Today's Tidbit… 1876 IFA Rule #34: Right Angle Throw Out

This is #34 in a series covering football's original 61 rules adopted by the Intercollegiate Football Association in 1876. We review one rule each Friday.

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While the image is from an 1896 book on rugby, it illustrates the fair or lineout used under the IFA rules of 1876. (Robinson, B. Fletcher, Rugby Football, London: A. D. Innes, 1896.)

Rule 32 listed the five methods of bringing the ball back onto the field of play after it went into touch. The third method allowed the team that possessed the ball to “throw it out at right angles to the touch-line,” much like the lineout in rugby union today, and we used the image below to illustrate how the fair or lineout worked.

(‘A Yale Man’s View,’ San Francisco Call, December 12, 1892. )

By throwing the ball out at right angles, the ball should end up between the lines formed by the two teams, but that was not always so, creating the need for Rule 34.