SOME FOOTBALL HISTORY

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 234, 26 June 1908, Page 8

SOME FOOTBALL HISTORY

THE VERY OLD DAYS. HOW THE GAME' HAS SURVIVED EDICTS. (By Off-Side Mac.) Somo weeks ago, Mr. Harnett, the manager of the Anglo-Welsh football team, referred with awo to the deadly earnestness ivitli which New Zealandcrs • viewed their prjncipal national pastime. This earnestness, said Mr. Harnett, had an almost paralysing offe-ct upon the nerves of oven such a seasoned enthusiast as himself, and lie was at loss to account for it fully. It appears, however, that this intense affection . for an oxcitiilg sport is hereditary; has comq in the blood through a course of thousands of years, and is especially manifest in young countries whoso virilo youthfulness revels in tho somewhat ruder physical' joys in preference to tho culture of aesthetics and art. In time, 110 doubt,•, New Zealand will outgrow, in a measure, its love for rough sports, as Great Britain has done, and will view life as something more than a craving for a ninety minutes' history of the trials and tribulations of ail inflated piece of leather. Until that' time, however, we may console ourselves with the fact that football is a fine game, with characteristics which tend to manliness, pluck, and resourcefulness. . ' The Oidest of Games. It should be remembered that football is undoubtedly the oldest of all the national games, and thousands of years before it was introduced into Great Britain it was played by the Greeks, and was mentioned m 'tho Odyssey., There is also every reason to believe that the game was played by tho Egyptians, because on the carvings of the walls, of many of, tho Egyptian buildings there, are hieroglyphics which depict scantily attired individuals, passing to one another {he football of the period, which was something like a' very stout plum .pudding.. There is a legend, more or less correct, that one of the Ramoses almost provoked a revolution because on one momentous occasion ho captured the ball unfairly. Del vers into antiquarian history have 110 hesitation in stating that tho offence was " off-side." . It. is also alleged that on the next momentous occasion Ramoses rehabilitated himself in public opinion by playing a square game.

How the Romans Played. Jbe Romans also- played football, which was not really football, > but handball, and there appears to .be littlo doubt that thoy introduced the game ;into Great Britain at. the time they were civilising that country. For some years after, however, the Britons had their hands so full of fighting the Danes and the Saxons that they had no time for indulging to any extent in the mild sport. "ho Dane's Head. It is recorded that there was a great demonstration in favour of the game, by tho fact that in one of the counties the first ball put to any special service was the head of a captured Dane. It appears as if the Britons took the game rather seriously j too'-seriously for the Danes. Then there is a record that another gamo was a memorial of a victory over the Romans some time in the third and fourth century. In Recent Times. , Contenting ourselves .with the game in more recent, times, wo find that it had a strong hold on the affections of the peoplo of England during the middle ages, was played on the village greens., and survived numerous edicts for its suppression. It was a great game in the reign of Edward 11, and was played with such sanguinary ardour, and created so much noise, that the King issued a Proclamation forbidding its continuance. It seems as if it were tho scrums of those days which brought about King Edward's disfavour..- Edward 111 found that football seriously, interfered with archery, tho practico of ; which, he required in ordor to make his ; foot-soldiers compotent in the French Wars. It' will be seen,.therefore', .that tho game-affected tho military, strength of England, and the King condemned it as an idle practice, as has done Kipling. New Zealanders may take unction to the fact that, so far as their .later soldioring experiences aro concerned, Hardham, a . member-of the Petono Football Club, upheld the reputation of the Dominion, on the .fields of .Africa bv, obtaining a Victoria Cross, and .tho footballers themselves, never shirked their, opportunities for service in the - memorable campaign • against Ivruger. This is a digression,-but pardonable, in order to relievo Rugby of the stigma that it is an obstreperous and' disreputable member of the Family of British sports, and almost an habitual. criminal. In the two hundred years from 1.314 all the Kings unsuccessfully attempted to strangle the' game, which wasclass'ed in tho statutes with cards, dice, and other importuno games, but tho English people defied the law time and again The writers of the 16th century termed it "a furious sport,'unfit for gentlemen." ' Curious Fields of Play. The fields of. play in those davs were mostly, the roads;; the distance between tho two goals being from some sixty yards to a c'li m Mfmtaku Shearman, one at the authorities on the subject, states that those- goal posts wore usually bushes, posts' [ and houses. ' Sanguinary Play. ; There is no doubt that the game was - exi exceedingly'rough, and it is recorded that one encounter 111 tho reign of Elizabeth resulted m a largo number of homicides and serious accidents. .One Roger Ludforde was killed some years later in a game in which tho circumstances have repeated themselves time and again down to our own clay. Roger was playing rather a dashing £ a i? o .'. ', e 5[ as apparently an aggressive individual. lie was like Roberts. It appeals that his brilliant aggressiveness aroused much hostility in the minds of his opponents. In ono of his'dashes the ball was stopped, and held by Nicholas Martyn. Cast hym over-the hedge," said Roger, and .Nicholas replied, "Come thou and do it " .Ihero was a modern spirit about Nicholas and Roger which wo can admire, but Nicholas was evidently rather over-ferocious, for as Roger ran again to get the ball, Nicholas and a chum named. Richard Turvev struck him under the heart with their eibows so savagely that. he. received a mortal wound, and died wjthm a quarter of an hour, whereon, said the .Coroner's jury, "the r.aSJ Nicholas and Richard in this manner slew the said Roger.

