plaque "to commemorate this historic moment". Uppingham Rules of football for Uppingham School had been created under the supervision of Charles Thring's brother Edward in 1857. They allowed the ball to be carried in a similar fashion to the Rugby rules. "The Simplest Game" During his time as a resident master at Uppingham (1859–1864), Charles Thring became intensely involved in efforts to create a common code of football. His interest seems to have been stimulated by the publication in the 14 December 1861 issue of The Field of an article calling for such a common code. Thring immediately responded with a letter criticising the Rugby code in strong terms, referring to its allowance of "hacking" (kicking opponents' shins) as "a blot", "thoroughly un-English", and "barbarous". In its place, Thring urged the following as the "very first principles of football": the ball should be kept on the ground as much as possible players should be "always behind the ball" (Thring objected to the Rugby offside law as being too lax, since it allowed an offside player to rejoin play after an opponent touched the ball) Thring went on to describe in some detail the features of his proposed game, which featured a round ball, a "barrel-shaped" playing area, a goal scored by kicking the ball under rather than over the bar, and an extremely strict offside law. During the first half of 1862, Thring continued to engage in discussion of the merits of different rules of football via correspondence published in The Field. This culminated in his publication, later in 1862, of a pamphlet entitled The Rules of Foot-ball: The Winter Game. Revised for the use of schools. The pamphlet proposed a set of laws for what Thring called "The Simplest Game": Football Association In a letter to the Daily Telegraph of 24 September 1863, Thring urged the formation of a "parliament [that] could sit with sufficient authority to issue a new code of laws" for football. When the formation of the Football Association was announced shortly afterwards, Thring responded enthusiastically, sending voluminous correspondence to the Association's secretary Ebenezer Morley. In a letter dated 13 November, Thring wrote that Uppingham School was "extremely desirous of joining" the association. In another communication dated the following day, he promised to send the necessary subscription. These letters made a notable contrast with the generally negative attitude of other public schools (Charterhouse and Harrow had