Limiting what constitues forward movement

From what I understand about the "little mark" it wasn't so much kicking to yourself, as kicking to a team mate who was virtually standing on your toes, thereby maintaining possession indefinitely. With bouncing the ball, you are right that the rule was basically silent on it - rather than something being specifically allowed. Fairly early in the piece, it was decided that there should be a limit to the distance that could be run with the ball. Why did this come about? Speculating on my part, it's easy to see the early forms of football as veering in two extreme directions: running games (rugby style), and kicking games (soccer style). In reality, no game ever existed going to the very extremes of those philsophies. Rugby appears to always have had some form of kicking in it, and the earliest rules of soccer allowed some handling under certain circumstances (the keeper being a vestige of what was once a bit more widespread). Likewise, both Australian Football and Gaelic Football never went to one or the other, and staying smack bang in the middle of the spectrum, it follows that you find elements of both philosophies being allowed to various degrees.

What you refer to as the "handpass rule" was not an original part of Australian (or Melbourne) rules football. The handpass was almost a loophole in the rules, which were that the ball could not be thrown, but it could be punched. I've assumed that this was originally intended to mean that the ball could be punched forward "on the hop" as it were, rather than when the ball was in a players possession. This seems to match the few descriptions which survive of the American game "ballown" where players moved the ball forward through kicking and using their fists. I'm not sure when any version of Australian Rules first refers to the hand pass specifically. I'm fairly certain the rules in the 1880's still don't mention it. Interestingly, Gaelic football's first rules from this time do specify the hand pass. In addition, the original Melbourne rules had no written limitations on the ball's movements. Players could carry the ball as far as they wanted in any direction, without bouncing the ball, and a mark could be awarded for any distance travelled. Both of these would be limited by rule changes. I think the bounce was introduced first, and then the "little mark" was abolished as players would just kick the ball to themselves (similarly to a gaelic football solo).

Calcio. Played in Florence.

To understand your last paragraph you have to understand the origins of football. I am currently researching a book on "the footballs" for want of a better term, and what is interesting in my research to date is that there is no clear evidence of the very origin of it - its not as cut and dried as people think, because virtually every culture on every continent has had a form of football - (eg the Tuscan costume game, French choule or soule, Italian Calcio, the Aztecs and Tlachtli, the Eskimos and Aqsaqtuk - Japanese, Chinese etc, to name a few) - so it is not possible to just assume that first there was soccer and then Bill picked up the ball and ran with it) - while he was doing that, the gaelics were running around in circles on a square feel with a round ball trying to decide whether they were playing soccer, rugby or Aussie Rules (well, something like that). However, your last point that the games started to become more organised in the 1800's is probably due to the fact that the era of puritanism in Europe stifled popular games for quite a long while, then the Industrial Revolution and better forms of travel and communication made it easier for games to be co-ordinated beyond the individual towns or villages. The more you look into it the more interesting it becomes.

I second what Gatesy is saying here (and love the tale of your mate taking a speccy - I defintely prefer being the one taking the hanger, than being the hangee!)

In the earliest days of modern games (2nd half of 19th century), the law makers did want a game that was good to play - but 150 years on, and the law makers these days definitely do have an eye for what is acceptable to spectators.

Agree! There is something highly satisfactory at being good at something within the bounds of the rules of the game. Even hackey sack has rules

Regarding offside rules/laws it seems that the larger the goal or goal-line the more restrictive are the offside rules. Rugby Union, Rugby League, and American Football all have a large goal-line which runs the width of the field but these codes have restrictive offside rules. Soccer has a narrow goal with a height limit and a goalkeeper with offside rules which I would consider to more liberal relative to Union/League/American Football. Australian Rules and basketball have narrow/small goals which allow for kicks/shots at goal to go above the reach of defenders, no goalkeeper, and no offiside rules. My guess is that the offside rules for all of these games evolved around the desire to create a balance between offense and defense which the rulemakers and players found created a fair contest for the attacking team to score and the defending team to organize itself to compete against the attacking side in possession of the ball. Not sure if any of these observations contribute to this discussion but I think it is worthwhile to take a step back and objectively scrutinize the rules of our favorite games which most just accept without a second thought because they've watched and played a game as it is all of their life.

