The Field Game is one of two codes of football devised and played at Eton College. The other is the Eton Wall Game. The game is like football in some ways — the ball is round, but one size smaller than a standard football, and may not be handled — but the off-side rules — known as 'sneaking' — are more in keeping with rugby. There is also a small scrum or "bully" of either six or seven a side. Goals can be scored much as in soccer, although there is no goal-keeper. But a team gains more points for scoring a 'rouge'. To score a rouge a player must kick the ball so that it deflects off one of the opposing players, or achieve a charge-down, and then goes beyond the opposition's end of the pitch. The ball is then 'rougeable' and must be touched — although not necessarily to the ground — by an attacking player to complete the rouge for five points. Rouges are similar to tries in that the scoring team then attempts to convert them for two points.
It is the only game at Eton that virtually every boy plays, at least for his first three years in the school, and it occupies prime position in the games programme throughout the Lent Half.
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In 1815 Eton College documented its football rules, the first football code to be written down anywhere in the world.[1] In the modern era, referees are first advocated in English public school football games, notably Eton football in 1845.[2]
There are two main ways of gaining points in the Field Game, either a 'rouge' or a Goal.
There is a goal at each end of the pitch. The goals are smaller than in soccer but no player is allowed to use their hands to touch the ball. If a player kicks the ball into the opponent's goal his team scores 3 points.
If the ball comes from a player and goes behind the infinite line created by extending their goal line, it is rougeable. The ball is also rougeable when a defender kicks it so that it rebounds off an attacker over this line.
When a ball is rougeable players from both teams race to reach it first.
If an attacker reaches it first their team scores a 'rouge', worth five points and also attempts a conversion (see below).
If a defender reaches it first the attacking team has a choice of 'point or bully': they can choose either to be awarded a single point or to form a bully (like a scrum), close to the opponent's end of the pitch. If they drive the ball over the end of the pitch they score a rouge (5 points) and as before can convert it.
In a conversion the attackers move the ball down tramlines at the end of the pitch from the side towards the goal. The attacker has to keep the ball moving and avoid it leaving the tramlines. They try either to score a goal or to hit the ball of a defender to score a rouge.
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