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Title: Foot-ball: its history for five centuries
Author: Montague Shearman
James E. Vincent
Release date: September 16, 2024 [eBook #74421]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E. C, 1885
Credits: Susan E., David E. Brown, M. Hirvonen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOOT-BALL: ITS HISTORY FOR FIVE CENTURIES ***
_HISTORICAL SPORTING SERIES NO. I._
Foot-Ball:
Its History for Five Centuries
BY
MONTAGUE SHEARMAN
AND
JAMES E. VINCENT.
[Illustration]
_LONDON:
Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C._
_Simpkin, Marshall & Co.; Hamilton, Adams & Co._
[Illustration]
FIELD & TUER,
THE LEADENHALL PRESS, E.C.
T 4,192.
[Illustration]
Preface.
[Illustration]
The Authors, who welcome this opportunity of addressing their readers
through the conventional channel of a preface, have not written
without an object. That object has not been to teach the art of
football, which art can only be attained by practice. It has been to
collect the scattered and fragmentary knowledge which surrounds the
history of an ancient pastime. In the pursuit of this object they have
performed the pleasant duty of exploring many literary storehouses,
and have not seldom been compelled to wander far out of the beaten
track. They will have attained their object if they can pass on to
their readers one-tenth of the delight which resulted to themselves
from their wanderings. There also resulted a theory, which was not
adopted without anxious argument, that the games of football now in
vogue owe their origin almost entirely to the public schools; and that
in the public schools rules were the consequence of circumstances and
environment. At the same time football has a history which has been
faithfully followed.
In addition to the thanks, which we cannot adequately express, to
ancient authors, we owe a debt of gratitude to Walter Rye, Esq., than
whom none is better versed in the antiquities of sport, for valuable
advice as to sources of information.
M. SHEARMAN.
J. E. VINCENT.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Contents.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE ORIGIN OF FOOTBALL 1
CHAPTER II.
HISTORY OF FOOTBALL BEFORE THE PURITAN ERA 8
CHAPTER III.
HISTORY OF FOOTBALL FROM THE PURITAN ERA
UNTIL THE PRESENT CENTURY 33
CHAPTER IV.
HISTORY OF FOOTBALL IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 47
CONCLUSION.
THE MODERN REVIVAL OF FOOTBALL 67
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
_The Origin of Football._
When a national taste or a national trait is under consideration, sound
criticism often falls from a foreign observer. At the present day an
American novelist, whose subtle analysis of character is charming
English readers, has pronounced his opinion that an Englishman is
only to be understood and appreciated when he is seen out of doors
in a flannel suit; while a French critic goes further, and assigns a
narrower sphere to British ability, by making the observation that an
Englishman is only perfectly happy when he has a ball to play with.
Certain it is, that, good as they are in any branch of sport, it is
in games in which a ball of any kind is used that the members of the
English race are the most enthusiastic and proficient players. There
is another feature, too, in such games which renders them peculiarly
interesting; they have all an ancient and an honourable history. So
far back indeed does the history of the different kinds of ball-play
reach, that the investigation of their origin, and for the present in
particular of the earliest records of the game of football, can hardly
fail to produce interesting fruit.
The most learned historian of sports and pastimes, Joseph Strutt,
indulges in an elaborate antiquarian inquiry into the origin of the
ball, having recourse to the most ancient of the classics for his
authorities. Hand-ball, he says, is, “if Homer may be accredited,
coeval at least with the destruction of Troy. Herodotus attributes the
invention of the ball to the Lydians; succeeding writers have affirmed
that a female of distinction named Anagalla, a native of Corcyra,
was the first who made a ball for the purposes of pastime, which
she presented to Nausica (_sic_), the daughter of Alcinous, King of
Phæacia, and at the same time taught her how to use it.” To emphasize
his authority, the antiquary quotes three lines from Pope’s Odyssey
(bk. v.).
“O’er the green mead the sporting virgins play,
Their shining veils unbound, along the skies,
Tost and retost, the ball incessant flies.”
The same author is much, and it would seem somewhat unnecessarily,
distressed at the fact that the writer of a 14th century manuscript
preserved in Trinity College, Oxford, and the Venerable Bede are not
in harmony as to the early capacities of the athletic saint, Cuthbert.
The former says of him that “he pleyde atte balle with the children
that his fellowes were,” while the latter merely makes mention of his
general excellence at games involving great muscular exertion. The
plain fact of the matter is, that the origin of the ball is one of
those matters which must of necessity be lost in antiquity. Nature
herself supplies an endless variety of balls of all sizes, suitable
for throwing from hand to hand, and the act of playing with them is
instinctive. The apple and the orange are, so to speak, objects which
nature supplies, not only as objects of food, but also as materials for
pastime; clay, too, and snow, are of so plastic a nature that the hands
even of children naturally mould them into a spherical form and hurl
them to and fro in sport.
Before, however, an attempt be made to show how the game of football
became developed as a specific sport, it is without doubt the duty of
sober historians first to chronicle the legends which have attached
themselves to the foundation of the game. Firstly, it is said that in
ancient times it was the custom to kick a large stone from parish to
parish, both in Scotland and in England, for the purpose of marking
boundaries and asserting rights of way; and that in this practice,
which was indulged in by large bodies of the parishioners, each of
whom desired to give his kick when he got the opportunity, we are to
find the origin of football. Certain it is, at any rate, that the
practice of kicking a leather football over a path on Whit-Monday, for
the purpose of exercising a right of way, endured into the present
century in the Isle of Purbeck in Dorsetshire, a ball being annually
presented to the workmen of certain quarries for that purpose. But
the origin of the practice, both in that locality and in some other
parts of the country where it is known to have been followed, is
shrouded in antiquity; and there is little evidence to show that this
practice caused the rise of football, instead of having arisen at
a time when the game itself was well known. This latter view seems
the most probable. The second legend of the origin of the game is
one of a gruesome character, and far more suitable to be chronicled
in connection with the legendary or mythical stage of history. The
ancient Teutons, it is averred, did not scalp the bodies of their
slaughtered enemies (as did the Choctaws), nor did they mutilate them
(as do the Bashi-bazouks), but in grim sport cut off their heads and
kicked them about, after the fashion of the Baron in the Ingoldsby
legend of Sheppey, who, after he had donned the famous boots, first
killed the holy father with a magnificent “punt,” and afterwards
encompassed his own ruin by an ill-timed “place-kick” at the skull of
Grey Dolphin. But even granting that our savage progenitors indulged in
the amiable pastime which we have described (and after all it is far
from improbable), we can still comfort ourselves by feeling certain
that football had no such horrible origin; for the game of head-kicking
may have been magnificent--may have been superb (to quote the famous
_mot_), but it certainly was not football. It is curious, however, that
amongst the traditions of the city of Chester, which is one of the
oldest homes of the game, where it was played by all the inhabitants of
the town on the Roodee, the head of a Dane is still stated to have been
the original ball used in the game. Perhaps it is best to give these
two legends, as in duty bound, and then to pass on to matters which
are of unquestioned historical accuracy. Indeed, were it not for these
legends, it would seem obvious that the foot-ball, as distinguished
from the hand-ball, was the product of civilization and invention. Such
indeed it seems to have been in fact, although it must be confessed
that the subjoined explanation of the origin of the foot-ball is in
part hypothetical and based upon _à priori_ grounds. It is probable
that the first foot-ball was the Roman _follis_, or inflated bladder,
of which Martial speaks when he advises boys and old men alike to
play it. But the _follis_ was, primarily at least, a hand-ball; and a
bladder was probably used first for that purpose, for the simple reason
that it was able, on account of its lightness, to be struck into the
air with the hand without pain, and with ease. At some uncertain but
momentous date, an impetuous player must, after missing the ball with
his hand, have kicked out petulantly with his sandalled foot, and so
unconsciously made the first experiment in the art of drop-kicking, or
punting. Swiftly and strongly the ball flew, farther than it could be
cast by the strongest arm or smitten by the lustiest hand; and this
must inevitably have been the first step to the later development of
the game played with the _follis_, when it was kicked with the foot or
struck with the hand at discretion and convenience.
