Offside In Early Football

What was the rule?

Offside In Early Football

How did the offside rule work in 1880 and 1881?

This is how the rugby rule read in 1880 according to this publication:

This is really confusing and extremely wordy. Basically, the rule was that offensive players could not advance in front of the ball.

This is actually similar to the way that offside worked in early rugby (and, by connection, early “association football” or soccer, since there was really no difference before 1866):

This passage comes from this helpful guide.

Now, this part of the rules was even more confusing:

In other words — offside turned to onside if the other team got the ball and ran 5 yards, or if the ball wound up advancing past the player who was offside. Players who were offside were also restricted from tackling an opposing player with the ball until he had advanced five yards. This must have been impossible to enforce.

The rules do not list a punishment for breaking the offside rule. As American football developed, offside was punished by giving the ball to the other team.

By 1883 these rules had changed. This comes from The Wright & Ditson Foot-Ball Guide of 1883:

This version of the rules included the following provision for teams that were caught playing offside:

In other words, being offside resulted immediately in the other team taking control of the ball.

Now, when you think about it you’ll realize that it was impossible to block with this offside rule. If that wasn’t clear enough, blocking (or “obstruction”) was also specifically outlawed:

With the game basically centering around giving the ball to a player and having him try to blast straight through the defenders with his team behind him, it’s easy to understand why scores in those days were generally so low.