Many readers will have read or viewed on local television, or even attended the
re-enactment of Reading Football Club's first ever football match a couple of
weekends ago.
The game was played at Kings Meadow, the club's original ground, a far cry from its present home at the magnificent Madejski Stadium.
Before the game the players met the town's Lady Mayor who I'm sure echoed
the views of many spectators when she said afterwards, that she didn't realise
how much the rules of the game have changed.
It is true that every single one of the laws set down by the FA in 1863 has been altered but overall the principles
of the game have remained much the same.
It was fitting that the clubs first match should have been against Reading
School, for organised football in this country first started in the Public Schools.
The problem was that each school had its own set of rules, for instance the
Harrow Rules, copies of which still exist. This meant inter-school games were
impossible as there were at least a dozen different sets of rules in existence.
Attempts were made to standardise them, such as the Cambridge rules
emanating from Cambridge University.
This didn't satisfy everyone and in 1863 captains of various clubs met in the Freemasons Tavern in Lincolns' Inn in
London and formed themselves in the Football Association. They had one great
purpose, to frame a code of laws so that it would be possible for one club to play
another, no matter where they came from.
Their first set of laws was adopted in December 1863. There still wasn't complete uniformity for the Sheffield
Football Association had its own set of rules. It wasn't until April 1877 that the
two associations agreed on one uniform code of laws.
I would have one small dispute with the organisers of the re-enactment if I
heard right. They declared that to score a goal, it was not sufficient to get the
ball between the posts, it also had to be touched down. I can find no record of
this in any of the early rules and certainly not the ones that would have been in
force when Reading played their first match.
Originally the goal was just two upright posts. All the early laws I've seen said that a goal is scored when the ball
passes between the goal posts, at what ever height, not being thrown, knocked or
carried. A little later a tape was fixed which the ball had to go under for a goal
and this was eventually replaced with a cross bar. It was when the ball went over
the goal line outside the goal that players chased after it because who ever
touched the ball first had a free kick. This was the forerunner of a goal kick or
comer kick. Similarly if the ball went over the touchline whoever got to it first
had the throw-in from where the ball went out.
From a referee's point of view, it is interesting to note that none of the rules of
the Football Association or anyone else mentioned a referee. This is because in
those early days there wasn't one. The game was controlled by two umpires who,
when there was an offence, raised their sticks or staves. Occasions started to
arise when the two umpires couldn't agree, so someone was appointed to sit
outside the field on the halfway line, to whom the umpires refereed any dispute.
He became known as the referee. It was not until 1891 that the referee moved
into the middle of the field and assumed control with the two umpires becoming
linesmen.
The reason a referee was not needed at first was because it was not considered that any player would deliberately foul or cheat. Yes, Madam Mayor,
you are right, things certainly have changed.
Dick Sawdon Smith