And by BOTH "pretending and promoting" themselves as being associated in some way with some of Football's most famous clubs, to "gullible" Australians, on top of their already blatant adoption and usage of Football's vernacular, from adopting and using the word “Football” many, many years ago, to the more recent adoption of terms such as “midfielder”,“playmaker”, “sweeper” and “derbies” and phrases like “between the lines” to the OPEN copying and adapting of Football's "playing systems" and even the game's "junior academies and sports science systems", truly angers me, especially when there has never been any attempt to STOP them, by the FFA from doing it!

By the 1850s football practice in the United Kingdom had diverged into three distinct forms. The village folk football still continued in a number of areas though attenuated and confined by the authorities.[1] In the public schools and the universities a number of variants of the game were played which had distinct and specific sets of rules.[2] Small-sided games of football sometimes for monetary or physical rewards were being played in various parts of England and Scotland.[3] The latter type of football can also be found in Australia in the mid-nineteenth century. Most of the examples uncovered so far were not the rough village games but something much closer to association football (soccer) as it was codified in England in 1863.

A notice in the Port Phillip Herald of 30 March 1850, under the heading of ‘Old English Easter Sports’ and advertising a ‘Grand Football Match for a Silver Watch’, is not untypical.[4] In late 1850 the Port Philip District of New South Wales marked its separation from its northern neighbour as it became the colony of Victoria with effect from the first of January 1851. Celebrations began in November and lasted five days. The final day, Saturday 23 November, was given over to a carnival of gymnastic games at Emerald Hill on Beach Road, and the last event was a football match. ‘FOOT-BALL—A match at foot-ball between two sides of 12 each concluded the sports. The game was all on one side from the beginning, and won easily by Mr Barry and his 11’.[5] No more detailed account of this game has been found so far. The crowd watching the games had started small but had grown throughout the day and despite the provision of alcohol, the papers reported that there had been no unseemly incidents. So this appears to have been a small-sided game for which no special explanation was necessary for the readers.

THE ORIGINAL RULES