THE OLD GAME OF FOOTBALL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 48, 28 November 1891, Page 629

THE OLD GAME OF FOOTBALL.

most of our outdoor games, football can vyH ljt uC boast of great antiquity. Fierce wordy warta<l fare has t>een waged about the invention of Wl printing, of gunpowder, of the mariner’s compass, and so on, but these mysteries would be trifles light as air compared with the serious ettbrt, if any man were sane enough to make it, to discover the inventor of football. * Depend upon it,’ as one has truly said, ‘ the simpler ball games are as old as the human race, and the man, woman, or child who first kicked something round or threw it about sportively gave rise to the rough and ready pastime, out of which football and a host of other games grew during the centuries.’ We owe football to the Romans. There is no doubt that it came over to England with Julius Ctesar. The conquered learned the game from their conquerors, and it soon got that firm foothold in the country which it has ever since retained in spite of Acts of Parliament and kingly edicts. Edward , 111., the.hero of Crecy and Poitiers, was the first English monarch who forbade indulgence in the game on pain of imprisonment, and this edict was renewed by his unhappy grandson, Richard 11. Coming down the stream of time, we find our English Solomon — King James, with his wide-frilled breeches. Who held in abhorrence tobacco and witches. also holding in equal abhorrence the old game of football, and issuing from his Parliament at Perth on May 26th, 1620, the following :— Item : It is astute and the king forbiddes that no man play at the fute-ball under the paines of fiftie schillings to be raised to the lordes of the land ais oft as he be tainted, or

to the schirefe of the land or his ministers gif the lordes will not punish sik trespassoures. But there was the making of first-rate sport in the game, and it was as idle to attempt to crush football by the word of a king, as for Canute, according to the venerable story, to attempt thus to repel the waves of the sea. It flourished in spite of all opposition, and is to be found among the village sports which were patronised by courtly, goodhearted Roger de Coverley. The garrulous Mr Pepys, in his ‘ Diary,’ under date January 2nd, 1665, states that on his way to Lord Brounuker’s, in the Piazza at Covent Garden, he found the streets full of footballs, it being a great frost,’ and Misson describes the game as played in the streets of London town, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, thus :— ‘ Tn winter football is a useful and charming exercise. It is a leather ball about as big as one’s head, filled with wind. This is kicked about from one t’other in the streets by him that can get it, and that’s all the art of it.’ Seeing the footballers were so devoted to the leather that they dared the frowns and threats of Royalty, we need not be surprised to learn that once a year they had a grand festival entirely devoted to the game, the day selected being Shrove Tuesday. Allusion is made in William Fitzstephen’s ‘ History of London’ (written in the reign of Henry If., about 1175) to the young men withdrawing to the fields after dinner to indulge in the game of England. Both sexes played football on Shrove Tuesday, and easy going folk doubtless wished the festival at Jericho, for before it was over it was no uncommon thing for horseplay and rioting to be seen on a large scale. Windows had to be barricaded and doors secured, so serious was the risk of damage and danger on these occasions. At the village of Scone, in Perthshire, the married men and the bachelors until recently engaged in a conflict of this kind on Shrove Tuesday. The game at Scone originated in this way. In the days of

chivalry a certain Italian visiting Perth challenged all the parishes around. The challenge was refused by all but Scone, who accepted it and defeated the foreigner, and in commemoration of that victory the game was instituted—yes, arid insisted upon too, for any man, no matter his rank, refusing to support the married or single side was fined. Derby used to be noted for its football saturnalia on Shrove Tuesday, and the observance of the festival was primarily intended to commemorate the route of the Romans at Deventio, known to people of these times as • Little Chester.’ The ball, a huge, heavy spheroid, which used to be hugged, not knocked, was thrown up in the market place at two o’clock in the afternoon. The contending sides were known at * All Saints’ and ‘St. Peter’s,’ ami the goals the extreme boundaries of these respective parishes. The game was one of fearful excitement. The l»all was frequently carried miles into the country, and much havoc an;! desolation marked its progress. Fences were destroyed, strong iron palisades torn down, gates snatched up, and all signs of vegetation trampled out of existence. Free fights, rioting and dangerous practical joking often accompanied the game, and at last the mischief and devastation wrought and caused became such an intolerable nuisance that on Shrove Tuesday, 1646, the game had to be put down ri et arm is. Sometimes we read of complaints about the violence of the game, and no doubt accidents do happen occasionally. But hundreds of years ago it was a terribly rough and brutal sport. Tn a letter descriptive of the sports of Kenilworth Castle (1575) wherein mention is made of a certain bridegroom being lame of a leg ‘ that in his youth was broken by football,’ Master Stubbs describes the football of three hundred years ago. He writes :— • For as concerning football playing I protest unto you it

may rather be called a friendly kinde of fight than a play or recreation, a bloody or mnrthering piactice than a felowly sporte or pastime. For dooth not every one lye in wait for his adversarie, seeking to overthrows him and to picke him on the nose, though it be upon hard stones, in ditch or dale, in valley or hill, or whatsoever place it be, hae caret h not so he have him down. And he that can serve the most of this fashion he is counted the only felow, and who but he, so that by this means sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometimes their legs, sometimes their armes, sometimes one part thrust out of joynt, sometimes another, sometimes the noses gush out with blood, sometimes their eyes start out, and sometimes hurte in one place and sometimes in another. But whosoever escapeth away the best goeth not scot free, but is either sore wounded, crushed and bruised, so that he dyeth of it, or else escapeth very hardly, and no marvaile, for they have the sleights to meet one betwixt two to dash him against the hart with their elbowes, to hit him under the short ribbes with their gripped fists, ami with their knees to catch him upon the nip and to pick him on his neck with a hundred such murthering devices, and heiiof groweth enve, malice, rancour, clioler, hatred, displea-nre, enmittie, and what not < l-c, and sometimes fighting, bawling, contention, quarrel and picking, murther, homicide, and great effusion of blood, as experience daily teacheth.’ Even in ‘ these degenerate days,’ when rules have been drawn up to govern the game, football seems (to use the words of King James L, in his Basilikon Doron) to be ‘ meeter for laming than making able the users thereof.’