Be this as it may, it is probable that the Romans, along with their
other habits and fashions, imported the various games which they
played with the _follis_ or with other kinds of ball, into England.
One of these balls, used by the Romans, and by them derived from the
Greeks, was the _harpastum_, the game played with which was that the
players of one side should try to carry the ball over a line defended
by the other side, a pastime which bears no small resemblance to the
game of “hurling,” which we shall describe later. But whether football
was really introduced into Britain by the Romans, or whether it be
an indigenous product of the country, yet, with the exception of the
one doubtful reference to an anonymous manuscript to which allusion
has formerly been made, we do not find any mention of the game in the
annals of our Anglo-Saxon progenitors; and it is not until the 13th
century that we find genuine historical authority on the subject.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
_History of Football before the Puritan Era._
The first mention of the game of football in English history is made
by Fitz-Stephen, who, writing in the 13th century, says, “Annually
upon Shrove Tuesday they (the London school-boys) go into the fields
immediately after dinner and play at the celebrated game of ball
(_ludum pilæ celebrem_).” But it is only fair to add, that the learned
Strutt himself never felt certain that the reference here was to
football. He tells us, in his commentary upon the passage, that Stowe,
in his explanation of the words, has added, “without the least sanction
from the Latin,” the word bastion, “meaning a bat or cudgel,” being of
opinion that the game signified was something of the nature of goff
(golf) or bandy-ball (_sc._, hockey). If Stowe was guilty of this bold
gloss, and there is no question that he was, then it is clear that
the game of the London school-boys is as likely to have been football
as anything else, although Strutt is of the contrary opinion. For
Strutt’s view is based upon the ground that football, as a pastime,
“does not seem to be a very proper game for children.” On the other
hand, there are strong reasons for believing that this game may have
been football, for in the first place there is good historical evidence
to the effect that Shrove Tuesday was a regular day upon which the
London apprentices and those of other great cities, such as Chester,
and the Scotch peasants, regularly indulged in the game of football.
This evidence will be set forth immediately. But it is also a matter to
be noted, that London is one of the places where football seems never
to have died out, while the London schools, notably Westminster and
the Charterhouse, were the places in which one species of the game of
football was kept alive in a period of great athletic depression, to
emerge, at the time of the recent athletic revival, in the form of the
Association game.
That this game flourished in the succeeding century is manifest from
the fact that Edward III., in A.D. 1349, found it necessary to forbid
it by law. This warlike monarch, who was not quite of the same opinion
as a man of at least equally military mind, the Duke of Wellington,
sent a formal letter of complaint to the sheriffs of the City of
London, that “the skill in shooting with arrows was almost totally laid
aside for the purpose of various useless and unlawful games,” and they
were thenceforth enjoined to prohibit all such “idle practices” as far
as their jurisdiction extended.
Football, however, seemed to have sufficient vitality to outlast the
pressure of a statute which, like some of those at present directed
against gambling and betting, seems to have been more honoured in
the breach than in the observance, for we find that in 1389 another
Act was passed by Richard II. (12 Ric. ii., cap. 6) for the purpose
of encouraging shooting, at the expense of other sports. This Act
expressly forbade throughout the kingdom “all playinge at Tennis,
Footballe, and other games called corts, dice, casting of the stone,
kailes (a kind of skittles), and other such importune games.” How
great must have been the moral effect of the statute we see from the
fact that it had to be re-enacted by Henry IV. in 1401, and again
by Henry VIII. considerably more than a hundred years later; while
the last-named monarch also passed an enactment rendering it a penal
offence for any person whatever to attempt to make gain by keeping a
house or ground for sporting purposes of any kind--an enactment which
some of the present managers of “gate-money” meetings for amateurs
would be doubtless sorry to see replaced upon the Statute Book. Another
clause of the same Act made it a penal offence for an artificer to play
at any of the games mentioned above, save at Christmastide. In Scotland
also similar measures were pursued for the purpose of separating those
canny sportsmen from their well-loved games of golf and football;
for in 1458, James III. of Scotland decreed that displays of weapons
were to be held four times a year, and that “footballe and golfe be
utterly put down.” Two other pieces of evidence show how constant and
how vain was the effort made by our sovereigns to suppress a national
sport. Twice in the reign of Elizabeth was proclamation made that
“no foteballe play be used or suffered within the City of London and
the liberties thereof, upon pain of imprisonment,” and twice were
entries of the proclamations having been made entered in the books of
the Corporation of London, upon Nov. 27th, 1572, and Nov. 7th, 1581,
where they can be seen to this day. But in spite of prohibition and
threat of fine and imprisonment, the London apprentices and the country
labourers were determined to enjoy their football; and the game was
probably never so flourishing or so prosperous as it was throughout the
sixteenth century.
And now, it may be asked, What manner of game was this football, which
delighted our forefathers so hugely that they persisted in indulging
in it although under ban of the law? Strange to say, there was not the
chaos of conflicting rules which were found in use when the game was
brought into prominence again a few decades ago. The original game
appears to have been of the simplest description. Given two boundaries
or goals, a ball of any make so long as it were strong enough to
prevent its being torn in pieces, and the opposing sides were allowed
to get the ball on and make it touch the adversaries’ goal in any
manner whatever they pleased, whether by kicking, hurling, shoving,
or running, or by stealth. Sometimes we hear of goals a mile or more
apart; often the arena of play was a street or a high road, sometimes
a whole town; and the attacking party with the ball would try and
sneak round by bye-streets in order to escape notice, and plant the
ball unawares through the window or against the post which was fixed
as the goal. The game, in short, when played in a confined space, was
none other than a rough form of the present Rugby Union football,
without the rules and prohibitions which have now reduced to order and
civilized that game. But it must have been a rough game, that of which
the yokels and ’prentices of merry England were so fond; and of broken
pates and aching shins there must have been not a few. But let us hear
what the writers of the age had to say about it. But before we proceed
to give a few extracts of their views, we must premise that football
was always looked upon as a vulgar game, a game for clod-hoppers, Irish
kernes, and ’prentice lads, which a gentleman of quality should shun,
lest perchance his eye be blackened or his skin be raised in lumps by
a wight of low degree. Hence we can only expect the writers of gentle
birth of the age of Elizabeth and James I., and indeed of all the
later ages up to the present generation, to look upon so rough a game
as unfitting for a man of refinement. But a game does not need to be
defended now because it brings men of different rank to meet on equal
terms with no favour; and ardent footballers might indeed be still able
to adhere to their game although it had been deemed vulgar by James
I. and by Sir Thomas Elyot. Nor is there anything in the contempt of
these dignitaries which will depress the spirits or hurt the sensitive
pride of the football-player especially; for he will find upon study
that football was not the only game condemned by the aristocratic
classes. On the contrary, almost all athletic exercises which did not
immediately and obviously conduce to knightly skill, were held in
equally low esteem; and the game of cricket itself was equally lightly
regarded. In fact, it is not too much to say, that it was not until
the present century was well advanced that men of gentle birth and
education gave up putting away boyish sports when they reached man’s
estate. But of this we shall speak later.
The earliest writers who discuss football critically, are of the
Elizabethan era. We have indeed been informed by a learned antiquary to
whom we are largely indebted for the materials of this work, that many
years before this there flourished in the City of London a “Guild of
Football Players;” but as our friend has lost his reference to this,
the first Football Club in existence, and as we have been unable, with
much searching, to recover the clue, we are unable to present to our
readers any report of exciting matches between the representatives of
the various wards or between the opposing teams of the cities of London
and Westminster. But of the fact that such an organization existed we
feel little or no doubt, and only regret we cannot give more accurate
information on the subject. We can only close our notice of the subject
by transcribing the comment of the gentle scholar to whom we are
indebted for the suggestion, that “probably the players, recognising
the danger of the game to soul and body, thought it necessary to
combine to employ a special chirurgeon, and a special chaplain of
their own,” from which it will be seen that our friend is more fond of
antiquities than he is of football.
