Harvard's offense was held to 13 points, the lowest of its season, and Harvard's running back Clifton Dawson gained only 60 rushing yards. Yale tied with Princeton University for the 2006 Ivy League title.
In 2007, in a match-up of teams undefeated in the Ivy League, Harvard outplayed Yale to a 37-6 victory.

Significance

For many students and alumni of Harvard and Yale, The Game is an important event. The schools are located only a few hours' travel from one another; and, perhaps because they are among the nation's most prestigious (as well as being two of the three oldest), the rivalry is intense. Beating the rival is often considered more important than the team's season record. Furthermore, since Ivy League schools rarely participate in post-season football games, The Game is usually the final game of the season (except for 1919, when Harvard beat Yale 3-0 and went on to the Rose Bowl, where they defeated Oregon 7-6); since most Ivy League football players do not go on to professional careers in the sport (the league does not offer athletic scholarships), it is almost always the graduating seniors' final organized game.
The Game is significant for historical reasons as one of the first football games played between U.S. colleges. The rules of The Game soon were adopted by other schools, such as Rutgers and Princeton, which had been playing soccer (i.e. Association Football) since 1869, making football the archetypal college sport. The schools that would become the Ivy League played a large part in the development of American football in the late 19th century; football's rules, conventions, and equipment, as well as elements of "atmosphere" such as the mascot and fight song, include many elements pioneered or nurtured at Harvard and Yale. For many years, The Game was also likely to determine the Ivy League championship, although recently it has been rare to find both schools enjoying a strong season simultaneously. The Game receives relatively little national attention today; most college football fans are more interested in games between larger institutions whose teams are made up of scholarship athletes, many of them bound for professional careers. The huge seating capacities of Harvard Stadium and the Yale Bowl, however, testify to the vast crowds that The Game still attracts although attendance at other games is much lower. Tickets for The Game generally sell out even in modern times when The Game is played at Harvard, as Harvard Stadium's seating capacity is less than half that of the Yale Bowl.

Trivia

In what is usually considered the best Game, in 1968, the Harvard team made a miraculous last-moment comeback, scoring 16 points in the final 42 seconds to tie a highly touted Yale squad. Yale was coming off a 16-game winning streak and its quarterback, Brian Dowling, had not lost a game he had started since the sixth grade. (Dowling was the inspiration for the character BD in Yale graduate Garry Trudeau's comic strip Doonesbury.) The tie left both teams 8-0-1 for the season, inspiring the Harvard Crimson to print the headline "Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29". [1] One of Harvard's offensive tackles was Tommy Lee Jones, later to find fame in Hollywood.
The Game is an inviting target for pranksters. The most famous exploit was carried out at Harvard Stadium during the second quarter in 1982, when a Harvard score was immediately followed by a huge black weather balloon, previously installed under the 45 yard line by students from MIT as the letters painted on its side proclaimed, slowly inflating until it exploded, spraying talcum powder over the field (Harvard won, 45-7). On November 18, 1990, during the third quarter of The Game, MIT students carried out a less surreptitious assault by firing a rocket which hung an MIT banner over the goal post (Yale won, 34-19). During the pregame show in 1992, the Harvard marching band attempted to "X-out" the Yale Precision Marching Band while the Yale band stood in its traditional Y formation; however, the Yale band caught wind of this plan and, as the Harvard band marched onto the field, shifted its formation into a large H, thus making Harvard X itself out. In 2004, some Yale students impersonated the (non-existent) Harvard pep squad, handed out placards to some 1,800 adult Harvard fans, and alleged that by holding up the placards they would be spelling out "GO HARVARD." Instead, the signs spelled out "WE SUCK"[2]. Harvard won the game 35-3. In 2006, two streakers with MIT painted on their bodies attempted to run around the field during the game. One made it the length of the field before being caught and dragged off the field; the other was tackled by security about ten steps out of the stands.
The Game has also become known for the large, joint Harvard-Yale tailgate parties that run throughout The Game in the fields next to the host stadium every year. The tailgate party was even televised by ESPN in 2004. While most alumni who travel to The Game actually watch it in the stadium, most students and recent alumni treat the tailgate as their primary destination. The tailgate attracts thousands of students and has recently roused the concern of the Boston Police Department, who have cracked down on underage drinking at the student tailgates, as well as moving it further away from the stadium and reducing the space available [3]. This is significant, since, for many students, The Game is the social apex of the year. Considering the cost of getting up to The Game at Harvard, which is no longer subsidized by Yale, some Yale students are considering responding by boycotting Harvard-hosted Games in favor of the season's Yale-Princeton game [4].
The Little Red Flag is a Harvard pennant which, since 1884, has been waved by Harvard's "most loyal fan" after each score by Harvard during The Game. As of 2005, the honorary position is held by William Markus of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who attends every Harvard football game.
Counterfeit tickets for The Game were first discovered in 1891 when it was played in Hampden Park in Springfield, Massachusetts (Yale winning, 10-0).
Apocryphal tales assert that before the 1908 Game, Harvard coach Percy Haughton strangled a bulldog to death in the locker room to motivate his players. Whether this is true or not, Harvard did win 4-0, the culmination of a 9-0-1 season.
Harvard's 1875 victory marked its first national championship. Since then Harvard has also won titles in 1890, 1898, 1899, 1910, 1912, 1913, and 1919, while Yale has won 18 national championships: 1874, 1876, 1877, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1891, 1892, 1894, 1900, 1907, 1909, and 1927.

