Curating Sports Rule Books in Rugby and Cricket

Sport is one of the quintessential examples of a system governed by rules. Rules govern sports to make them interesting, fair and safe. There is no sport without rules. But how fast are rules growing in sport? Is the increase in current rules given the rise of VAR technologies causing an avalanche of new regulations, or is this simply in line with how things have been going? How might we expect sports laws to change in the future? What are the parallels between codes of law in governance and laws in sport?

I spent this last week at the Marylebone Cricket Club’s library/archive in Lord’s cricket ground collecting data on the rule books of cricket from 1744-present day, and next week I will be spending several days at Twickenham stadium doing similar for rugby from 1845-present day. The aim of this project is to provide data in a first step to answering these questions about how rules and regulations evolve across a multitude of different systems, from sport to governance to regulatory networks in cells. It is the first project of its type that will provide an online archive for the history of sports rule books.

Please find the archive of sports rulebooks for rugby and cricket at https://www.sportsrulesproject.com/. Follow-up researh will occur on this over the next year. Below of some photos from my time at Lord’s. Thanks to Alan Rees, Niamh Field and Phil McGowan for facilitating my research visits and for help, advice and consultation!