LEAGUE FOOTBALL.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16815, 5 June 1926, Page 20 (Supplement)

LEAGUE FOOTBALL.

DIVES INTO HISTORY, (By “Lex.”) Interesting dives into history show how goals used to he notched in a slick. Opinions may differ as lo the origin of football, and when il really sprang may never be discovered, hut certain it is Hint as an organised team game wo gel our first knowledge of it from the Greeks, and ttic people who first introduced it lo Great Britain were the Romans.

The Romans called iheir game Ilarpastum and it was a combination of hockey and football. The word “football” came in Anglo-Saxon times and denoted a game played on foot as apart from a game played on horseback.

The mythical origin of football occurred during the Danisii Invasion, when the men of Chester were supposed to have captured and hilled a Dane, afterwards playing football with his head. This set up the custom of football playing on Shrove Tuesday. The first real mention of the game is recorded by Fitzstephen in 1175 under the heading of “liio celebrated game of ball.” It seems that the game became so popular in the years immediately following that every English monarch from 11514 to 1517 either forbade or legalised against it. This was mainly (A. Evans tells us in “The Football Referee”) because it interfered with the people’s archery practice. Between the reigns of Richard 11. and Henry VIII. the Sheriffs of London were ordered to suppress such “idle practices,” and we in our day can sympathise with the man who during Henry VIII.’s kingship earned fame in the following record: “ They present that Wm. Welton misbehaved himself playing at football and other unlawful sports." Whon the Gamo Was Banned. In order to counteract the effects of these laws, those interested banded themselves together as llic “Fraternity of the Football Players (1442)." James IV in Scotland decreed in 1457 that displays of weapons and reviews should be held four times a year on which occasions “ footballe lie utterly cryed down and not to be used.” llis successor in 1401 decreed that "in na place in this realmo there lie used footballe, or other sic unprofitable sports.” At about the same time in England the Campers of Norfolk and Cornwall was exceptionally popular. A small ball was used, and two goals were placed about 10 to 15 yards apart at each end of the' pilth,, which was about JOO yards few*.,-' The game, which lasted two or t£ur,(p hours, was played by 20 or It'd •pjtn.iiOfs on each side. For each goal seared* (called a notch) a notch was cut hi a slick, and seven or nine, noteheyiiawas “game.” Tin; referee was an ‘ld different speclaU*i:

Contemporary writers (who were few) lead us to understand that football was not a drawing room game, and perhaps the cream of all football literature is found in the words of one Stubbs (late 16th century) : “For as concerning football playing I protest unto you it may rather be called a friendly kind of fight than a play or recreation—a bloody and murIhering practice than a fellowly sport and pastime. . . Sometimes their necks arc broken, sometimes their hacks, sometimes their legs, sometimes their noses gush out willi blood. . . for they have the sleights to meet one betwixt two, to dash him against the hart with their elbowes, to but him uuder the shor t ribs with their gripped fists and with Iheir knees to catch him on the hip and pick (pitch) him on his neck with a hundred sucli murthering devices.”

He concludes by asking: “Is this murthering play now an exercise for the Sabbath day?” A Fine of Twelve-Pence.

Another writer (Sir Thomas Elyot, 1564) mentions “footballe wherein is nothing but beastlie furic and extreme, violence whereof proceedeth hurlc." In 1608 we learn that local authorities in Manchester look steps to prevent “a company of lewd and disordered persons using that unlawful exercise of playing with the ffotcball in ye streets of ye said towne.” Football was thus forbidden under a fine of twelve pence. This proves that the fierceness of Elizabethan football continued until the 17th century. Even James I. declared “From this court .1 debarre all rough and violent exercises as football, mcctcr for laming than making able the users thereof.” In the latter part of ttiis century some adaptation of Campers was in vogue in that the goals were 10 to i.i feet wide and 100 yards from each other, "players to range up in payees (as present day netball) the referee to be some indifferent person. Goal of Two Sticks.

During the 18th century a statute banned ail games (football included), so that football declined, hut this period produced ihc forerunner of our modern football —a blown bladder encased with leather. Strutt tells us "when a football match is made an equal number of competitors take the field and stand between two goals at a distance of eighty or an hundred yards the one from the other. The goal is usually made with two sticks driven into the ground about two to three feet apart. The ball which is commonly made of a blown bladder encased with leather is delivered in the midst of the ground and the object of each party is to drive it through the goal of their antagonists, which being achieved the game is won. . . .” Our present game is largely the result of “nursing” during the 19th century by ihc public schools which formulated distinct rules and styles of play.