English public school football games

English public school football games

During the early modern era students, former students and teachers at English public schools developed many unique codes of football. The most well-known of these is Rugby football. British public school football also influenced directly the rules of Association football.
Private schools ("public schools" in the United Kingdom) are widely credited with three key achievements in the creation of modern codes of football. First, the evidence suggests that, during the 16th century, they transformed the violent and chaotic, but popular "mob football" into organised team sports that were beneficial to schoolboys. Second, many early references to football in literature were recorded by people who had studied at these schools, showing they were familiar with the game. Finally, in the 19th century, former English public school students were the first to write down formal codes of rules in order to enable matches to be played between different schools. These versions of football rules were the basis of both the Cambridge Rules and subsequent rules of The Football Association

History

14th century
That ball games were probably played at English public schools from earliest times is suggested by early references to such games being played by students at University. In later centuries there is no doubt that football games played at school were taken by former students to university. The earliest reference to ball games at English Universities comes from 1303 when "Thomas of Salisbury, a student of Oxford University, found his brother Adam dead, and it was alleged that he was killed by Irish students, whilst playing the ball in the High Street towards Eastgate".[1] The earliest specific reference to football (pila pedalis) at university comes in 1555 when it was outlawed at St John's College, Oxford. Similar decrees followed shortly after at Cambridge University

15th and 16th centuries

The first direct evidence that games probably resembling football were being played at English public schools—mainly attended by boys from the upper, upper-middle and professional classes—comes from the Vulgaria by William Horman in 1519. Horman had been headmaster at Eton (1485/6–1494/5) and Winchester College. His Latin textbook includes a translation exercise with the phrase "We wyll playe with a ball full of wynde". Even as early as 1519, Horman shows us that he was well aware of the value of sports to children's education and the need to temper their enthusiasm in order not to affect their studies: "There muste be a measure in gyuynge of remedies or sportynge to chyldren, leste they be wery of goynge to theyr boke if they haue none, or waxe slacke if they haue to many".[2]
This conflict was discussed further by Christopher Johnson who was headmaster at Winchester in the 1560s, but clearly remained a dilemma for public school masters right up to modern times. Christopher Johnson mentions the activities which he enjoyed when a scholar at Winchester himself between 1549 and 1553. He says that he: `cared much more for balls, quoits and tops than he did for books and school".[2]
Sir Henry Wotton who was at Winchester in the 1560s under Christopher Johnson makes reference to the English word "football" in one of his poems.
Richard Mulcaster, a former student at Eton College and later headmaster at Merchant Taylors' School (1561) and St Paul's School (1596) has been described as "the greatest sixteenth Century advocate of football".[3] He tells us that towards the end of the sixteenth century football in England had grown to "greatnes. .. [and was] much used ... in all places". Mulcaster's unique contribution is not only referring to "footeball" by its correct English name but also providing the earliest evidence of organised team football. Mulcaster confirms that his was a game closer to modern football by differentiating it from games involving other parts of the body, namely "the hand ball" and "the armeball". He referred to the many benefits of his "footeball" in his personal publication of 1581 in English entitled ‘Positions Wherein Those Primitive Circumstances Be Examined, Which Are Necessarie for the Training up of Children’.[4] He states that football had positive educational value and it promoted health and strength. Mulcaster's discussion on the merits of football was the first to refer to teams ("sides" and "parties"), positions ("standings"), the benefits of a referee ("judge over the parties") and a coach "(trayning maister)". Although it is not explicitly mentioned, passing of the ball is strongly implied by the reference to different positions on the field. Mulcaster describes a game for small teams that is organised under the auspices of a referee (and is therefore clear evidence that his game had evolved from disordered and violent "mob" football): "Some smaller number with such overlooking, sorted into sides and standings, not meeting with their bodies so boisterously to trie their strength: nor shouldring or shuffing one another so barbarously ... may use footeball for as much good to the body, by the chiefe use of the legges". As a result of his enthusiasm for the sport and his accurate description of the modern game Richard Mulcaster is considered the father of early modern football.
In 1591 it is clear that ball games were being played at Lyon's Free Grammar School in Harrow'. He says that "...upon Thursday only sometimes when the weather is fine, and upon Saturday, or half-holidays after evening prayer. And their play shall be to drive a top, to toss a handball, to run, or to shoot

