Today's Tidbit... 1876 IFA Rule #58: Gutta Percha
This is #58 in a series covering football's original 61 rules adopted by the Intercollegiate Football Association in 1876. We review one rule each Friday.
A few times, I have complained about the rugby rule-makers inattention to the order of their rules, but today is not one of them. Last week, we covered Rule 57, which concerned hacking or kicking an opponent in the shins, and they followed that up with the only original rule covering the equipment worn by players.
Rule 58: No one wearing projecting nails, iron plates, or gutta percha on any parts of his boots or shoes shall be allowed to play in a match.
The concern about projecting nails did not involve sticking out from the toes of the players' boots. Instead, rugby had the same concern as soccer, as evidenced by the 1866 Football Association Rule 12: "No player shall wear projecting nails, iron plates, or gutta-percha on the soles or heels of his boots." Iron plates referred to toe caps, akin to today's steel-toed boots, and gutta percha was a pre-plastic made from the sap of Malaysian trees used in, among other applications, canes and golf ball cores. Hence, early golf balls were called "gutties."
While Rule 58 banned hard and sharp substances on players' shoes to protect opposing players, rugby, soccer, and football generalized the idea to keep players from wearing hard substances anywhere on their bodies. Soccer and rugby retained that thinking, while football gave it up by allowing increasingly harder fiber and leather helmets and shoulder pads. Ultimately, football recognized that the protection offered to the wearers of hard plastic helmets and shoulder pads outweighed the potential harm caused to others. Still, the game partially retains that orientation by requiring hard casts or splints to be soft-wrapped to be allowed to play.
Click the appropriate link for previous stories in the series:
Intro | #1 Drop Kick | #2 Place Kick | #3 Punt | #4 Goal Posts | #5 Goal | #6 Goal ≠ Punt | #7 Scoring | #8 Dead Ball | #9 Touchdown | #10 Tackle | #11 Scrimmage | #12 Ball Handling | #13 Dead Ball | #14 Scrimmage Ball Handling | #15 Run In | #16 Goal Line | #17 Boundary Lines | #18 Crying “Down” | #19 Maul In | #20 Maul in Pax | #21 Touch-in Goal | #22 Onside | #23 Offside | #24 Return to Onside | #25 Defensive Offside | #26 Throwing Back | #27 Knocking On | #28 Fair Catch | #29 Punt-out | #30 Punt-On | #31 Into Touch | #32 Inbounding | #33 Pushed Into Touch | #34 Right Angle Throw Out | #35 No Fair Catch | #36 Kickoff | #37 Kickoff Timing | #38 Change Goals | #39 Toss Up | #40 Loser Kicks | #41 Kickout | #42 Kickout Procedure | #43 Fair Catch Free Kick | #44 Free Kick Location | #45 Own Goal Touch Down | #46 Try At Goal | #47 Try At Goal Spot | #48 Touched Down Between Posts | #49 Puntout Spot | #50 Heel-In Mark | #51 No Fair Catch OOB | #52 TD Interference | #53 Missed Kicks | #54 Charging | #55 Charge At Once | #56 Charging Locations | #57 Hacking
Football Archaeology is reader-supported. Click here to buy one of my books or otherwise support the site.