1. Sides to be chosen as soon as ten members are present, and players’ names to be written as chosen, on a paper numbered and headed Red and Blue. Any one coming on the ground after play has commenced, to take the first unappropriated number. Choice of goals to be decided by tossing.
2. The goal – poles to be 10 yards apart and the distance between the goals not less than 200 yards. A flag to be erected half-way.
3. Hit-off to be 50 yards out of goal, the ball to be hit from the ground. No goal can be obtained by first hit-off.
4. A player making a catch can make his mark and retire not more than four paces, and can either hit from the ground or the hand; no opponent to interfere or overstep the mark till the ball has been hit at.
5. No player shall be allowed to loiter within 40 yards of the goal of the opposite side unless the ball be between him and his opponents goal. In December 1863 this was amended to “between the halfway flag and the goal of the opposing side”.
6. After a goal has been obtained the sides shall change their respective goals, the winning side to hit-off.
7. The ball shall not be taken off the ground so long as it is in play; except it pass by the goal-poles; the striker shall then have the same privilege as in Rule 4.
8. The ball shall not be in play when outside he boundary flags, and us then to be tossed on straight by the nearest player, but shall not be in play till it has touched the ground within bounds.
9. It shall be a goal if the ball pass through the goals, or above the space between them, provided it does not pass over a cross-pole. A goal may be saved by a catch within the poles.