17th century

There is evidence that team kicking games were being played in schools in other parts of Britain by the mid 17th century. In 1633 (cited in other references as 1636) David Wedderburn, a teacher from Aberdeen, mentioned elements of football games in a short Latin textbook called the "Vocabula". Wedderburn cites phrases that school boys might use during their game. The text below is given in two forms: Francis Peabody Magoun's 1938 original (and more literal) translation and then Marples 1956 version. It is noteworthy that Magoun does not use the word to "pass".
Let us choose sides//Let’s pick sides.
pick your man first//You have first choice.
Those on our side come here//Those who are on our side, come over here.
How many are against us?/How many are there in the other team?
Kick out the ball so that we may begin the game/Kick off, so that we can begin the match.
Come, kick it here/Pass it here.
You keep the goal/You keep goal.
Snatch the ball from that fellow if you can/Get hold of the ball before he does, if you can manage it.
Come, throw yourself against him/Go on, intercept him.
Run at him/Charge him.
Kick the ball back/Pass the ball back.
Well done. You aren't doing anything/Well done! You’re slacking.
To make a goal/To score a goal.
This is the first goal, this the second, this the third/This is the second, this the third goal.
Drive that man back/Keep him out, otherwise the other side wins.
The opponents are, moreover, coming out on top, If you don't look out, he will make a goal/If you’re not careful, he’ll score in a minute.
Unless we play better, we'll be done for/If we don’t play better, we’re done for.
Ah, victory is in your hands/Hi! You’re the winners.
Ha, hurrah. He is a very skilled ball player/Hurrah! He’s a very good player.
Had it not been for him, we should have brought back the victory/If it has been for him we should have won.
Come, help me. We still have the better chance/Come on, help me. We still have a better side?"
(The original Latin is cited by Magoun (1938): Sortiamur partes; tu primum socium dilige; Qui sunt nostrarum partium huc se recipient; Quot nobis adversantur; Excute pilam ut ineamus certamen; Age, huc percute; Tu tuere metum; Praeripe illi pilam si possis agere; Age objice te illi; Occurre illi; Repercute pilam; Egregie. Nihil agis; Transmittere metum pila; Hic primus est transmissus. Hic secundus, hic tertius est transmissus; Repelle eum, alioqui, adversarii evadunt superiores; Nisi cavesjam occupabit metam; Ni melius a nobis ludatur, de nobis actum est. Eia penes vos victoria est; Io triumphe. Est pilae doctissimus; Asque eo fuisset, reportassimus vicoriam; Age, subservi mihi; Adhuc potiores habemus, scilicet partes)
Wedderburn's Latin book is an early reference to what has been rendered in the second version of the translation as "passing" the ball. The word "passing" is not used explicitly: the original Latin states "huc percute" (strike it here) and "repercute pilam" (strike it back - or again). The original word translated as "goal" is "metum", literally meaning the "pillar at each end of the circus course" in a Roman chariot race. The sentence given as "intercept him" in the second translation above is translated in the original as "Throw yourself against him" (Age, objice te illi). There is a reference to "get hold of the ball before [another player] does" or to "snatch" it (Praeripe illi pilam si possis agere) suggesting that handling of the ball was allowed. It is clear that the tackles allowed included the "charging" and pushing/holding of opposing players ("Keep him out" above, "drive that man back" in the original, "repelle eum" in original Latin). This game is likely to have been similar to rugby football. Contrary to press reports in 2006 there is no reference to game rules, marking players, team formations, or forward passing. This text was described in 2006 as "an amazing new discovery" but has actually been well documented in football history literature since the early twentieth century and available on the internet since at least 2000. It confirms that organised football games in the seventeenth century were not confined to English Schools. (An earlier description of goals, defending goals and passing the ball comes from Carew's account of Cornish Hurling).
The next specific mention of football at public schools can be found in a Latin poem by Robert Matthew, a Winchester scholar from 1643 to 1647. He describes how "...we may play quoits, or hand-ball, or bat-and-ball, or football; these games are innocent and lawful. ..". That football at winchester was "innocent and lawful" at this time is very noteworthy.[5] This is strongly supportive of the fact that by the mid-seventeenth century football and other ball games in English public schools had been tamed. Nugae Etonenses (1766) by T. Frankland also mentions the "Football Fields" at Eton.
A more detailed description of football is given in Francis Willughby's Book of Sports[6], written in about 1660. This account is particularly noteworthy as he refers to football by its correct name and is the first to describe the following: goals and a pitch ("a close that has a gate at either end. The gates are called Goals"), tactics ("leaving some of their best players to guard the goal"), scoring ("they that can strike the ball through their opponents' goal first win") and the way teams were selected ("the players being equally divided according to their strength and nimbleness"). He is the first to describe a law of football: "They often break one another's shins when two meet and strike both together against the ball, and therefore there is a law that they must not strike higher than the ball". His account of the ball itself is also very informative: "They blow a strong bladder and tie the neck of it as fast as they can, and then put it into the skin of a bull's cod and sew it fast in". He adds: "The harder the ball is blown, the better it flies. They used to put quicksilver into it sometimes to keep it from lying still". His book includes the first (basic) diagram illustrating a football pitch. Willughby's link with the public school system was that he had studied at sutton coldfield school, was a student at Cambridge university and frequented the Bodleian library at Oxford university