..What I also forgot to say was that your article went a long way towards raising the bar in the overall standard of discussion of our sport, which is why we all love to be part of the Roar..! Congratulations, JB

JB - I don't think that you were thinking this through, properly (at least from an academically rigorous standpoint) - though your contribution was very timely and laudable. You can advance the ball forward in Rugby - you just have to keep in mind that the catcher has to start from behind - thus, we have a purely athletic contest. It means that the catcher or the gatherer has to be as athletic or more so than the kicker or the passer, who has to find his target with accuracy. When it works, it is sublime, and that is what we strive for. The two Rugby codes are basically all about two straight lines running into each other and finding opportunities to find breaches of the line - whether it be bash and barge or by more subtle means. If you allow forward advancement without the effort required to protect. (or creatively) breach that line, you dilute or cheapen the effect of the concept. AFL, it must be remembered is more of a "360 degree" game - ie the direction of play can be from anywhere in the circle (or the oval) that emanates from the mid point of the ground. This creates much different situational awareness in the players, who, in Australian football, understand the concept of being hit from behind, or the side, or, indeed, from someone jumping over your shoulder. (or climbing up your back) - I only ever played one game of Aussie Rules, and the first time that happened, I wondered what the hell it was all about. Rather be where I could see the hit coming!! One second thinking I was about to take this great mark, and next thing, I'm face down in the mud, because a Western Australian (now a great lifelong mate) knew how to do it.....!! The galling thing was that nobody cared, the game didn't stop, and I still had a face full of mud!! Give me the bottom of a ruck, any day! It is significant in Rugby that we talk about the "gain line" or the "advantage line" - this connotes a philosophy of the square or the rectangle and the direction of attack is always linear (post to post) rather than the AFL concerpt of the attack being any direction that achieves a means of advancing the ball in the next or subsequent play (Rugby 7's does understand that concept, as in that truncated form of the game, it is often necessary to send the ball backwards in order to go forward). But, in general, we are a one dimensional game and we don't need to complicate that by throwing the ball forward. Also, remember that a game of Rugby is basically a series (or a collage) of differing contests. We do this because the over-riding philosophy is that it is a game "for all shapes and sizes". Thus, the kick off is a contest in itself, the kick out, the line out, the quick throw, the tackle, the ruck, the maul, the pick and drive, the cut out pass, the kick to relieve pressure, the scrum, with all its issues, are contests, in themselves - I doubt whether you can show me any other game that encapsulates that ethos. Most have one or two contests that are palpable, Rugby has an almost limitless capacity to invent contests - and that is the essence of the beautiful game. However, your post was very welcome - it's that time of the year when stories literally fall out of the trees, the journos don't have to work that hard (therefore they don't) and controversy abounds. To have someone step up and write something that is purely theoretical is refreshing and I sincerely hope that all Roarers will take note, and I sincerely hope that more people will contribute more theoretical articles, because, after all, Rugby is as seminal as it is tactile.

Sounds like you should get out all your old files from 6N pre-2010 and set up an instrument to give you the occasional electric shock, to keep you awake. Field hockey used to have a more stringent o/s rule than football, but now has a more laissez-fare rule. Hockey only requires one player, usually the goalie, rather than two like football. It has made the game much more enjoyable to watch and much easier to officiate, and consequently less controversial. FIFA could do worse than go and watch the Kookaburras and learn. Field hockey also has a more sensible set up for officials, two instead of three, who rule from the sideline.

While you may all romanticise kicking around the tin football, in reality it was a boring game (can it be called a game?) that grew old quickly. It is like playing Chess with someone who doesn't know the rules, and decides any piece should be allowed to move into any square. Such games lose all meaning, have no tactics and therefore little interest beyond a medium for a young child's over imaginative fantasy world.

