1878 Football Backs Out Of A Corner
	Although largely ignored by current day historians, the match between Melbourne and Carlton on June 9, 1878 (in just the Victorian Football Association's second season) created history on two fronts and set critical precedents that became part of our football life …

The game was the first Association match to be played on the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

The Melbourne Football Club since its inception in 1859 had usually played on a patch of land to the north of the M.C.G. and rather significantly known as "The Gravel Pit" - in earlier days, complete with trees on the playing area and a creek bed running diagonally across the surface.   The "metropolitan" ground as it was sometimes called was unpopular with other clubs with two teams at the end of 1877 threatening to refuse to play there.

Historians over the years have placed the blame for football not being played on the M.C.G. at the feet of the cricket club itself, usually with claims that the cricketers feared damage to the surface if the ground was used for football, but there is no real evidence to support this general belief.   The idle winter months were often used for extending and improving the ground and the surrounds, but over the previous ten or twelve years, whenever permission was sought to play on the ground, the cricket club usually granted it.

Another misconception is that the football club was actually part of the M.C.C., but they were in fact separate bodies and by the start of the 1877 season, each had their own problem.

The cricket club's finances were in somewhat in disarray after a series of largely unsuccessful ventures to attract patrons into the ground, and the footballers sensed their opportunity

The club approached the M.C.C. for permission to play the Carlton match (the "blockbuster" of the time) on the cricket ground.   The committee of the latter saw an opportunity to boost their somewhat depleted coffers and agreed after insisting the footballer's share of the gate was spent solely on improving their ground.

Admission was set at sixpence, with the same payable for entry into the Reserve.  The fee was considered more than reasonable compared to the charges at the first cricket match between more-or-less representative English and Australian teams the previous year when the equivalent admission was set at two shillings.    Crowd estimates varied, most suggesting around 10,000 with a total gate of around £200 which was to be given to the Melbourne Football Club to help pay for fencing of the "gravel Pit".

It wasn't only the match being played on the hallowed turf of the M.C.G. that made this game unique.

Alf Batchelder in "Pavilions In The Park", a massive history of the Melbourne Cricket Club and the M.C.G. suggests this was the first game to be played on an oval ground, but "oval" may perhaps be stretching it a bit - both literally and figuratively according to The Argus correspondent

The Argus, June 11 1878

From this description, the "oval" must have had sqaure ends, but sadly none of the match reports give an estimate of the length of the playing area, but it too was probably somewhat in excess of what the players of the day were used to (the playing area at the "G" has fluctuated over time but has generally been about 185 by 160 yards).

Like most experiments, some were for and some against.   The leading football writer of the time, Peter Pindar of The Australasian liked the idea, suggesting a "more open and friendlier style of play", but his fellow writer with The Argus thought it “… much too scattered and not as exciting as it would have been had the combatants had been obliged to keep near together”.  

Most of the contemporary match reports support The Argus writer's preference for the closely packed game of the time which was much closer in style to Rugby.

The football public of the day seem to have sided with the latter opinion, albeit briefly.  The corresponding match in 1878 (where Melbourne scored a shock win over the Blues) has no mention of the playing surface being anything out of the ordinary, with The Australasian noting one player have a near-impossible shot on goal “from the north-eastern corner”.

The 1877 match, won 2-1 by Carlton, attracted between 8,000 and 10,000 spectators with the inner fence separating players from the crowd, a welcome novelty in days when fans pressed onto open grounds to either get a better view of play or with some minor malicious intent in mind.  

This was also the first Association fixture where entrance charges were made.   Carlton introduced regular admission fees later in the year to help offset the cost of fencing their ground in the University in Madeline Street, now the section of Swanston Street to the north of Victoria Street.  It was also the first game where a grandstand was officially available to the paying public, some 2,000 paying the extra for the privilege.

Not that viewing football from the M.C.G. grandstand of the time was a new experience for the members.

The grandstand, opened the previous year, featured a unique design that allowed the flooring and seats to be reversed, allowing patrons to enjoy the cricket during the summer and then football on "the pit" in winter (a game between Melbourne and Barwon is believed to have been the first time the seating was repositioned for a football match).

According the Alf Batchelder's recent publication, "Pavilions in the Park", the floor of the stand was suspended on hinges along the middle line with moveable supports underneath the highest point, which, when withdrawn, allowed the floor to be sloped in the opposite direction.   The reversal took about 13 ½ hours, the Frencham Brothers undertaking the work for a fee of £8-10 with a week's notice or £14 for an emergency switch.

With no great damage to the playing surface, the East Melbourne, South Melbourne and Corio (Geelong) clubs also seen the light and allowed football to be played on their patch of turf and the M.C.C. for the 1879 season actively campaigned for clubs to use their ground, Melbourne playing there around 12 times and Hotham (later North Melbourne) and Carlton also hosting matches.

Oddly enough, the laws of the Australian code (unlike English or American forms of football) have never specifically defined the size or shape of the playing ground.

Some twenty years after the laws of the "Melbourne Rules" or Australian football were laid down in 1859, William Hammersley, one of the four men responsible "after several drinks" for their formation recalled that they rejected the rules in use at Rugby School in England as they were too complicated, opting instead for a simpler code that could be understood by newcomers to the colony.

The flexibility extended to finding a suitable piece of land to play on.     The first rule ever laid down decided "The distance between the Goals and the Goal Posts shall be decided upon by the Captains of the sides playing" (the famous schoolboy match of 1858 between Scotch College and the Church of England Grammar took place on a pitch with the goals around half a mile apart).   Rule Four at least limited the size somewhat … "The game shall be played within a space of not more than 200 yards wide, …", but beyond that, nothing ever appeared in the rules suggesting a change in the shape of the ground although a maximum length and width continued to be specified (we must check the myriad list of laws in today's rule book)

Teams at the time consisted of 20 combatants with the line-up similar to today - five lines of three players, three followers "when the ball is in motion - these can also take it from out-of-bounds", and with extra men, a "goal sneak" and "goal keeper" at opposite ends of the field.  

Although there are hundreds of references and comments on football before 1875, there is very little describing just how the game was played.  "Goal sneak" for many years was something of a derogatory term describing a player who "sneaked" ahead of the scrum to try and score a goal, suggesting the game may have been played more like rugby with most of the team behind the ball and pushing it forward rather than the later positional game.

The first detailed description of the early football came in 1876 with the publication of "The Footballer", the first annual devoted to the game.

Despite the playing positions being familiar, the start of the match would confuse today's fans.   Hostilities commenced with both teams lined up in their defensive side of the ground.   The team losing the toss kicked off with the forward players hurrying to their positions - the same occurred after a goal was kicked, the team "losing" the goal taking the kick-off.   The concept of throwing the ball up in the centre of the ground didn’t come into effect until 1890.

The game has struggled with the out-of-bounds problem since its inception with various systems of free kicks and throw-ins experimented with, but according to "The Footballer", the scenario would have recognisable by today's players, but again with a subtle difference