| Full name | Forest School Football Club | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1857 | |
| Ground | The Park, Snaresbrook, London | |
Forest School F.C. refers to the organised football teams which represent Forest School, Walthamstow. The first XI is the only school team to have played in the F.A. Cup. [1] Former pupils of Forest School play for Old Foresters F.C.
Forest had an important role in the development and creation of Association football, and the Common at the front of the school may well be regarded as a "cradle of the game". [1] In the school's early years there was no sport apart from informal kick-abouts by the pupils, but by the 1840s cricket was played and hockey was in vogue in the early 1850s. Football began at Forest in 1857 when Frederick Guy took over as headmaster; it was played on The Common, at the front of the school. The Common was a rather uneven playing surface, with the great chestnut trees at the side of the pitch "in play" and some famous iron railings marking the north end of the pitch. Tradition records some great battles between Charles W. Alcock and F.J. Poole, in which the object was to barge the other player over the iron railings! [2] The earliest reported match against another school was in Forest's first season on 24 February 1858, when Forest beat Chigwell School 5-4 on The Common. [3] Another early game was on Saturday 16 November 1861, when Forest School, (playing as "Walthamstow"), lost to a Westminster School side (playing as "Bounding Bricks") by three goals to nil. [4] A return match was played four weeks later, and in 1862 the school played against Old Westminsters (playing as Elizabethan Club). [5]
By 1863, Forest football had a major influence on the development of the game, and it was involved in the formation of the Football Association and also the leading club at the time, The Forest Club. Forest School joined the F.A. for its fifth meeting, on 1 December 1863, when John Bouch (brother of a pupil) and David John Morgan (recent Old Forester) represented the school on a 15-man committee. [6] It was at this fifth F.A. meeting that the important amendment was made to the rules that running with the ball and hacking would be removed, and Forest, with only limited running with the ball in their rules, are likely to have been influential in voting for this change. [7] Walter Cutbill, an Old Forester, served as an early member of the F.A. Committee [1] [2] and Henry Tubb, captain of Forest in 1867, helped the F.A. committee evolve its rules in that year. [8]
Although a member of the F.A. from almost the very beginning, the school's own rules, "The Forest Rules", were still played up until 1867, with 15 players a side. The Wanderers described the Forest Rules as "a happy mixture of Rugby, Harrow and Charterhouse rules". It was essentially a dribbling game, and "shinning, hacking and tripping" was not allowed.
The Forest Rules, as played in 1866, were as follows: [2]
From the 1867-68 season Forest decided to play all its home matches under the rules of the Football Association, although away games could still be played under the local rules of the host club. [2] [9] 15 players per side could still be played up until 1869. [1]
Forest is the only school to have played in the F.A. Cup, which it did for four seasons 1875-1879 (Donington School entered but did not play a game). [1]
In 1993 the school won the inaugural Boodle And Dunthorpe Competition for Independent Schools. [10]
Gaelic football, commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kicking or punching the ball into the other team's goals or between two upright posts above the goals and over a crossbar 2.5 metres above the ground.
Offside is one of the laws in association football, codified in Law 11 of the Laws of the Game. The law states that a player is in an offside position if any of their body parts, except the hands and arms, are in the opponents' half of the pitch, and closer to the opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent.
The Laws of the Game are the codified rules of association football. The laws mention the number of players a team should have, the game length, the size of the field and ball, the type and nature of fouls that referees may penalise, the offside law, and many other laws that define the sport. During a match, it is the task of the referee to interpret and enforce the Laws of the Game.
A goal kick is a method of restarting the play in a game of association football. Its procedure is dictated by Law 16 of the Laws of the Game.
A throw-in is a method of restarting play in a game of association football when the ball has exited the side of the field of play. It is governed by Law 15 of The Laws of the Game. In Scotland it is known as a "shy".
The Sheffield Rules was a code of football devised and played in the English city of Sheffield between 1858 and 1877. The rules were initially created and revised by Sheffield Football Club, with responsibility for the laws passing to the Sheffield Football Association upon that body's creation in 1867. The rules spread beyond the city boundaries to other clubs and associations in the north and midlands of England, making them one of the most popular forms of football during the 1860s and 1870s.
The Cambridge Rules were several formulations of the rules of football made at the University of Cambridge during the nineteenth century.
Forest School is an private day school in Walthamstow in the London borough of Waltham Forest. The school occupies a large campus around its original Grade II listed Georgian and Victorian terraced buildings. The school has more than 1,430 pupils, aged 4 to 18, split equally between boys and girls.
The laws of Australian rules football were first defined by the Melbourne Football Club in 1859 and have been amended over the years as Australian rules football evolved into its modern form. The Australasian Football Council (AFC), was formed in 1905 and became responsible for the laws, although individual leagues retained a wide discretion to vary them. Following the restructure of the Victorian Football League's competition as a national competition and the League's renaming to be the Australian Football League (AFL), since 1994, the rules for the game have been maintained by the AFL through its Commission and its Competition Committee.
The history of association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, stretches back at least to the medieval times. Some predecessors of football may date back to ancient Greece and Rome, and similar games were played in ancient China and Japan. The history of football in Britain dates at least to the eighth century CE.
During the early modern era pupils, former pupils and teachers at English public schools developed and wrote down the first codes of football, most notably the Eton College (1815) and Aldenham school (1825) football rules. The best-known of these is rugby football (1845). British public schools football also directly influenced the rules of association football.
The Old Foresters Football Club is an Association Football club made up exclusively of former pupils of Forest School, located in Epping Forest, Walthamstow, London, England.
The sport of association football has a long history in England.
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly called football include association football ; gridiron football ; Australian rules football; rugby union and rugby league; and Gaelic football. These various forms of football share to varying extents common origins and are known as "football codes".
John Charles Thring, known during his life as "Charles Thring" or "J. C. Thring", was an English clergyman and teacher, notable for his contributions to the early history of association football.
Hacking is the name of a tactic in the early forms of football that involved tripping an opposing player by kicking their shins. A dispute among clubs over whether to ban the tactic eventually led to the split between the sports of association football and rugby football. Despite this split, rugby clubs banned the tactic soon after.
A free kick is a method of restarting play in association football. It is awarded after an infringement of the laws by the opposing team.
The Mount Gambier Football Club was an Australian rules football club established in the city of Mount Gambier, South Australia on the 31 August 1876. The club dissolved around 1897.
Dingley Dell Football Club was a short-lived English association football club based in the London area in the late 1850s and early 1860s.
The Boston game, also known as the Boston rules, was an early code of football developed by the Oneida Football Club, formed in 1862 and considered by some historians as the first formal "football" club in the United States. Rules allowed carrying and kicking and is considered the first step to the codification of rules for association football, rugby football, or American football. After Oneida disbanded, former members established the Harvard University Football Club, which continued to play football under those rules.