The first Elizabethan critic of football whose words deserve quotation,
is Sir Thomas Elyot, the author of “The Boke called the Governour,” a
species of educational manual for the young noblemen and gentlemen of
the age. Writing, in 1583, of the sports which should be indulged in by
those of gentle birth, he expounds views which, seen through the glass
of the opinions of the nineteenth century, appear strange. Archery he
praises above tennis, because in tennis a player is compelled to play
as hard as his opponent, and cannot, so to speak, make his own pace;
so that “if he (the opponent) stryke the balle hard, the othere that
intendeth to receyve him is then constrained to use semblable violence
if he wyll to retourne the balle.” And “boulynge” (bowls), “claishe,”
and “pinnes” (skittles), and “koyting” (quoits), are also spoken of
with disfavour as being too furious; and the writer then goes on (we
quote _verbatim_, leaving more learned critics to explain the worthy
knight’s grammar): “Verilie as for two the laste” (_i.e._, pinnes
and koyting) “be to be utterly abjected of all noble men, in like
wise foote-balle wherein is nothing but beastlie furie and exstreme
violence, whereof procedeth hurte and consequently rancour and malice
do remaine with them that be wounded, wherfore it is to be put in
perpetuall silence.” Perhaps this view would have been coincided with
by a certain bridegroom whom we read elsewhere to have attended the
revels held at Kenilworth in honour of Queen Elizabeth in 1575, for the
gentleman in question, we gather from a letter of the gallant Captain
Laneham, to have been “lame of a legge, that in his youth was broeken
at foote-balle;” but modern footballers would hardly agree with Sir
Thomas or with the learned and pious Puritan writer, Stubbs, who, in
our quotations, “follows on the same side.” Stubbs, in his “Anatomie
of Abuses” in the realm of England in 1583, not only objected to
football for itself, but also for that it was generally played, both
in town and village, on Sunday; and one of his reasons for believing
that the day of doom, as foretold in Scriptural revelation, was at
hand was, that “football-playing and other develishe pastimes” were
played on Sunday. “Lord,” he prays, “remove these exercises from the
Sabaoth.” What follows is curious: in answer to a question as to
whether football-playing is a profanation of the Sabbath, he says,
“Any exercise which withdraweth us from godlinesse, either upon the
Sabaoth or any other day, is wicked and to be forbiden. Now who is so
grossly blinde that seeth not that these aforesaid exercises not only
withdraw us from godlinesse and virtue, but also haile and allure us
to wickednesse and sin? for as concerning football-playing, I protest
unto you it may rather be called a friendlie kind of fight than a play
or recreation--a bloody and murthering practise than a felowly sporte
or pastime. For dooth not everyone lye in waight for his adversarie,
seeking to overthrow him and picke him on his nose, though it be on
hard stones, in ditch or dale, in valley or hill, or what place soever
it be he careth not, so he have him downe. And he that can serve the
most of this fashion, he is counted the only felow and who but he.” We
may remark incidentally that it is at least satisfactory to know that
the footballers of the time of Elizabeth appreciated the advantages of
a good “tackler.” But to resume with Stubbs his opinions. “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 joint, sometimes another; sometimes their noses gush out with
blood, sometimes their eyes start out, and sometimes hurte in one
place sometimes in another. But whosoever scapeth away the best goeth
not scot free but is either forewounded, craised or bruised so as he
dyeth of it or else scapeth very hardlie, and no mervaile, for they
have the sleights to meet one betwixt two, to dash him against the hart
with their elbowes, to butt him under the short ribs with the griped
fists and with their knees to catch him on the hip and pick him on
his neck, with a hundred such murthering devices. And hereof groweth
envy, rancour, and malice, and sometimes brawling murther, homicide,
and great effusion of blood, as experience daily teacheth. Is this
murthering play now an exercise for the Sabaoth day?”
So much for the opinion of the pious Stubbs, who, it must be
recollected, was a Puritan, and one of the party who afterwards almost
succeeded in entirely putting down football during the supremacy of
their opinions. Perhaps it will be as well to finish the hostile
criticism with the opinion of King James I. of England, who, in his
Basilicon Doron, a manual of education written for his son, after
speaking in praise of various other sports, saith, “but from this count
I debar all rough and violent exercise, as the foot-ball meeter for
laming than making able the users thereof.” Still James I., taking him
for all in all, was something of an old woman, and can hardly have been
expected to look with favour upon a “charge” or a “scrimmage.” Added to
this, we have something more than a suspicion that his Royal Highness,
while posing as an original writer on education, was drawing a great
many of his views from Sir Thomas Elyot; for the Basilicon Doron bears
a most suspicious resemblance in many places to the work of the earlier
writer.
Perhaps the best description we have of the game at this period comes
from Carew’s “Survey of Cornwall,” published in 1602. Carew gives a
long account of the game of “hurling,” which was another form of the
football we have described above, with the addition that the players
were allowed, if they liked, to carry sticks and hit the ball towards
the goal, besides hurling, kicking, hitting, or running with it. We
thus see, as would naturally be expected, that hockey and football
started as the same sport but gradually “differentiated” into separate
games, according to the true Darwinian law of progress. Hurling is
described as a match between two large parties of men, in which each
side strives to get the ball as best it can up to the adversaries’
goal. Carew, who is a more genial critic than Elyot, Stubbs, or King
James I., describes hurling with much carefulness and acuteness of
observation. “For hurling to goales there are 15, 20, or 30 players,
more or less, chosen out on each side, who strip themselves to their
slightest apparel and then join hands in ranke one against another; out
of these ranks they matche themselves by payres, one embracing another,
and so passe away, every of which couple are especially to watch one
another during the play.” What football-player knows not the phrase,
“Mark your men”? “After this, they pitch two bushes in the ground, some
eight or ten feet asunder, and directly against them, ten or twelve
score paces off, other twain in like distance, which they term goales,
where some indifferent person throweth up a balle, the which whosoever
can catch and carry through the adversaries’ goals hath won the game.”
The hurlers also, we learn, were not allowed to _but_ or _handfast_
(charge or collar) under the girdle, or to “deale a foreballe” _i.e._,
to pass forward to one nearer the goal than the player, in which
passage we have the only explicit reference to “off-side” play which
is to be found in the early annals of the game. Besides the game in
a field of play, there was also, we learn from Carew, a game played
over country. “Two three or more parishes agree to hurl against two or
three other parishes.” In this game the goals were usually houses, or
else villages, three or four miles asunder, and “that company which can
catch or carry it by force or slight to the place assigned, gaineth the
victory. Such as see where the ball is played give notice, by crying,
‘Ware east,’ ‘Ware west,’ as the same is carried. The hurlers take
their way over hilles, dales, hedges, ditches, yea, and thorow bushes,
briars, mires, plashes and rivers whatsoever, so as you shall sometimes
see twenty or thirty lie tugging together in the water, scrambling and
scratching for the ball.” This description of what may be described as
a “maul in pond” is certainly interesting, and the whole description of
the game lucid. The criticism of the game is also eminently sensible.
