The Harvard Game
A Sporting TL
A Sporting TL
Chapter One: From Humble Beginnings
The creation of the Harvard Game has an almost mythical standing within the annals of the American public consciousness. On a misty Saturday morning in the autumn of 1855 a group of Harvard undergraduates gathered on the playing fields of the prestigious university to play a game of soccer, as was their custom. However, all was not normal in this game, as one man, by the name of Howard Rosenthal, tired of the scrappy, unskilled game that was being played, simply picked up the ball, ran the length of the pitch with the ball in one hand and threw it with an almighty force into the goal, whereupon the keeper looked upon events with a dumbfounded look, as the playing congregation stood around in silence. And, as legend would have it, the Harvard Game was born. Of course, this is entirely not the case.
A depiction of Rosenthal's mthical stroke of genius
This story was likely told by Rosenthal to his Harvard friends to greater emphasise his part in the founding of the game and the story was (and is) regarded as fact by many in the game. However, the real story is far less glamorous, although Rosenthal still features as the pioneer of the game. The group really did convene to play soccer (or sometimes rugby) on the playing fields of Harvard every Saturday morning, before going to get merrily drunk in a local bar. It was in this drunken stupor that Rosenthal declared, in a slurred voice, possibly to impress any females in the vicinity, that “We play soccer and rugby, both the games of our former oppressors, the past-times of an Empire in decline; it is time we made an American game, with the great American passions for war and for glory!”[1] For many people, this brief speech was quickly forgotten as more rounds of ale were drunk, but for Rosenthal and his closest circle of friends, the idea had a certain appeal; there was a feeling that they really could create the great American game that would write their names into the history books and immediately they set about creating this new sport.
The next Saturday, Rosenthal and his group of friends were not on the playing fields, much to the consternation of the other players who considered them the lifeblood of the gathering. Instead, they were again in the bar but this time writing the history of the American sporting landscape. They were setting out the rules to a game that they believed would be a hybrid of the two pastimes they so enjoyed; soccer and rugby. They took what they believed were the best parts of both sports, the hard tackling of rugby and the agility and individual flair of soccer and thrashed out the ground rules of a game that Rosenthal’s friend, Oliver Harkness, christened Bellum, the Latin word for war.[2] The original rules are shown below;
- The aim of the game is to throw the ball past the keeper and into the goal to earn a point.
- The ball must only be passed backwards.
- The ball shall be carried in one hand only.
- Tackles should be made no higher than the waist.
- Once brought to the floor the player who was tackled must plant the ball behind him and release and may not rise until the ball has been picked up again.
- Each team should have no more and no less than ten players, with one of these ten keeping goal.
- The game lasts ninety minutes and is to be split into two forty-five minute halves, with a five minute break in-between. After the break, teams switch the side of the field.
- The maximum length of the ground shall be 200 yards whilst the maximum width shall be 100 yards. The goal is defined by two upright posts, set eight yards apart.
- At the beginning of the game, the second period and after any goals scored, play shall begin with the two captains leaping for a ball tossed in the air by a neutral observer.
- Once the ball goes out of play to the sides it shall be thrown back in by a member of the opposing team. After it goes out behind the goal, the keeper shall throw it back in if the attacking team threw it out, whilst an attacking team member shall throw it in if a defender sent the ball out.
- Kicking the ball is illegal unless accidental.
- Tripping, hacking, gauging, punching and other unruly behaviour is prohibited.
- The game is to be played in a gentlemanly fashion befitting an American game.
Of course, these rules are radically different to the modern game, especially rules 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 and arguably 13, but they were a useful and surprisingly functional groundwork for the game. The next Saturday, after Rosenthal introduced the game to his friends and invited people to come watch, the first rudimentary game of Bellum was played. Many didn't understand the rules, mistakes were made, there were injuries, arguments and a glut of goals, but as the group of Harvard undergraduates made their boisterous way to the bar, covered in mud and the bruises of a hearty game, all agreed that this new sport was a past-time worthy of being called not just the Harvard Game, but the American Game.
Rosenthal was proud of his creation but immediately noticed problems; there were too many goals caused by the wideness of the posts, and he proposed that he bring them in from eight yards to four yards, whilst he realised that the players were dwarfed by the size of the pitch and changed the size from 200x100 to 100x50. He also was annoyed by the keepers, who consistently left their goal area to participate in general play. He therefore added that the keeper could not stray eight yards, in any direction, from his goal. He also decreed that after a foul a player would have a free throw from the place where they where fouled. These new additions to the game were slowly phased into general play in the following weeks until Rosenthal thought he had a game worthy of play on the Harvard fields. Immediately the game was a popular spectacle, and it became a common pastime on a Saturday morning to make ones way down to the fields to watch the Harvard boys play a game of bellum. Nobody had watched them play soccer.
The game had been played informally for about a year when Rosenthal decided that he would organise two teams and pit them against each other in a game open to the general public early in the year of 1856.[3] Organising two teams, one in Harvard crimson the other in plain black, they charged local town folk, professors and observers from out of town a small fee to watch the game. Rosenthal wrote the following about the first exhibition.
”The exhibition game of our new sport between the Crimsons and the Blacks went swimmingly. The Crimsons won, as expected, by a margin of 7 against 2 (I added three goals of my own) but more importantly a large crowd of perhaps five-hundred turned out to cheer what was an exciting, fast moving game. It appears that all who watched were immediately enraptured by the joy of the game and are surely converts to the new sport. I see now that bellum is to be hugely successful in these United States, and that I am the creator of this most noble game gives me a feeling of great pride.”
As a matter of fact, Rosenthal greatly exaggerated the extent to which the crowd enjoyed the game. Most had not been told the rules and did not understand a thing that was happening and those that did found it hard to follow, as a large amount of the action, in a similar manner to rugby, happened in large piles of bodies after the tackle was made. It seemed that it was to be a game restricted only to the playing fields of Harvard University. However, there was one man in the crowd, watching with deepest interest, that saw the game for its potential. Alfred H. Montgomery was a Yale undergraduate who stumbled across the match by chance on the way to a meeting with a Harvard friend. Unlike the rest of the crowd he quickly picked up the rules and by the end of the game was cheering along with a rapturous enthusiasm. He wrote in his diary;
”Today I witnessed, purely by chance, a game of which I am naive. Apparently called bellum, it is a curious hybrid of both rugby and soccer and is truly a spectacle to behold; the game is brutal and fast with a feisty spirit; I must present the game to my sports playing friends immediately. I shall make it my personal mission to bring bellum to Yale!”
Bellum, it appears, was spreading.
[1]This is taken from the diaries of one of Rosenthal’s friends and is likely paraphrased, but it can be assumed that this is close to the realities of his little speech.
[2]Harkness was said to be obsessed with the Latin language, and perhaps his greatest service to the language is christening one of America’s favourite sports in the ancient tongue.
[3]This game is now replayed every year in early September in a Harvard tradition, using the original rules of the day and is a spectacle enjoyed by about 5,000 observers annually.