19th century

By the early 19th century, (before the Factory Act of 1850), most working class people in Britain had to work six days a week, often for over twelve hours a day. They had neither the time nor the inclination to engage in sport for recreation and, at the time, many children were part of the labour force. Feast day football on the public highway was at an end. Thus the public school boys, who were free from constant toil, became the inventors of organised football games with formal codes of rules. These gradually evolved into the modern soccer and rugby games that we know today.
The boom in rail transport in Britain during the 1840s meant that people were able to travel further and with less inconvenience than they ever had before. Inter-school sporting competitions became possible. While local rules for athletics could be easily understood by visiting schools, it was nearly impossible for schools to play each other at football, as each school played by its own rules.

Rugby football

William Webb Ellis, a pupil at Rugby school, is said to have "showed a fine disregard for the rules of football, as played in his time" by picking up the ball and running to the opponents' goal in 1823. This act is popularly said to be the beginnings of Rugby football, but the evidence for this bold act does not stand up to close examination and most sports historians believe the story to be apocryphal. In older forms of football, handling the ball was allowed, or even compulsory; for example, the English writer William Hone, writing in 1825 or 1826, quotes the social commentator Sir Frederick Morton Eden, regarding "Foot-Ball", as played at Scone, Scotland:
The game was this: he who at any time got the ball into his hands, run [sic] with it till overtaken by one of the opposite part; and then, if he could shake himself loose from those on the opposite side who seized him, he run on; if not, he threw the ball from him, unless it was wrested from him by the other party, but no person was allowed to kick it.[7]
In 1845, three boys at Rugby school were tasked with codifying the rules then being used at the school. These were the first set of written rules (or code) for any form of football.[8] This further assisted the spread of the Rugby game.
During the early nineteenth century the Rugby school rules appear to have spread at least as far, perhaps further, than the other schools' games. For example, two clubs which claim to be the world's first and/or oldest football club, in the sense of one which is not part of a school or university, are both strongholds of rugby football: the Barnes Club, said to have been founded in 1839, and Guy's Hospital Football Club, reportedly founded in 1843. Neither date nor the variety of football played is well-documented, but such claims nevertheless allude to the popularity of rugby before other modern codes emerged.
The first inter-school match was played between Cheltenham College and Rugby school, surprisingly the victors being Cheltenham College, still a prolific rugby school. First played in 1864 the Clifton v Marlborough game lays claim to being the first inter-school Rugby fixture. The fixture continues today and the winning side is presented with the Governor's Cup. The Cup was once a polo trophy of the Governor of Jamaica.

