The Cambridge Rules were a code of rules for football first drawn up at Cambridge University,

England, in 1848, by a committee that included H. de Winton and J. C. Thring. They are also notable
for allowing goal kicks, throw-ins, and forward passes and for preventing running whilst holding the
ball.[1] In 1863, a revision of the rules played a significant part in developing the rules that
became Association football.
The Cambridge Rules were a code of rules for football first drawn up at Cambridge University,
England, in 1848, by a committee that included H. de Winton and J. C. Thring. They are also notable
for allowing goal kicks, throw-ins, and forward passes and for preventing running whilst holding the
ball. In 1863, a revision of the rules played a significant part in developing the rules that
became Association football.
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.[4] Despite this and other decrees, football continued to be popular in Cambridge, as George
Elwes 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!"[5] 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.[6] 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.[7]
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. Maldenin 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.[citation needed]
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) [8]
This rule was subsequent adopted in essence by the Football Association in 1867, but weakening
from "more than three" to "at least three".[9] 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 codified 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' [10]
'They embrace the true principles of the game, with the greatest simplicity' [11]
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. [citation
needed]

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"[12][not in citation given] 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"[13]