In 1863 a group of Victorian Oxbridge graduates, frustrated by the
confusing riot of competing rules that characterized the game of British
football, began meeting at the Freemason's Tavern in Lincoln's Inn
Fields, London, to codify the rules of the game. They quickly drew up
the standard set of rules, creating the First Rule Book of the Football
Association, reprinted here in its entirety alongside illustrations and
drawings of the game.