After comparing different sets of rules for football without or with little permitted handball, it is useful to go through the development of the individual rules.

Playing field measurements

Playing field measurements are not mentioned at all until the 1860s.

Since they are quite similar here, it can be assumed that they had already converged before then and therefore unwritten agreements were also in place.

Goal dimensions

Only Eton had a height limit, which was 2.13 m as early as 1847 and did not change thereafter. All other rulebooks knew no height limit within this time period. The width of the gate varied, if it was specified at all. At Eton it remained constant at 3.35 m, at Harrow (1858) goals were 3.66 m wide, at Cambridge (1863) 4.57 m, and at the FA (1863) as much as 7.32 m.

It seems that gates used to be much narrower than today.

Number of players

The number of players is now specified in the 1849 Surrey Rule Book. Here there are already eleven players.

In most games, care was taken to ensure that the teams were at least equal in number, much as they still are on the ball field today. After all, there were no competitions against other clubs, but one played against each other within the educational institute or within the club. There was no need to specify the number of players in writing.

Substitutions

Most rulebooks are silent on substitutions and substitute players. Only at Eton did all rulebooks state that injured or late players were excluded from the game and could not be substituted.

This will also have been the practice for all other football playing groups. At most, late players were still allowed to join the match.

Shoeing

Details of footwear were prescribed in the FA Rules and Blackheath, incidentally also the Laws of Football as played at Rugby School of 1845: nothing was allowed to protrude from the shoes, especially nails, iron parts or gutta-percha.

Particular attention was paid to footwear. Even if a tough style of play was allowed, there was no question of how bad an injury would be from improper footwear. The harder playing style at some public schools served as a test of courage. Shoes with staking iron, metal or gutta-percha was nothing but courageousness.

Referee

At Eton (1847, 1857, 1862) and at Harrow it was stipulated that each team must appoint an umpire who had to make final decisions in case of doubt when called upon and therefore had to have an accurate knowledge of the rules of the game.

Referees were frowned upon in many clubs, schools and universities, as gentlemen were honourably honest. However, match reports show that there were certainly frequent discussions on the pitch.

Playing time

The duration of play was only prescribed at Eton, and there even the exact time. Otherwise, there are no specifications in any of the rulebooks.

The playing time has probably been negotiated between the teams before the match.

Kick-off

In the late 1850s it is not yet found in all rulebooks, but five years later it is: play begins by kicking off from the centre of the field by a kick or a scrum (only at Eton). There are only isolated further provisions: in Uppingham and in the FA, minimum distances between players and the ball are prescribed, namely 3.6 m (Uppingham) and 9.15 m (FA).

That a game starts from the centre of the pitch seems to have been a written or unwritten law, as no deviations (written) can be found.

Which side?

When information can be found in rulebooks, the choice of sides was always decided by the toss of a coin: Harrow 1858, Cambridge 1863 and FA 1863.

Unless something was agreed orally, the coin toss seems to have been the most common, perhaps the only, alternative.

Changing sides

There were two variations: At half-time (Eton 1847, 1857, 1862 and Cambridge 1863) or after each goal (Harrow 1858, FA 1863).

Both variants seem to have been common, as their occurrence is balanced.

Goal scoring

Goal is when the ball goes out of bounds between the posts, everyone agrees. At Harrow (1858) and Sheffield (1858) it is also stipulated that a goal can only be scored by a shot, and at Shrewsbury School it was customary to play three rounds until the winner was decided.

At Harrow it was also permissible to dive into the goal. After a fair catch you could jump 3 yards, or 2.74 metres. If you caught the ball appropriately close to the goal, you were also allowed to jump into the goal with the ball instead of a free kick.

The round has to go between the posts, that was always clear.

Offside

At first there was offside only at Eton, there called sneaking. It was a more open offside rule as early as 1847, allowing combination football. Sneaking was whoever was between the ball and the opponent’s goal when three or fewer opponents were in front of you.

In Harrow (1858), offside was simply called behind. Here, as at Blackheath, Cambridge, Shrewsbury, Uppingham and the FA in the early 1860s, the restrictive offside rule applied, according to which everyone between the ball and the opponent’s goal was in principle offside.

The restrictive offside rule seems to enjoy general acceptance, which is why it was also initially introduced in the FA.

Foul play

Mostly fouls in today’s sense were only allowed in certain circumstances, more specifically kicking or general charging. Kicking was generally allowed in Surrey (1849). Charging was generally allowed in Cambridge (1863), in Blackheath (1862) if the opponent ran carrying the ball after a fair catch and in Eton (1862) and Shrewsbury (1863) only with feet and legs (a „hand game“ was thus also forbidden when charging/fouling).

