Tuesday Night Football Rules

Broadly speaking, we want a fast, competetive game with as small a risk of injury as possible. There's no referee: we call our own mistakes like the gentlemen we are.

Violent conduct is of course not allowed, and results in a direct free kick. For safety reasons, sliding tackles and heading the ball are also banned. Pushing and barging are not allowed: this isn't a non-contact sport, but we do want to avoid players being bundled into the wall/floor and breaking something.

The ball is not allowed over head height - infringements result in an indirect free kick. The only exception is if the ball goes high off the goalkeeper: if it was a deflection, we play on. If it was deliberate, the goalie gets the ball back. Meint doesn't like this rule, and I can see his point :-> Practicality dictates that we use the blue line around 3 of the 4 walls in the hall as the "official" head height, although if the ball hits the nets between the two halves of the hall we have to call that over head height too.

The goalie can't deliberately leave their area (the red 'D'), and no other player can enter it. If a player's momentum takes them slightly the wrong side of the line, it will be overlooked.

For all free kicks, defenders must be at least 2 meters away from the ball, or as far as possible if the ball is near the goalie's area.

Substitutions and goalie changes can happen at any time. By convention, play stops whenever a player has to tie his laces or return the ball to the clodhopping oafs next door who are always hoofing their ball into our half. On hot days we have a quick break half way through the game for drinks.

After every game, we retire to a local pub for a few jars. Cheers!