“The play is verily both rude and rough, yet such as is not destitute
of policies in some sort resembling the feats of war; for you shall
have companies laid out before, on the one side to encounter them that
come with the ball, and of the other party to succour them in manner
of a fore-ward.” (Thus we see that the term “forward” in football is
no ill-chosen one, the “fore-wards” or “fore-guards” being those who
bear the first attack, and protect the rear-guards, who are manœuvring
behind.) Carew goes on, “The ball in this play may be compared to an
infernal spirit, for whosoever catcheth it fareth straightways like a
madman struggling and fighting with those that go about to hold him:
no sooner is the ball gone from him than he resigneth this fury to the
next receiver, and himself becometh peaceable as before.” (Perhaps, we
may here remark, the man who lost the ball became peaceable because he
was by that time well “blown.” We have observed the same ourselves in
the present age.) Carew ends up with some very thoughtful criticism of
the game, “I cannot well resolve,” he says, “whether I should the more
commend this game for its manhood and exercise, or condemn it for the
boisterousness and harm which it begetteth; for as on the one side it
makes their bodies strong, hard, and nimble, and puts a courage into
their hearts to meet an enemy in the face, so on the other part it is
accompanied by many dangers, some of which do ever fall to the players’
share, for the proof whereof when the hurling is ended, you shall see
them retiring home as from a pitched battle, with bloody pates, bones
broken and out of joint, and such bruises as serve to shorten their
days; yet all is good play, and never attorney or coroner troubled for
the matter.”
Perhaps one more extract will be sufficient to show that _circiter_
A.D. 1600, football was considered one of the national sports of
England, just as it is to-day. Here is a list of British games in the
year 1600. Quoth one bold swain to another his rival (in verse):--
“Man, I dare challenge thee to throw the sledge,
To jumpe, or leape over a ditch or hedge;
To wrastle, play at stooleballe, or to runne,
To pitch the barre, or to shoote off a gunne;
To play at loggets, nine-holes, or ten pinnes,
_To trie it out at football by the shinnes_,
To dance the morris, play at barley breake,
At all esploytes a man can think or speake.
At shove-groate, venter-poynte, or crosse and pile,
At beshrow him that’s the last at yonder stile.”
Perhaps, gentle reader, we may have more to say anon about the ancient
sports of the age of Shakspeare, but at present we must needs jog on.
Let not our readers think, however, that the Bard of Avon never heard
of football. Let them look to the “Comedy of Errors,” Act ii. Scene 6,--
“Am I so round with you as you with me,
That like a football you do spurn me thus?
You spurn me hence and he will spurn me hither,
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.”
Lear too, and Kent, knew something about “hacking” and “tripping.”
Listen to this, “Lear,” Act i. Scene 4.
_Lear._ Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?
_Steward._ I’ll not be strucken, my lord.
_Kent._ Nor tripped neither, you base football-player (tripping up
his heels).
_Lear._ I thank thee, fellow.
Lear, you see, breaks out into an exclamation of praise, when he sees a
neat “trip” brought off by Kent.
There are still some ancient customs in relation to the game of
football, which belong to no particular age, as many of them endured
through many ages, but which may well be set out here lest they should
pass out of mind. The following is from MS. Harl. 2150, fol. 235:--“It
hath been the custom, time out of mind, for the shoemakers yearly on
Shrove Tuesday to deliver to the drapers, in the presence of the Mayor
of Chester, at the cross on the Rodehee, one ball of leather called a
foote-ball, of the value of three shillings and fourpence and above, to
play at from thence to the Common Hall of the said city; which practice
was productive of much inconvenience; and this year (1540), by consent
of the parties concerned, the ball was changed into six glayves of
silver of the like value, as a reward for the best runner that day upon
the aforesaid Rodehee.”
At the parish of Scone, in Perthshire, a similar game appears to
have been played every Shrove Tuesday, between the bachelors and the
married men, from two o’clock until sunset. The game was initiated
by the throwing up of the ball in the neighbourhood of the market
cross at Scone, and the account of it may well be given in the words
of the author of “The Statistical Account of Scotland,” as quoted by
Hone in his Year-Book of 1838. The game was this: “He who at any time
got the ball into his hands ran with it till overtaken by one of the
opposite party, and then, if he could shake himself loose from those
of the opposite party who seized him, he ran on; if not, he threw the
ball from him, unless it was wrested from him by the other party,
_but no person was allowed to kick it_. The object of the married men
was to hang it, that is, to put it three times into a small hole in
the moor, which was the ‘dool,’ or limit, on the one hand; that of
the bachelors was to drown it, or dip it three times in a deep place
in the river, the limit on the other; the party who could effect
either of these objects won the game; if neither won, the ball was
cut into equal parts at sunset. In the course of the play there was
usually some violence between the parties; but it is a proverb in this
part of the country, that ‘All is fair at the ball at Scone.’” This
annual game is supposed to have been established in commemoration of
the victory of a parishioner of Scone over an Italian braggadocio of
chivalrous times; and every man in the parish was compelled to play.
Thus, in this Perthshire game we seem to find the rough and rude
instance of the original game in Scotland, and the first instance of
compulsory football. It should further be remarked, that the same
antiquary gives an account of an annual Shrove Tuesday football match
between the married women of Inverness and the spinsters of the same
parish, which, according to him, invariably resulted in the triumph
of the married women. It appears, therefore, that the female elevens
which occasionally appear in North Country football fields, are not
without a respectable historical precedent for their acts. Still, it
is pardonable to say that the game is not exactly suitable to their
physical constitution; and even the sturdy lass of Inverness must have
been somewhat out of place in the game which Waller describes with
reasonable accuracy in the following lines:--
“As when a sort of lustie shepherd’s boy
Their force at football; care of victory
Makes them salute so rudely breast to breast,
That their encounter seems too rough for jest.”
A game of similar character to “the ball at Scone” appears also to have
been played yearly at Kingston-on-Thames on Shrove Tuesday, which, as
we shall see later, continued an annual fixture until far into the
present century.
Sunday was a great day for all sports and pastimes throughout the Tudor
times; and it was long indeed before the Puritan reaction caused them
to be entirely stopped on that day. There is an amusing extract from
Thomas Cartwright’s Admonition to Parliament, which gives some material
for the formation of an idea of the manner in which our forefathers
spent the Sunday. It should be mentioned that the learned writer
originally wrote with the object of showing that an established form of
prayer was unsuitable for church service. “Among his arguments,” says
the easily-satisfied historian, “is the following:--‘He,’ meaning the
minister, ‘posteth it over as fast as he can galloppe; for eyther he
hath two places to serve, or else there are some games to be playde in
the afternoon, as lying for the whetstone, heathenishe dauncing for the
ring, a beare or a bulle to be baited, or else a jackanapes to ride on
horsebacke, or an interlude to be playde. And, if no place else can be
gotten, this interlude must be plaide in the church.’” And, in order
that a clear idea of the details of Sunday life may be obtained, the
antiquary adds an extract from “The Pope’s Kingdom” (1570), translated
from the Latin of T. Neorgeorgus by Barnaby Googe:--
“Now when the dinner our is done, and that they well have fed,
To play they go; to casting of the stone, to runne or shoote;
To tosse the light and windy ball aloft with hand or foote;
Some others trie their skille in gonnes; some wrastel all the day;
And some to schooles of fence do goe, to gaze upon the play;
Another sort there is that does not love abroad to roame,
But for to pass their time at cardes, or tables, still at home.”
Writings of this kind were abundant in the time of Elizabeth, and
eventually became so influential as to cause that most prudent of
stateswomen to issue a general proclamation enjoining a more strict
observance of the Sabbath. It would be most erroneous, however, to
trace in this proclamation any characteristic quality of Elizabeth
other than natural prudence, for there have been few English monarchs,
male or female, to whom the Puritan tenets were more distasteful at
heart than they were to the peerless but somewhat out-spoken virgin
queen. James I., for whom Strutt has a great admiration, repeated this
declaration in general; but he, as a timid man, averse to muscular
exercise, and an indifferent sportsman, had a rooted objection to
football, which, as we have stated before, was not wonderful.
Enough has now been written to prove that the game of football is, in
name at least, of extreme antiquity, and to give a general idea of its
characteristics in early times. But it may not be amiss to examine
these latter in more detail. It is to be noted in the first place that
there appear in early days to have been hardly any rules; but it is
nevertheless possible to discover certain general characteristics. The
main principle of the game appears to have been, that a ball should
be driven from one place to another; but as to the means appropriate
to its conveyance, there would seem to have been a great difference.
