Harrow School Football History
In the first half of the nineteenth century the leading public schools (as they were then known) were beginning to develop organised games. Harrow was no exception. For many years games of an informal nature had been played in the School Yard. A form of football was certainly played there and is known to have moved to what is now the Sixth Form cricket ground by 1803. Around 1850, ground was purchased on the other side of the Hill and it was here that Harrow Football was established as the organised exercise for the two winter terms.
The same sort of phenomenon was happening elsewhere at the same time, each school devising its own set of rules according to custom and local conditions. Of these, Rugby has of course spread far beyond its native boundaries. The Association game (soccer) was codified around 1864, largely based on the Westminster and Charterhouse rules. Incidentally, the Harrow football interHouse competition was adopted by an Old Harrovian, C. W. Allcock, as the basis for soccer's F.A. Challenge Cup. Appropriately, Allcock's team, the Wanderers, were the first winners in 1872, winning 1-0 against the Royal Engineers.
They won the competition three times to retain the trophy, but returned it on the condition that it should never again be won outright. Eton, Winchester and Harrow alone have retained their own games and play them to this day. The rules of Harrow Football were drawn up around 1870.
Harrow School Football XI 1878
Briefly, the game is played 11aside with a large ball (nearly twice the size of a soccer ball) which is so constructed with three pieces of leather that it becomes a flattened sphere. The goals or bases are like rugby posts without the crossbar and a base is scored if the ball passes between them at any height. The game is essentially a kicking and dribbling game but there are two special features: first, the offside rule is as in rugby except that a player may not be put onside by the kicker running forward. Second, the ball may be caught if taken full toss from a kick, with a shout of "Yards". The catcher then has a free kick with a runup of three running paces. This "three running paces" back has also come into the rules of rugby: the opposing side must retreat ten metres at penalties.
There is a further characteristic of Harrow Football: the fields at the bottom of the Hill are on London clay and in the winter months become very heavy. Indeed thick mud has always been considered the ideal conditions, (six inches of mud was said to be not uncommon in the 1920s), but repeated drainage and ground improvement schemes over the years have had an effect. Nowadays mud is a rarity and the game is not what it was. Maybe its days are numbered ....
Harrow Football is played for about seven weeks in January and February, as an interHouse sport, in four different competitions. Soccer was played as the other major winter game from 1896 to 1927 when rugger replaced it. Soccer had to wait until 1977 before being more formally reintroduced. It now operates successfully alongside Harrow Football in the Spring term, while rugby alone is played in the Winter term.
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