These laws are immutable, they never change...
1. The referees had an incredible ability to spot angles
There were no linesmen unless you counted the over-excited manager or the injured lad in the tracksuit, both of whom regularly made highly objectionable calls which enraged the opposition and were, more often than not, speedily overruled by the referee.
Neither of them could realistically be trusted to apply the offside rule with any impartiality.
Therefore the referee would make the calls on offside himself. The skill it takes to adjudge someone offside when you're 20 yards behind the play and standing in the middle of the pitch is extraordinary. What's more they usually made these calls with admirable certitude.
2. Shouting 'My Ball' was asking for trouble
'My Ball' was the bread and butter vocabulary of the domineering playground footballer. It was ingrained by the time any aspiring player reached the age of 13.
Thus, on one's first few official, eleven-a-side games with a referee, players incessantly shouting 'My Ball!' in the heat of battle ended up accounting for most of the free kicks awarded in the match.
3. 'We're playing down the hill in the second half...'
Many's a seemingly unassailable lead has been turned around thanks to the topography of the playing surface. In Gaelic football it's the wind, in underage football it's the hill.
4. There will be one lad who wont bring shinpads and will wear his socks down
Everyone lines up shivering on the eighteen yard line as the referees paces up and down eyeing up your the area below your thighs. He whacks your shin with a flag to establish that you are padded up. One lad will have to come clean before he gets a whack of the mini-flag stick.
One of the subs who is destined not to get on will have to provide him with his shinpads.
5. Managers tend be more progressive in training than they are during matches
During training, the precepts of pass-and-move were sacred. Players were encouraged to play as they see it, take a touch, never kick the ball away aimlessly, always look to pass to a colleague.
During matches, the emphasis would shift somewhat. The gentle but passionate exhortations to 'pass and move' were replaced by foghorn shouts of 'KICK IT FUCKING ANYWHERE!!!'
6. Throw-ins go 'down the line'
Winning a throw in and failing to throw it as far as possible down the line was regarded by your manager and his entire backroom staff (which consisted of one other lad's father) as unpardonably cavalier and richly deserving of an on-the-spot bollocking.
7. Foul Throws were a lottery
Like shouting 'my ball', foul throws were a remarkably frequent way of surrendering possession in underage football. It just didn't tally with the idea of football these lads received from the telly where foul throws were comparatively rare. It was possible to get away with it however, depending on the severity of the referee.
8. There will be a prolonged stoppage at some point while someone retrieves the ball from the ditch in the adjacent field
Soon every player on the pitch will be passing around Lucozade bottles, squirting water into the corner of their mouth...
9. If you're leading the score is still 0-0, if the game is already beyond you the job is to win the second half
Oh, these psychological ploys mangers dream up. Con your players into thinking the scoreline is still 0-0 when you in fact enjoy an unassailable lead. The carrot of winning the second half was never a powerful incentive