The men of Perthshire never, by any chance, kicked the ball; the
Southerners kicked, carried, and struck it with their hands or with
sticks.
But for any trace of what is now known as the Association game, in
which almost the only method of propulsion of the ball allowed is by
kicking with the feet, we look in vain in ancient times. It seems
probable that such a game originated in schools, and was confined
to them, until brought before the public as a pastime for men by
school-boys from the great public foundations, who wished to continue
their games after they had left school for the world. The real and
substantial difference between the two games as at present played is,
that in the Association game no collaring, and therefore no running
with the ball, is allowed; so that it may be not unsafe to conjecture
that the dribbling game was invented, or rather grew, in schools where
young boys were not allowed to tear each others’ clothes and break each
others’ bones in the intervals of school hours. But of the Association
game we shall have more to say anon.
We think we have said enough of the history of the game of football in
the days preceding the Great Revolution and the Puritan supremacy. This
was a period in which the star of athleticism waned to an exceeding
paleness; and there is no question that those who appreciate the
benefits of innocent enjoyment in exercise of the body, owe a deep debt
of enmity to the Roundheads. With their politics, their religion, their
love of independence, and with many other points good and bad in their
character, we have no concern in the present work.
The death of Charles on the scaffold, the history of the Long
Parliament, Cromwell with his spot of blood upon his collar, the
steeple-crowned hats, and the sad-coloured cloaks touch us not at
all. But the influence which the Puritans exercised in determining
the pastimes of the nation is a serious matter. From an athletic
point of view, the Puritan creed is this--“Be always morose, always
ponderous, absorbed in continual thought and everlasting sermonizing
concerning your latter end. Now, if you play football or cricket, or
indulge in any English pastimes, you will unquestionably forget your
latter end, and will develop such a healthy energy as will be fatal to
despondent bitterness of spirit, which makes the true Puritan.” The
result was simple. Exercise was a waste of time, innocent pleasure
an unwarrantable pampering of the flesh, an unholy coaxing of the
old Adam. Now we all know the result of insufficient exercise to be
derangement of the liver, the spleen, and all organs and functions
of the body. Upon this follows loss of temper, which passes from
the condition of casual irritability to that of unrelenting and
constitutional rancour. Thus men of dispositions naturally bitter
and gloomy, not only took steps to develop their naturally ungracious
tendencies, but also sought to run the rest of the nation into the
same mould. They did their endeavour to convert merry England,--for we
were once, in very truth, the merriest of nations,--into a melancholy
country; and it may well be believed that the Restoration was due as
much to weariness of the Puritan discipline in matters of daily life
and amusement, as to any strong political feeling. The rule of politics
which the Puritans seem to have forgotten, is the practical one, that
the first principle of good government is to keep the people who
are governed in a good humour. The natural result of a system which
inculcated bitterness of thought, fostered ill-humour, and encouraged
conceit, was, that it should perish at the hands of the bitterness, the
ill-humour, and conceit which it had itself engendered.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
_History of Football from the Puritan Era until the Present Century._
After the downfall of the Puritan Government and of the supremacy of
Puritan opinions, as every student of history well knows, the Maypoles
were set up again in the country, and simple folk resumed their dancing
and the like rustic sports. But it is rather the fashion of concise
historians to represent changes of this kind as more rapid than they
are in actual fact; and it is probably nearer the truth to say that the
Puritan habits and feelings which came over England in the earlier part
of the 17th century have never really lost their hold of the nation,
and are even in this day dying hard. Certain it is, at any rate, if any
certainty can be gathered from the literature which is, as it were,
the crystallized thought of an age, that until the present generation
athletic sports have never so much formed a part of the life of the
English people as they did before the Puritan epoch. The direction
of a straw is sufficient to show which way the wind is blowing; and
the apparently insignificant fact that references to football and
other early English games are rare in the literature of the eighteenth
century, is almost sufficient in itself to prove the decrease in the
popularity of the game. Some old towns and districts clung to the
ancient and simple form of the game, and cling to it still up to the
present day; but it will not be too much to say, that from the date
of the Restoration until the time of the great athletic revival in
the last thirty or forty years, the popularity of the ancient game
of football was steadily declining, though never in any danger of
complete extinction. Let us give the generation who abandoned their
ardour for football their due, and say that they became more serious,
more earnest, and less brutal in their sports. The fact, however,
of the decline in the popularity of the game remains the same, and
with the chronicling of that fact we must remain content. So early as
1675 we learn from a satire that the apprentices of London were no
longer content with a game of football on Shrove Tuesday or any such
holiday, but preferred the by no means modern amusement of a political
demonstration. Says the anonymous satirist of the ’prentices,--
“They’re mounted high, contemn the humble play
Of rap or foot-ball on a holiday
In Fines-bury-fieldes. No; ’tis their brave intent
Wisely t’ advise the king and parliament.”
Still the city youths were not always indulging in demonstrations about
this time, and a number of games of football were played about the
metropolis after the Restoration. In 1665 Pepys records in his diary
that on January the 2nd, the streets were full of footballs, it being
a great frost. Probably the footballers of that time did not play
football for choice when the ground was frozen; but a long frost meant
a long holiday and cessation from business in those good old times,
and the ’prentices therefore got an opportunity of playing the game
which they would not have had in open weather. We hear too of a match
played in 1681 between the servants of King Charles II. and those of
the Duke of Albemarle, which the king witnessed himself and was much
delighted at. A few years later, there was enough football in London
to attract the notice of a French visitor, M. Misson, who published
his views of England at the end of the 17th century in a book brought
out at Paris in the year 1698, and entitled “Mémoires et Observations
Faites par un Voyageur.” We need hardly wonder that the Frenchman in
his description of the game should be unable to appreciate its exact
significance. Simple as the game undoubtedly was in these days, there
was probably a little more “science” in it than the visitor to our
shores could comprehend. These are his words: “En hiver le Football
est un exercice utile et charmant. C’est un balon de cuir, gros comme
la tête et rempli de vent: cela se balotte avec le pied dans les rues
par celui qui le peut attraper: il n’y a point d’autre science.” From
this very short allusion in a long work some very interesting pieces
of information are to be derived. First, it appears that at this time
the football had definitely assumed somewhat of its present shape: it
was a leather ball, full of wind, as large as a man’s head. Next we
find that football was definitely regarded by a foreigner as a regular
winter sport in England, and that it was still played as an ordinary
matter of course in the streets or public places. A third inference
may possibly be drawn from the passage. M. Misson speaks of no running
or collaring, but merely of kicking with the feet. Here at last might
the dribbler think that we find a definite allusion to the original
dribbling or Association game. After consideration, however, we think
that a different explanation of the passage is probably to be given.
From the description we have quoted, it seems probable that the writer
had not seen a genuine football match, but merely boys or men kicking
a football about the streets for amusement,--in modern phraseology
“having a punt-about.” Whichever interpretation of the passage,
however, be taken, it seems not improbable that it was from the custom
of punting a ball about in a confined space for the sake of obtaining
warmth and exercise upon a cold day, without any running with the ball
or rough horseplay, that the proficiency in dribbling and kicking was
first obtained and the capacities of the dribbling game for affording
a genuine sport full of skill and excitement first discovered. On the
whole, however, there is little doubt that the Association game must be
regarded as the product of the great public schools of the kingdom, and
not so much the national sport of the lower classes.
