Eton Field Game
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The Field Game is one of Eton College's two brands of football, the other being the famous Eton Wall Game. The game is like soccer in some ways — the ball is round and you are not allowed to pick it up — but the off-side rules are more in keeping with rugby and there is also a small scrum or "bully". Goals can be scored much as in soccer, although there is no goal-keeper. But a team gains more points for scoring a 'rouge'. To score a rouge a player must kick the ball so that it deflects off one of the opposing players and then goes beyond the opposition's end of the pitch. The ball is then 'rougeable' and must be touched to the ground by an attacking player to complete the rouge. Rouges are something like tries in that the scoring team then attempts to convert them.
It is the only game at Eton that virtually every boy plays, at least for his first three years in the school, and it occupies prime position in the games programme throughout the Lent Half.
In recent years, the boys from Noakes' house have prevailed, winning both the prestigious House Cup and House Shield.