The rouge in early football referred to a secondary scoring system akin to a ”lesser goal”.
The Victorians were great rule makers and had a love of organisation and structure in many aspects of life. This extended itself to the game of football. In the clamber to establish a unified code for the game of football, a few oddities arose, and by modern football standards nothing was odder than the rouge.
At this point in football’s development it had not yet split from rugby and they were not the distinct sports they are today. Handling the ball was still permitted in some codes of football. Consequently, you cannot discuss the origins of one without including the other, they were born together, they grew together and whether fans of football or rugby like it or not, it is fact. A bit like Everton FC and Liverpool FC, two siblings who don’t really get on but cannot deny their common roots. Therefore, as football was trying to find its identity, some strange rugby style peculiarities persisted. One of which is the rouge.
The rouge in early football referred to a secondary scoring system akin to a ”lesser goal”. Of course the public school masters were not going to plump for such a mundane name as that, so they came up with “the rouge”, which is French for red. Although the origins of the name are sketchy, it is accepted that it came from the red flags that the umpires held up to signify a rouge had been scored in the Eton field game, or in Sheffield rules they had red painted flags to distinguish them from the goal posts. I can't help feeling it's an unnecessary poncification, but that is the Victorian public schools for you. It's even more surprising that the Sheffield FA adopted it and kept the name.
In the Eton field game a rouge was scored by touching the ball down behaind the goal line.
In the Eton field game a rouge was scored when a player from the attacking team did not score a goal but touched the ball down behind the goal line, similar to a try in modern rugby. The ball could cross the line at any distance from the goal. During the formation of Sheffield rules football, the rouge was introduced on 31st January, 1862. Maybe Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest (co-writers of the Sheffield rules) had too much New Year's cheer and convinced themselves it was a good idea. However, they had a slightly different take on the rouge and introduced it as a tiebreaker; they definitely borrowed the idea straight from the Eton field game. Another difference in the Sheffield version was that the ball had to be touched down behind the goal line and between two rouge flags (the flags were red, in keeping with the tradition), positioned four yards on either side of the goal.
After the rouge was scored, a set piece immediately followed. The two teams lined up in front of the goal, a bit like a rugby scrum but the players would be loosely joined in a pack. The defending pack would start out two yards in front of the goal facing the attacking pack. The aim was for the defenders to dribble the ball past the attackers into open play. The attacking pack had an opportunity to push the defending pack back through their own goal, resulting in a goal being scored (as long as the ball had been kicked).
It is said that the rouge took it's name from the red flags used to signal when a rouge was scored.
The demise of the rouge in football was swift and it disappeared from the sport as quickly as it was introduced. When the rules of association football were codified in 1863, the focus was on simplifying and standardising the game. The rouge was not included in these rules as it was seen as overly complicated and inconsistent with the streamlined scoring system that prioritised goals as the sole determinant of success. This elevated the goal to its sacred status, the paramount source of joy in football. Touching a ball over a line just does not have the same emotional impact of a ball crashing against a net, between two posts and under a crossbar. Football, unlike most sports, has a unique scoring system that makes a goal a precious and often a scarce occurrence which heightens the emotions and tensions for all who are involved.
As the Football Association and the Sheffield Football Association began their journey to become one, Sheffield removed the rouge in 1868 because the FA were staunchly against it. Strangely, the rouge still exists in some sports such as Australian Rules Football, which has the “behind posts” that are used to score points when the ball crosses the behind line or doesn't meet the requirements for a goal. Some behind posts in Southern Australia are still painted red. Canadian football still has the concept of the rouge, and a point is awarded for situations like a punted ball not being returned back out of the end zone.
The fact that the rouge was awarded for situations where the ball narrowly missed the goal, but still demonstrated a team’s skill and effort in attacking, seems a concept that is light years away from modern football. Getting a point for a “jolly good effort” sounds like the kind of nonsense that has ruined sports days, where everyone's a winner and nobody has to actually be good at anything, having a jolly good try is good enough. I imagine that at the time the Victorians had a fairer and healthier attitude towards the sport than we do today and winning at all cost was secondary to everyone giving their all. Either way, the rouge existed, albeit fleetingly and it is an interesting and important part of the development and formation of football.
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