_The Spectator_, which in other respects forms a mine of wealth for
procuring information as to the customs and opinions of England
in the beginning of the 18th century, is, unfortunately for our
purpose, almost entirely silent as to the game of football. There is,
however, an illusion in No. 161 (Sept. 4th, 1711). A supposed country
correspondent, a dweller in the neighbourhood of the estate of Sir
Roger de Coverley, writes to _The Spectator_ in town an account of a
country wake. First the writer finds “a ring of cudgel-players, who
were breaking one anothers’ heads in order to make some impression upon
their mistresses’ hearts.” “I observed,” he goes on, “a lusty young
fellow who had the misfortune of a broken pate, but what considerably
added to the anguish of the wound, was his overhearing an old man who
shook his head and said, ‘that he questioned now if black Kate would
marry him these three years.’ I was diverted from a further observation
of these combatants by a football match which was on the other side of
the green, where Tom Short behaved himself so well that most people
seemed to agree it was impossible that he should remain a bachelor
until the next wake. Having played many a match myself, I could have
looked longer on the sport, had I not observed a country girl.”...
And so, forsooth, the _Spectator’s_ country correspondent gives up
the further contemplation and probably the further description of a
manly game, in order that he may gaze at a country wench, to the great
detriment and loss of knowledge of the football student of the present
day. O woman, woman, how many omissions are to be laid to thy charge
through the vanity and curiosity of man when he gazeth upon thee! At
any rate, however, we gather from the passage that in the 18th century
the country people played at football in holiday time on the village
green, that country gentlemen joined in the matches, and that the
most skilful players gained the favour and encouragement of the fair
sex, and were not destined to remain bachelors for ever. Verily, ye
gentlemen of Blackheath, times are changed, but not manners.
In writing however of the 18th century, the learned Strutt is the
safest guide, for his compilations and researches into matters of
ancient sport take us up to the end of the 18th century. From Strutt we
learn how the game was gradually being abandoned throughout the country
about the year 1800. “Of late years,” he says, “it seems to have
fallen into disrepute, and is but little practised.” We see, however,
from his amusing description which follows, that by his time it had
become a field sport, and was played upon a regular football field,
and doubtless with touch-lines and goal-lines. Unfortunately he makes
no mention of the number of players who are usually engaged in the
contest, and gives us little or no hint of any rule, or any explanation
of what was considered scientific play. “When,” he says, “a match at
football is made, two parties, each containing an equal number of
competitors, take the field, and stand between two goals, placed at the
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 or
three feet apart. The ball, which is commonly made of a blown bladder
and cased with leather, is delivered in the midst of the ground, and
the object of each party is to drive it through the goal of the other,
which being achieved the game is won.... When the exercise becomes
exceeding violent, the players kick each others’ shins without the
least ceremony, and some of them are overthrown at the hazard of their
limbs.” He garnishes his simple account with some elegant extracts from
Barclay and Waller, such as--
“The sturdie plowman, lustie, strong, and bold,
Overcometh the winter by driving the foote-ball,
Forgetting labour and many a grievous fall.”
and again--
“And now in winter when men kill the fat swine,
They get the bladder and blow it great and thin,
With many beans and peason put therein:
It rattleth, soundeth, and shineth clere and fayre;
While it is thrown and caste up in the ayre,
Each one contendeth and hath a great delite
With foot and with hand, the bladder for to smite;
If it fall to ground they lift it up again,
And this waye to labour they count it no payne.”
From the time of Strutt, whose book was published in 1801, until the
great revival of the game, about fifty years later, there is little to
chronicle in the history of the game, which was played at almost all
the great schools; but, as regards the rest of the world, only popular
in certain localities where great matches were played by those who
adhered to ancient customs. In fact, we find from the mention made of
the game by Hone, the author of the “Every Day Book and Year Book,”
that football for men was looked upon as more or less of a relic of
antiquity in England. There was the celebrated match at Kingston on
Shrove Tuesday, at Corfe Castle in Dorsetshire, the equally celebrated
antiquity at Derby, at which city, as reported by Glover, its learned
historian, a match had been played every year on Shrove Tuesday since
A.D. 217, when a troop of British warriors thrust some Roman troops
out of the gates. But what Hone states of England seems never to have
applied to Scotland and a few northern counties of England, where the
game has enjoyed an uninterrupted popularity among the inhabitants of
the country. But perhaps a better idea can be obtained by giving some
of Hone’s extracts. On page 152 of his “Year Book” (1852), he quotes,
from Hutchinson’s “History of Cumberland,” an account of the football
match at Bromfield, on Shrove Tuesday. The scholars of the free school
in that place were allowed by custom to “bar out” the master for three
days; after a mock fight with popguns and harmless missiles, a truce
was solemnly concluded, one of the terms of which was, that a football
match should be permitted, as well as some cock-fighting. “After the
cock-fighting was ended,” says the account, “the football was thrown
down in the churchyard, and the point then contended was, which party
should carry it to the house of his respective captain--to Dundraw
perhaps or West Newton, a distance of two or three miles. The details
of these matches were the general topics of conversation among the
villagers, and were dwelt on with hardly less satisfaction than their
ancestors enjoyed in relating their feats in the border wars.” A
quotation of an indigenous song is also given, which runs as follows:--
“At Scales, great Tom Barmes got the ba’ in his hand,
And t’wives all ran out and shouted and banned;
Tom Cowan then pulched and flang him ’mang t’ whins,
And he bleddered ‘Od-white-te’ tou’s broken my shins.”
An account of a similar game at Kingston in the year 1815, is given in
the “Every Day Book,” vol. i., p. 245.
A correspondent writes to the Editor to say that when travelling by
the Hampton Court coach to Kingston on Shrove Tuesday, he was told
that it was “Football Day,” and “was not a little amused to see, upon
entering Teddington, all the inhabitants securing the glass of their
front windows by placing hurdles before them, and some by nailing
laths. At Twickenham, Bushy, and Hampton Wick they were all engaged
in the same way. Having to stop a few hours at Kingston, I had an
opportunity of seeing the whole custom.... At about 12 o’clock the ball
is turned loose, and those who can kick it. I observed some persons of
respectability following the ball: the game lasts about four hours,
when the parties retire to the public-houses.”... The writer goes on
to say that the corporation of Kingston tried to put a stop to the
practice; but the judges confirmed the right to the game.
Another correspondent, whose letter is published on page 374 of vol.
ii. of the same book, describes how at that time (viz. 1827), a game of
football was played every Sunday afternoon by Irishmen, upon an open
space at Islington. The game commenced at three, and lasted until dusk,
men of one county, as a rule, playing against men of another. The same
writer goes on to say that when he was a boy he was accustomed to play
football on a Sunday morning in the “church-piece” before church-time,
in a village in the West of England; but from the tone of the letter it
appears very evident that the writer looked upon football at that day
as a game more of the past than of the present.
In Scotland, however, football in this age was still a national
pastime, and extensively patronized by the upper classes. In 1815 we
read of a great football match being played at Carterhaugh in Ettrick
Forest, between the Ettrick men and the men of Yarrow; the one party
backed by the Earl of Home, and the other by Sir Walter Scott, then
Sheriff of the forest. The latter wrote a couple of songs in honour of
the occasion, from one of which we quote a verse,--
“Then strip, lads, and to it, though sharp be the weather;
And if by mischance you should happen to fall,
There are worse things in life than a tumble on heather,
And life is itself but a game of football.”
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to quote the lines from the “Lay of
the Last Minstrel,” of the same poet, when, in the truce between the
English and Scottish armies, sports were indulged in:--
“Some drive the jolly bowl about;
With dice and draughts some chase the day;
And some, with many a merry shout,
In riot, revelry, and rout,
Pursue the football play.”
But independently of these extracts, there are many allusions through
Scott’s works which testify to the acknowledged popularity of football
in Scotland in the lifetime of the great novelist.
