The complete rules of paper football
Four rules cover ninety per cent of games. The other ten per cent is where two friends with a notebook start arguing. Here is the full set, including the arguments.
Setting up
Draw a rectangle on squared paper, 8 squares wide and 10 squares tall. In the middle of each short side, mark a goal 2 squares wide, drawn as a notch sticking one square outside the rectangle. Put the ball on the centre dot of the pitch.
Decide who starts and which goal each player attacks. In ProStriker the first player attacks the far goal from their point of view, and the side is assigned automatically — on paper, say it out loud before the first line.
The rectangle you drew counts as lines that already exist. This matters enormously and is the single most common thing people forget when they teach the game.
What counts as a legal move
A move is one straight segment from the dot the ball is on to one of the eight neighbouring dots: four orthogonal, four diagonal. The ball ends the move on that dot.
A move is legal if and only if all of these hold:
- The target dot is on the pitch, or inside a goal.
- That exact segment has not been drawn before — by either player, or as part of the boundary.
- The segment stays within the pitch. A diagonal that would clip the outside of a corner is illegal even though both of its endpoints are on the pitch.
Segments are undirected. If somebody drew the line from A to B on move three, then the line from B to A on move thirty is the same line and is illegal.
The fence
The rectangle around the pitch — everything except the two goal mouths — is treated as already drawn. Two things follow.
First, you cannot run along the touchline. Moving from one edge dot to the next edge dot in a straight line is drawing over the fence, which is illegal. Players who have only played casually often miss this and are surprised how much it changes the game near the edges.
Second, every dot on the fence is occupied from move one. Combined with the bounce rule below, this means any move that reaches the boundary earns a free follow-up move — and also that boundary dots are the first places on the board to run out of exits.
Bounces and chains
After a move, examine the dot the ball landed on. Count the segments already touching it, not counting the one you have just drawn. If that count is one or more, the ball has bounced and the same player moves again.
The follow-up move obeys all the normal rules, and it can bounce too. There is no cap on chain length. In practice, chains of three or four are common in the middle game, and a chain that reaches the goal ends the game on the spot.
If the landing dot was completely untouched, the turn passes to the other player.
The cases people argue about
- Landing back on the dot you started the turn from. Perfectly legal, as long as the segment you use has not been drawn. It bounces, because that dot obviously has lines on it.
- A bounce that goes straight into your own goal. It counts, and you lose. The rule does not care who drew the line.
- Bouncing off the goal frame. The goalposts are part of the boundary, so yes, they bounce like any other wall.
- Running out of moves during a chain. If a follow-up move leaves you with nowhere to go, you have trapped yourself and you lose. Chains are not free — they are a commitment.
Winning
By goal. Move the ball onto any dot inside the opponent's goal. The game ends at once; there is no kick-off and no second goal.
By block. If it is your turn and you have no legal move — every segment from the ball's dot is drawn or leads off the pitch — you lose immediately. Note carefully who loses: the player who cannot move, not the player who created the situation.
A game cannot go on forever, because every move permanently consumes one of a finite number of segments. Sooner or later the board runs out and somebody is blocked. Draws are, for practical purposes, impossible.
Rules that differ between playgrounds
Paper football was never standardised by anybody, so several variants circulate. If you are playing a stranger, agree on these first:
| Point | ProStriker uses | Also seen |
|---|---|---|
| Pitch size | 8 × 10 | 6 × 8 for quick games, 10 × 14 for long ones |
| Goal width | 2 squares | 1 square (much harder), 3 squares (much easier) |
| Blocked player | Loses | Some groups score it as a goal against; the result is the same |
| Own goal | Counts, you lose | Occasionally house-ruled as illegal, which creates messy edge cases |
| Bounce off the wall | Yes, always | Rare variant where the wall does not bounce, making edges safe |
ProStriker implements the most widely played set, which is also the one used in the Polish and Hungarian competitive scenes. If you learned different rules at school, you are not wrong — you learned a different dialect.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if I have no legal move?
You lose immediately. This is the second way to lose the game, alongside conceding a goal, and against a strong opponent it is the more common one.
Can I draw over a line the other player drew?
No. A segment belongs to the board, not to a player. Once it exists, nobody can use it again, in either direction.
Does bouncing off the wall really give a free move?
Yes. The boundary counts as pre-drawn lines, so every dot on it is already occupied and every arrival there triggers a bounce.
Can a bounce chain last forever?
No. Each segment of the chain is consumed as you use it, so a chain always runs out. Long chains are prepared, not lucky.
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