The First Footy Season
	The rules of the Melbourne Football Club were first laid down in May 1859, but through the efforts of two of the original founders James Thompson and William Hammersley, by just twelve months later, at least nine football clubs were in existence (although only today;s Melbourne club can trace back to the original teams) ...

HINTS TO FOOTBALLERS

1. If an adversary is running with the ball, kick him over unceremoniously if you can't knock it out of his hand.
2. In making a kick from your hand, let your toe catch the ball the instant it leaves the ground. With a little practice this will be found easy, elegant and effectual.
3. Practice kicking with both feet.  Many goals are lost through being able to use only one, and the left foot will be found particularly convenient when the ball has lee-way on it.
4. Never allow boys to play amongst men. They spoil the game, no one likes to rush them and yet they are almost certain to get hurt.
5. If the ball be near your own goal, kick it as much on one side as possible but not behind if you can help it as it is considered cowardly play.

J. B. Thompson
Victorian Cricketer's Guide 1859-60

Tom Wills, another of the four men responsible for the original rules set down in May 1859, may have caused a new rule against tripping to be introduced and also prompted Thompson's "hint" that boys should not be allowed to play against men..   The legality of tripping was hotly debated and disagreement caused several postponements of a much heralded match between the Melbourne and St. Kilda clubs until the Melbourne Football Club rules were changed late in the season to specifically outlaw the practice.

On July 25, The Argus regretted a practice of allowing children to play in the scratch matches, noting :

"… a little boy, Blanchard was taken off with a dislocated wrist after he smuggled the ball from Wills.   Pursuit, a trip, a fall, resulting as we have stated in the inevitable consequence."

The incident came in the first match played by the Emerald Hill and Prahran club, Wills later denying the claim, saying he "had nothing to do with the matter whatsoever".

James Bogne Thompson studied at Cambridge before arriving in Australia in 1845.  He became a leading cricketer, playing in the first Victorian colonial match against an English XI, the Victorians fielding 18 players, and with Thompson second top score with 17 in Victoria’s first innings.   He was a leading journalist with The Argus, and along with his counterpart, William Hammersley, another of the authors of the first rules, a fellow ex-Cambridgean and likewise a writer for The Age,  was mainly responsible for the rspid acceptance of the new game in Melbourne.

Thompson took over publication of the Cricketer's Guide from William Fairfax in 1860 after Fairfax claimed to be make a loss on the previous two editions.

The 1858-59 edition of the Cricketer's Guide included the original rules along with those used at the Rugby and Eton schools in England, these being roughly representative of the two styles of football emerging in England (rules for both Rugby and the British Association code (code) were still some years from being agreed upon).

Despite the Guide being for the far more popular sport of cricket, Thompson took the golden opportunity to promote "his" new invention and to put the English codes to the sword.

"Football in and about Melbourne promises soon to be as much an institution of the wet as cricket is of the dry season. Last season several new clubs sprang into existence-for instance the Richmond, the Collingwood and the University, nor did any of the old ones exhibit any symptoms of decline. The Melbourne Club, by whose rules (which will be found below) the game in Victoria is now universally played, still retains its supremacy, having suffered but one defeat throughout a long season, and then from having a weak side".

"The Richmond and South Yarra come next in point of strength. Both these clubs deserve special credit for having brought such capital teams into the field and for their general efficiency. The school clubs, from some cause, have not occupied so prominent a position as they did the year before, partly no doubt from the fact of many of their best players having emerged from the pupil into the young man condition and so being drafted into one or the other of the corps above alluded to".

"The new rule, which prohibits lifting the ball from the ground and running with it, has worked most satisfactorily. The games have been better contested and the difficulty of obtaining goals made greater. 1 hope yet to see the 'free kick' system (it might almost be called nuisance) abolished, save in case of breach of rules. it seems ridiculous to have the whole field stopped, and frequently with no chance of advantage to either side, just to let air individual be momentarily the centre of attraction and make a guy or hero of himself, according as he is a good or bad kick".

Laws of Football-As agreed to at a meeting of Melbourne and other Clubs, held May 7, 1860:

1. The distance between the goals and the goal posts shall be decided upon by the captains of the sides playing.

2. The captains on each side toss for choice of goal; the side losing the toss has the kick-off from the centre point between the goals.

3. A goal must be kicked fairly between the posts without touching either of them or any portion of the person of one of the opposite side. In case of the ball being forced between the goal posts in a scrimmage, a goal shall be awarded.

4. The game shall be played within a space of not more than 200 yards wide, the same to be measured equally on either side of a line drawn through the centre of the two goals; arid the two posts, to be called kick off posts, shall be erected at a distance of twenty yards on each side of the goal posts at both ends, and in a straight line with them.

5. In case the ball is kicked behind the goal, any one of the side behind whose goal it is kicked, may briing it twenty yards in front of any portion of-the space between the "kick-off" posts, and shall kick it as nearly as possible in line with the opposite goal.

6. Any player catching the ball directly from the foot may call 11 mark". He then has a free kick; no player from the opposite side being allowed to come inside the spot marked.

7. Tripping, holding and hacking are strictly prohibited. Pushing with the hands or body is allowed when any player is in rapid motion or in possession of the ball, except in the case provided for in Rule 6.

8. The ball may not be lifted from the ground in any circumstances, or taken in hand, except as provided for in Rule 6 (catch from the foot) or when on the pick-up. it shall not be run with in any case.

 9. When a ball goes out of bounds (same being indicated by a row of posts) it shall be brought back to the point where it crossed the boundary line, and thrown in at right angles with that line.

10. The. ball, while in play, must under no circumstances, be thrown.

11. In case of a deliberate infringement of any of the above rules, by either side, the captain of the opposite side may claim that any one of his party may have a free kick from the place where the breach of the rules was made; the two captains in all cases, save where umpires are appointed, to be the sole judges of infringements.

Despite his early involvement, Thompson seems to have drifted away from football in later years.   He continued to write many articles on cricket, both for newspapers and in later editions of the  Cricketer's Guide, but his sporting interests were more in rowing circles at Bendigo.