Perhaps we cannot do better than conclude our account of the football
of the past before the days of the Rugby Union and Association rules by
referring to the ancient game which is still played at Derby on Shrove
Tuesday at the present, though perhaps played with less zest since the
lusty youths of the city have had plenty of opportunities of enjoying
the game to the top of their bent on other occasions, and since too we
live in an age which has more respect for the privileges and feelings
of peaceable householders than its predecessors. At Derby there has
been from time immemorial a match at football on Shrove Tuesday,
between the rival parishes of All Saints and St. Peter. The game is
started in the market-place, and the St. Peter’s goal is a gate some
miles away, while the wheel of a water-mill, distant about as far, is
the goal of the All Saints’ division; and the game is over when the
ball has been taken to either goal. Rules of the game there are none;
and all that is needed is for one party, by force or by stratagem,
to get the ball up to the adversary’s goal; to effect which object,
_détours_ are made round streets and alleys, and the river often
crossed by swimming with the ball. Here indeed is a survival of one of
the ancient sports of merrie England, where blows are given and taken
in good humour, and “all is good play, and never attorney or coroner
troubled for the matter.” Nor is Derby by any means the only place
where such a game is still played. In the Midlands, the North, the
South, and the West it survives in holes and corners of old England;
and although we who have learnt the game of football in other days
may prefer a good match with picked sides on the regulation field of
play and under organized rules, yet we should regard with veneration
the more simple sport from which has been derived the more elaborate
game which it was our delight to play in youth, and which it may be
our delight to watch in old age. We must reserve for another chapter
the important task of showing how, issuing from its home in the public
schools, where it had for generations found a welcome shelter, the game
of football has developed once more in our days into a national sport.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
_History of Football in the Public Schools._
It is vastly to the credit of cricket and of football that they should
have survived the Puritan deluge and the decay of the athletic spirit
at the end of the last century, and not have been laid in limbo
together with stoolball, cambuc, and other games wherein the hearts of
our forefathers rejoiced. The survival indicates an exceeding fitness.
Still the storm of Puritanical hatred had been enough to kill even
hardier plants than these, unless there had been some quiet haunts in
which they existed unnoticed and unmolested. As to the pastimes of the
’prentice boys they perished; but in the quiet privacy of the country
and in the almost monastic seclusion of some of our ancient public
schools they continued to exist.
For some reason or other, the foundation of Laurence Sheriff, at Rugby,
was the locality in which, what we now call the Rugby game, but which,
for reasons above mentioned, appears in reality to have been the
pristine form of the game, was preserved. Now, since of every effect
there is a cause, and since of this particular effect history supplies
no cause that we are aware of, it becomes necessary to have recourse
to conjecture; and since conjecture, to be probable, must proceed upon
some sound basis, it seems to follow, that in order to discover why the
game, distinguished by an absence of rules, survived in Rugby School,
an inquiry should be made whether the conditions of football at Rugby
were not different from what they were elsewhere. The answer to this
question, once formulated, is manifest. The conditions of football
were different at Rugby from those which prevailed at other schools;
or rather, to put the matter in language paradoxical in appearance but
literally correct, the conditions of the game were normal at Rugby and
abnormal everywhere else. In fact, the original form of football,--for
it is the simplest,--is of such a nature that it can hardly be played
except in a wide open space. Such a space existed at Rugby from the
beginning, but not at the other great public schools. The Eton boys
had originally no other place to disport themselves in than the
comparatively small inner field nearest the College buildings. The
ancient Meads of the Winchester College are small in dimensions. At
the Charterhouse they had originally no other playground than the
cloisters; and though at Westminster the scholars were better provided
for, yet they were confined to “Green.” Now, in small spaces of this
kind it is obvious that the continual playing of football throughout
the winter months must, almost of necessity, have resulted in the ruin
of the playground for other purposes. For football is essentially a
game for the many, and not for the few, and by its very nature involves
the tearing up of turf and the ruin of greenswards. Therefore it was
natural that in each particular school the rules of the game should
be settled by the capacities of the playground; and, as these were
infinitely various in character, so were the games various.
It is proposed to examine the games of the various schools in somewhat
close detail, on the ground, in the first place, that they are
interesting in themselves, and, in the second, that in some of them
at least are to be traced, more or less distinctly, the germs of the
Association game.
The most peculiar of all games of football is that which is practised
at Winchester, and which, in defiance of latter-day opinions, still
continues to flourish in almost its pristine form. Of the peculiar
rules in vogue at Winchester College, it cannot be written that they
are in any way concerned with the principles of the Association game.
On the contrary, they differ altogether from those of any other game.
But the Winchester rules have the literary merit of peculiarity, and
this practical virtue, that they have produced many of the first
Association players of the present and past days. Therefore, although
no one is recommended to submit himself to them if he can avoid it,
which he will not be able to do if he goes to the ancient school as
a pupil, they are rules worthy of some notice. The ground upon which
the Winchester boys play, is about 80 yards long and about 25 yards
wide. Thus, in the College Meads, which are more or less square,
with an irregular excrescence upon the side nearest the College, it
was possible for four games to be played simultaneously, while the
central portion was reserved for the more sacred and elaborate game of
cricket. Inasmuch, however, as there was some natural difficulty in
keeping the ball within the prescribed limits for even a reasonable
time, the ancient custom was first to mark out the ground with
stakes and ropes, and then, outside the ropes, to place a line of
shivering fags. In time humanity and genius combined discovered that
hurdles served the purpose quite as well as small boys, and did
not take cold; and in later days the hurdles themselves have given
place to tarred nets, spread out upon an iron framework some ten
feet in height. The ropes still remain and are placed about a yard
from the netting; and further, seeing that the ball, while it is
“under ropes,” is in a certain spurious kind of way in play, these
same ropes exert a serious influence upon the game. This commences
with a “hot,” which is formed in the following fashion: In “sixes,”
that is to say matches with six players on each side, there are two
backs on each side, who are called “behinds,” and four forwards, who
go by the name of “ups.” Of the forwards one is “over the ball” and
takes the centre place, and two back him up with their knees behind
his and their arms interlaced round his body. All three keep their
heads down, and the fourth, with his back and shoulders, propels
the centre man. In a six game, notwithstanding the closeness of the
phalanx thus formed, the duration of a “hot” is not usually long; but
in fifteens, where the mass of players is far greater and the same
principle is observed in the formation of the “hot,” ten minutes or
more may be occupied in this performance. When it is added that the
performance is deliberately repeated every time the ball is kicked
over the netting, and that there is no other penalty than a “hot” for
any infringement of the rules, it may be imagined that “hots” occupy
the greater part of the hour which is devoted to a match. The ball,
however, is not kicked out as often as might be supposed probable,
for one of the most stringent rules of the game is, that it may not
be kicked higher than five feet, which is supposed to be the average
height of a man’s shoulder, unless, at the time when it is kicked, it
is either bounding or rolling at a distinctly fast pace; nor may it be
kicked up unless the last person to touch it was an opponent, for, in
the contrary case, it is a “made flier,” which is dreadful. This is a
rule which causes almost as many hots by being infringed as it saves
by preventing the behinds, who alone do much in the way of kicking,
from driving the ball over the netting. Still it is a necessary rule,
for the goal consists of the whole twenty-five yards or thereabouts,
that is to say, of the whole width of the arena, and but for the rule
concerning “kicking up,” there would be no end to the number of goals
obtained. It should be mentioned, however, that if a ball, before
passing over the goal line, or, as it is called, “Worms,” is touched
ever so slightly by any member of what Strutt would call the defending
party, no goal is scored. The distinguishing features of the game,
apart from those already mentioned, are, in the first place, that no
dribbling is permitted under any circumstances; and in the second
place, that the “off-side” rule is stricter than in any other game. It
is not legitimate for two players on the same side to touch the ball
in succession, unless it rolls behind the first kicker; nor may one
player “back up his partner’s kick” by charging the adversary, unless,
at the time when his partner kicked, he was behind the ball, or, since
that time, has returned to the place from which the ball was kicked. It
should be added, that the ball, which is several ounces heavier than
an Association ball, is round. When caught upon a full volley kicked
by one of the opposite side, it is “punted” and not “dropped;” but if
the person catching it is charged, then he who charges is said to be
“running him” and may “collar” him as at the Rugby game, and the holder
of the ball may run until his adversaries cease to “run him,” but then
he must halt and take his punt.