'A " Kinds of Fyghte." I? the seventeenth century football still made great headway, although the players were termed lewd and disordered persons. , ,2®'® 6 itself was dcscribod as a' ''friend;lie kinde of fyghte"—a "bloody and murtherlng practice." An Adverse Critic. . ' One . of the critics of the time waxed eloquent m his condemnation of the roughness just the same as do our twentieth century writers. How does this read: "For dootli not everyone lye in waight for his adversary, seeking to overthrow him and picko him on the nose, though it be on tho hard stones, on ditch or dale, on valley or hill .or whatever place soever it bo ho c£rotli not' ,so ho have him downe; and ho that can' sorve the most of this fashion ho is counted tho only fellow, and who but ho." It is really refreshing, to find that they played a very vigorous game in thoso and bv just making a comparison between that period and tho present, we can easily understand why the lovo of the sport has been inbred in us. Another writer declaimed against the oxerciso on Sundays, so it would appear that at the time tho people had tho craze badly. The game, however, survived criticism, as it did legislation, and between 1600 and 1700 was played all over England and Scotland. Tho ball was not always large, and the players sometimes took their boots off ill order-to lessen tho death rate. Charles [I was a patron of the gamo, and saw it played. Both Shakespeare and Addison have immortalised the gamo. In fact, Addison himself states that he was a player at one time. It seems that the game, however. suffered a set-back at the hands of tJ™

Puritans, and although it' was played to some cxtont, it decayed considerably for nearly two hundred years in England, although in Scotland it appears to have been flourishing. A Notable Game. Tho game bobbed up again in 1850, and made great headway. Ono of tho most notable games in connection with the revival was. an encounter in which tho gamo was played on the old plan. The field of play was-half a mile in,length, and four hundred persons took part in the scrum. After a series of "moving accidents by field and flood," says the local paper, "Jimmy" Bain collared the ball and dropped it! into the stream, dived for it, and, swimmingon, gained a t.ry, which won tho match. I!ain was evidently as resourceful as our old-time hero Duncan. • '

This short history of the game serves to show its popularity wherever it has been played. It is not to-day the national game of Britain, but it is a recognised pastime all over tho country, and it can by no means be termed a relic. In America and France the game is making headway. It is played all over the British dominions,' and if .wo New Zealander3 err in our zeal for its interest, we have the satisfaction of. knowing that all round it is absolutely one of the cleanest sports on the face of tho earth. ~.