True you don't have to play man to man you can play zone - i'm just saying that these games are quite structurally different to the rugby codes for this reason. The battle for the midfield is actually something i like about all the football games (as opposed to basketball etc.) The end to end nature of basketball, to me, is somewhat tedious but of course that is just my opinion

Actually, marking is a potential outcome, but it's not necessarily the be all and end all - strategic options open up as to whether you guard space or players - that applies to both soccer and Australian Football, although with the latter, the key forward in the fwd 50 will have a defender standing him always, whether anyone else has an opponent will depend on the game plan of the opposition. With basketball, the court being so small, a defensive strategy is to all pile back to guard the key as soon as you lose possession, so that you are not necessarily marking the same player all the time. Similar thing happens in soccer when you "park the bus', or in Australian Football with the ultra flood.

I'm not necessarily against the changing of rules and yes changing them does allow different tactics but as I've said we can also see what these games with little offside look like in soccer, afl, basketball, netball etc as it leads to a marking game where you spend the entire game (or large chucks of it) next to someone of the opposite team as they are not going to let you occupy a section of the field unguarded. I'm also not saying there isn't marking in league or union (in the back line etc) but this is a very different beast I prefer the more Team against Team of the rugby codes, marking is one of the reasons i stopped playing soccer as an early teen and could never really like afl. Yes individualism could be more expressed with less rules about going forward but is this a good thing in what is essentially a team sport? In regards to offside in soccer, sometimes it can seem harsh and unnecessary but without it you would have players hanging around the goal so the defenders need to stay there, which leads to it being really easy for one team to get the ball down to the other end (as unlike afl someone can kick that far) and they'll just ignore the midfield and then we will have field basketball where the whole game is spent around either goal.

As children, we all invented games, the types and oject of the games being limited only by our imagination. We can also recall participating in fun activities that had no real end object, no score to maintain, often no other point than the joy of participating, joining in with mates, running yourselves ragged, having a laugh, and filling in long summer days. There's that commercial on Fox where the kids are kicking the squashed can, finally ending up with Harry Kewell. We've all played the kick a tin along game, be it squashed or left whole to slowly disintegrate from hours of kicking. A group of kids can easily while away an hour or two simply kicking and chasing the tin around the streets. No aim, no direction, no teams, no outcome, nothing. It's almost the modern day kids' form of folk football. As you imagine youself running down the streets, kicking the tin along with your mates, picture the sheer joy, the pleasure, the freedom, the complete lack of all care. How is it that we would intentionally leave something as pleasurable as that to then prefer to cofine and restrict our movements with a game with rule upon rule. Clearly, the modern forms of football are an adult construct, designed to put a box around, shape, and mould young impressionable minds. We've already heard about the military reasoning, and that is well documented. With that is the Victorian era urging for order, for a taming of chaos, for instilling young minds with a philsophy of having to follow rules for the rest of their lives. Also, figures of authority, teachers and other pillars of society, do not want young people turning public places into their private playing fields. It's an attitude that continues to this day: the councils will build a skate park to discourage skaters from knocking over shoppers in a mall, etc, etc Also, adding the concept of scoring fits in with the Adam Smith view of the world: that competition shapes everything, that we need to learn to compete to survive in a world that only awards winners. The philosophy remains with us to this day. So we discover that it's a range of peripheral philsophies, which have very little to do with sport per se, which start to mould the sports we now all follow. With time, sporting bodies will take these concepts of marked fields of play, with goals at either end, learning to sell that concept to a paying public, willing to sit on the other side of the boundary and watch. It's easy to see that if the concept of kicking the tin along the streets had remained unhindered, a pleasurable activity available to all and sundry who happen to be walking down that street at that precise time, other pedestrians becoming unwitting participants or obstacles, as groups of youths rush past them with their tin, how could any external body, say a sporting body, or a broadcaster, ever hope to package that up to a paying public. It would be impossible, and in any event, the joy is to be found in being part of the running, kicking pack, not standing on the sidelines.