Association football

Football had come to be adopted by a number of public schools as a way of encouraging esprit de corps, competitiveness and keeping youths fit. Each school drafted their own rules to suit the dimensions of their playing field. The rules varied widely between different schools and were changed over time with each new intake of pupils. Soon, a number of schools of thought about how football should be played emerged. Some schools favoured a game in which the ball could be carried (as at Rugby, Marlborough and Cheltenham). Others preferred a game where dribbling the ball was promoted (in particular Eton College and Harrow. This kind of dribbling foot ball with a tight off-side rule is still played today as the Eton field game. A third group including Westminster and Charterhouse pursued a game that excludeds handling the ball.[9] There is some evidence that this also became a passing game which importantly allowed the forward pass known as "passing on".[citation needed] The division into these camps was partly the result of circumstances in which the games were played. At Charterhouse and Westminster, both schools at the time played on restricted sites in London, the boys were confined to playing their ball game within the cloisters making the rough and tumble of the handling game difficult. Most of the founding members of The Football Association in 1863 were former schoolboys at these public schools. This led to a conflict in the way that Association Football should be played. Some committee members favoured the rules of Charterhouse and Westminster School and pushed for a passing game, in particular rules that allowed forward passing ("passing on"). Other schools (in particular Eton College and Harrow) favoured a dribbling game with a tight off-side rule (such that all players must remain behind the ball). By 1867 the Football Association had chosen in favour of the Charterhouse and Westminster game and adopted an off-side rule that permitted forward passing.[1] The modern forward-passing soccer game was thus born, as a direct consequence of Charterhouse and Westminster Football.

Contributions to the rules

[edit] Offside
Each of the English public school games had its own offside rule. Many of these completely prevented forward passing. The 1847 rules of Eton College, however, were probably the first to resemble the modern game, stating:
"A player is considered 'sneaking' when only three or less than three of the opposite side are before him and the ball behind him, and in such a case, he may not kick the ball."
This is noteworthy as it allowed players to receive a forward pass if more than three opponents were between them and the opponents' goal line.

Dribbling and passing

Dribbling and passing of the ball (including forward passing) are all parts of public school games. In addition, the introduction of the FA rules that allowed both dribbling and forward passing of the ball were instigated by former public school boys. These key elements of modern Association Football were taken from the various versions of public school football. Dribbling was a key part of the Eton game and passing, in particular forward passing ("passing on") was argued for by representatives of Charterhouse during the establishment of the Football Association rules in the 1860s[1]. These features of modern soccer had been integrated into the Football Association rules by 1867 and were the consequence of English public school games. Certain football historians correctly point out that the forward pass is not permitted in rugby football and therefore see the emergence of the forward pass as a critical development in the evolution of Soccer (and for this reason do not acknowledge the role of the public school games) They forget, however, that passing the ball forward by kicking is not only completely legal in Rugby but is a regular tactic employed in most matches particularly in open, running play. For this reason the public school games can claim to be origin of the forward passing game. Passing the ball continues to this day in surviving traditional public school football games. Even in Harrow Football, which is essentially a dribbling game, the ball may be chipped into the hands of a teammate [2]
Most notably the "Combination game" (the predecessor of the modern style of football involving a lot of player to player passing) is believed to have been invented by the Royal Engineers A.F.C. in the early 1870s.[10][11] Nearly all of these players were from English public schools.

The football season

Evidence for the establishment of the football season at English public schools comes in "Bentley's miscellany" (1844).[12] In a chapter entitled "Eton Scenes and Eton Men" the seasonal sports cycle is described thus: "Tamer boys play at cricket in the Summer and Hockey in the Winter; but the manlier youths pull in the boats during the Summer and play at Football in the winter". See also the quotation below which confirms that the football season began in Autumn. This is noteworthy because traditionally football had been played in England during Shrovetide.

Games between clubs

School football clubs (and other sports) were a central part of life at nineteenth century English public schools. In "Five years at an English University" (1852), American Charles Bristed describes his time at Cambridge University in the 1840s. During a discussion on Eton and Rugby School (drawn upon letters from former students there) he states: "[A boy is] proud of the house he belongs to as a man of his college; though in cricket and football clubs, in regular "long boats" and aquatic sweepstakes, in running and leaping races, he competes with the whole school, yet he belongs to a football club in the autumn, which includes the twenty or thirty boys boarding in his own house and thus matches are made between houses as between colleges".[13] Significantly this shows evidence of the first organised competitions between football teams not just within schools but between them. For competitions to take place between colleges it would clearly require some agreement over rules of the game. This necessity, combined with the availability of sufficient time and money to pursue the sport, was the driving force that led to the creation of modern football rules by people who had studied or taught at English public schools and universities. This quotation also points to the establishment in English public schools of the "football season" which to this day begins without fail in Autumn.