Harrow Football - Definition and Overview

Harrow Football is a football style game played exclusively at Harrow School. It is ancestral to association football, but is played with a large, leather ball (about one foot in diameter) that is not spherical, but more akin to two dinner plates, about 80 cm in diameter separated by a 30 cm wide strip. Because the ball is leather it soaks up the mud and becomes extremely heavy. Boys who attempt to header it have been known to knock themselves out. One of the most unusual aspects of the game is the method of tackling: any means is permitted, provided your shoulder is in contact. Shirt-pulling is banned. This commonly leads to very violent tackles, made worse since you are permitted t tackle even if the man you are tackling does not have the ball- all he needs is the intention of getting it. Injuries are very common. Another peculiarity of the game is that when passing the ball must either go backwards, or be kicked forwards and run onto from behind. Although such a rule may seem to be similar to rugby it is important to stress that you cannot hold the ball unless taking yards (see below). Such a complicated offside rule means that there are often standoffs and no-one really knows what is happening. There are numerous other complicated rules pertaining mainly to at what stage are you allowed to catch a kick of the opposition, but they cannot easily be explained and the only way to learn is to play.

Some Terminology

• Base - Goal. Both in the sense of the target and the reward. The base consists of two upright poles.

• Yards - A player must kick the ball into the air and it must be caught by a boy behind him. Then the catcher has a chance to run forward carrying the ball then either drop it and continue dribbling, or if close enough to the opposition base to take three long strides forward, then stop so that the opposition can make a two person wall, over which the person who ran forward must kick the ball in order to score a 'base' through the opposition's base.

• Umpire- In a take off of cricket rather than referees there are two umpires to control the match, one provided by each team. Since they are invariably bias there can be as much action between the umpires as the players, especially as the rules are rather vague on certain points.

• Yard Stick - a wooden stick used to mark the place from which 'yards' are taken from. One is held by each upmire