At Eton, permitted and prohibited play changed with the rulebooks. (1847) not mentioned at all, (1857) no tackling or other fouling was allowed (likewise at Harrow, 1858) and finally in 1862 all fouling, provided it was with legs and feet.

The greatest distinction between the various forms of football was made clear above all by the permitted and prohibited play, which differed from each other and also, as here in the case of Eton, changed over the years at one place.

Handball

Handball was banned in most rulebooks, namely Eton (1847), Harrow (1858), FA (1863), Cambridge (1863) and Blackheath (1862), apart from the fair catch where it was allowed in the rulebook. Catching the ball was also allowed at Eton in 1862, Shrewsbury (1863) and Uppingham (1862), which did not mention Fair Catch in the rulebook. Otherwise, stopping the ball (Eton, 1857) and striking the ball (Sheffield, 1858) still existed as permitted handball.

Surprisingly, handball cannot be used as a clear indicator of the diversity of football variants as the name of the game, foot-ball, might suggest. In fact, handball is not allowed in most, or only in very specific circumstances such as running into Blackheath or catching/fair catching.

Fair Catch

In the second half of the 19th century, most rulebooks knew the free kick, although almost all of them imposed it on a team as a reward, not a penalty. Except at Eton, the free kick was a place kick, which could be taken unopposed and usually in a free manner. At Eton in 1857 it was a scrum, and in 1862 years it was also an unopposed kick. A reward it was at Harrow (1850s), Cambridge (1863) and at the FA (1863), each for a correctly executed fair catch. Only at Eton (1850s, 1862) was the free kick prescribed as a punishment for a rules offence – and not until 1872 in the FA Rules.

The free kick apparently undertook a change of meaning in the 19th century, in parallel with the changing socialisation of football. In the first half of the 19th century, football was a way of instilling certain behaviours in sons of gentlemen and one behaviour was to be honest and show humility in victories. By the middle of the century, as sport gained a foothold outside of public schools, this way of behaving was increasingly relegated to the background, winning, more and more to the foreground. This is also shown by the English word record, which evolved into teakettle. Originally it only meant to record. But as more and more people strove to beat these records, it also received the meaning that was directly translated into German, Rekord.

Throw-in

If the ball went sideways, there was either a throw-in or a throw-in – the split here is very even. As far as the rules state, this throw-in or shot is almost always taken by the first person to touch the ball, according to some sets of rules at the point of contact, in others at the point where the ball went out of bounds. The only exceptions to this are Uppingham, where the ball was kicked back into the field of play by the person who had also kicked it into the sideline, and Eton, where there was a scrum opposite the spot from which the ball went into the sideline for every throw-in from the sideline. Another provision can be found in the Sheffield FC Rules (throw at least 5.5 m into the field).

It is noticeable that before the 1870s throw-ins were always about who touched the ball first. This is probably why in English the side kick is called a touch. Perhaps also because here you were allowed to touch the ball with your hand, but not in the field. It is perhaps surprising to some that the mention of a kick-in is quite balanced with the throw-in that is common today.

Corner kick

In contrast to the side kick, the continuation of play after the ball had not gone out of bounds between the goalposts was not so clear-cut. The only similarity: it was always an unobstructed shot, i.e. a free kick. There were differences as to who put the ball back on the pitch and from where. As far as mentioned at all, it was once the first person to touch the ball in the goal area, twice one of the team that owned the goal and once someone from the opposing team. And either from the goal line (2x) or 22.86m behind the goal (2x) or 18.29m behind the goal. At Shrewsbury (1863) there was also the option of playing a rope pull, which is what it was called when you threw the ball in the air and shot it full out onto the pitch.

At Eton, as with the throw-in, there was alternately a throw-in from the spot where it went out or a scrum on the opposite side. There was also a peculiarity here. There were rowing poles at a certain distance between the goalposts and the corner posts, one on each side. If the ball went out between them and the goalposts, the ball was rougeable. (What is a rouge?)

In the FA, the first person to touch the ball out of bounds was also decisive, but here the continuation of play was differentiated according to which team the person touching the ball belonged to. If the goal belonged to his team, a free kick was taken from the goal post. If he belonged to the attacking team, there was a free kick 13.72 m behind the opposite goal and the stipulation that the other team was not to run onto the field of play from out of the goal until the ball had been kicked.

With the style of play in FA, the precursors of today’s kick and corner kick already show up even more clearly than with the other variants.