Enough has now been said to give to the general public an idea of the
Winchester game. To a Wykehamist, all that has been written is, as he
would say, the vilest “Tugs,” or news twice told; to interest him, it
would be necessary to enter into an elaborate discussion of the vexed
question contained in the words “Under Ropes Play.” But to the outside
world this vast problem will be sufficiently explained by the bare
statement that when, towards the end of the allotted time, the heavier
side discovers that it is one goal or so ahead, it is a very simple
matter to keep the ball under ropes, in the midst of a surging and
tumultuous crowd, until the hour ends.
The characteristics of the Winchester game are, that it requires great
pace and dash in the players, and teaches men to kick with great
accuracy. It is, however, so manly and straightforward a game that it
leaves little room for skill or subtlety. Moreover, it is noticeable
for this, that while it has been the training-ground of many excellent
players, it has also brought into prominence men who never could have
excelled under any other conditions. These are the “under-ropes”
players, whose system is that of the ox--heavy, obstinate, and slow.
Corresponding in a certain measure to the Winchester game, is the Eton
game of football at the Wall. That is to say, its character and rules
are the result of the locality in which it is played. This is a sturdy
game, and a manly, but singularly inappropriately termed football.
The ball indeed and the feet are both present; but the ball is of
microscopic size, the number of the players is considerable, and the
limits of the ground are exceedingly narrow. Such is the compactness of
the mass of players and the hardness of the wall alongside which the
game takes place, that the ball is encased in a double covering, lest
it should be burst; and the players are enveloped in a kind of armour
of proof. If it were not for this precaution, minor excrescences, such
as ears and the like, would be rubbed off as completely as jagged knobs
are removed from a stick by sandpaper and spoke-shave; skin, too,
would, at the end of the game, be conspicuous by its absence from the
players nearest the wall.
Into the niceties of this game it is not proposed to enter; for
though an excellent pastime, it cannot be described as football, and
is simply a question of shoving. There used, however, to exist at
Winchester College a practice not dissimilar. On Saturday evenings in
the Christmas term, commonly called “short-half,” it was customary
for the College boys to assemble in 7th chamber for the purpose of
singing; after the singing was over, the prefects assembled, eighteen
in number, in the doorway, which was exceeding cramped; opposite them
the juniors, fifty-two in number, ranged themselves, and what was
called a “down-hot” took place. Juniors tried to force their way out,
the prefects tried to keep them in, and there was no mercy for him who
fell. With the single exception that in a “down-hot” the formality of
“delivering a ball in the midst,” as Strutt has it, was dispensed with,
there were many features of similarity between it and the wall game.
Lovers of football might well wish that, as in life they were similar,
so in death they might not be divided. The “down-hot,” together with
the College singing, has long gone the way of all flesh, and has been
swept into the dustbin of the past by the broom of the reformer. It
were a matter not much to be regretted that the wall game should also
perish.
The Eton field game, on the other hand, is a very fine game of
football, and has been found to be an excellent training-ground for
Association. Both in the forward and backward divisions old Etonians
have been prominent; and nothing but the fact that personal references
are contrary to our principles prevents an enumeration of well-known
names. The same deference to principle has prevented the naming of
Wykehamists who have been heroes in international contests, and will
prohibit the mention of the names of the great players of Harrow, of
Westminster, of Rugby, and of Charterhouse.
The distinguishing points of the field game are pace, and, if the word
may be used without offence, honesty. The ball, as in the wall game,
is very small, being about the size of a toy football such as one buys
for children. It is also exceedingly light, and will travel at a great
pace; the result is, that from the moment when they begin to play Eton
boys volley without hesitation, and when they reach man’s estate, can
volley the Association ball incomparably better than the generality of
men trained elsewhere. On the other hand, it is not, in our opinion, a
good ball for men to play with. The full strength of a muscular leg,
scientifically applied, drives the ball so far that there are periods
at which either the game degenerates into an interchange of volleys
between the backs (“behinds”), or the ball is occasionally kicked far
beyond the reach of any player.
It now becomes necessary to explain the use of the word “honesty” a
few lines above. There is no game, except perhaps the Winchester game,
in which the rules of “off-side” are so strict; and to “corner” or to
“sneak,” that is to say, to play “off-side,” or to hang about with the
intention of so doing, are serious offences thoroughly foreign to
the principle of the game. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that in
proportion to the strictness with which the off-side rule is formulated
and observed is the normal pace of any game. Certain it is, that of all
games the Winchester, Eton, and Rugby games are the fastest, and that
in them the off-side rule is most stringent. The “bully” with which
the Eton game begins, is very like a “scrimmage” or a “hot”; but there
is this essential difference between the Eton game and the Winchester,
that it permits and encourages dribbling; it differs from all games
except the Association game in prohibiting the use of the hands; and
from the Association game in particular, in the prohibition of forward
passing. It should be mentioned that goals are not frequently obtained
at this game, for the goal posts are both narrow and low; but there are
minor points, called “rouges,” which may be obtained, and which may
score the victory.
A rouge is an intricate business; and it must be prefaced that the
subjoined account is not written by an Etonian, who alone is familiar
with the almost Eleusinian mystery, but is merely the result of
something like a dozen experiences of the pleasant Eton game which
used to be played in the Merton College cricket ground at Oxford. The
proceedings appeared to be these:--One side, which may be called A,
having succeeded in driving the ball into the neighbourhood of the line
running through B’s goal from side to side of the ground, proceeded
slowly to urge the ball along the line in the direction of the goal. In
this performance they were carefully watched by their opponents, who
did not interfere to prevent them unless one of the side A happened
to lose command of the ball for a moment, for, if the ball was driven
behind the line after last touching one of the side B, a rouge was
scored to the credit of A. A rouge, besides being a point in itself,
was capable of being turned into a goal; for when the ball had been
driven behind, a peculiar and exceedingly compact scrimmage was formed
close to the goal itself; one of the defending party holding the ball
between his knees and sitting on the knee of a person behind him, who
himself placed his foot upon the ball. These two principal defenders
were themselves backed up by subordinates behind; and approach to them
was rendered difficult by the arranging of a double line of players.
Up the lane thus formed the opposing party, headed by their strongest
and heaviest man, charged in column, at a heavy trot, and a tremendous
struggle ensued.
The accuracy of this account of a rouge is not vouched for; but it
has at least this merit, that it is a faithful representation of the
impression produced upon the mind of one not nurtured at Eton, by a few
experiences of a most pleasant game.
The Harrow game, though nice enough in the playing, is neither fish,
flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. It is played with a peculiarly
awkward-looking oval ball, over which Harrow boys attain a complete
mastery, but which completely gets the better of other players. Upon _à
priori_ grounds one would say that it was the most primitive form of
ball, and originally represented nothing but a bladder with the rudest
form of covering that could be put together out of three pieces of
leather. The features of the game are the punting and the dribbling,
and the fact that the goal has no limit in the way of height. _A solo
usque ad cœlum_, in fact, is a maxim more applicable to the Harrow
goal than, as may be seen from a recent decision in the matter of
overhead wires, to territorial possession. The next most noticeable
characteristic will be suggested immediately by the words “three
yards.” Any player may catch the ball on the full volley from a kick
by one of the other side, or from a kick by one of his own side,
if, at the time when the kick is made, he is nearer to his own goal
than to that of the adversary. Having caught it he calls out “Three
yards,” making his mark in the ground with his heel, and if he does
this in time, he is allowed a free kick at the adversaries’ goal, no
one being allowed to come within the distance named, for the purpose of
interfering with his kick.
There are other games of football practised at various schools, which,
in a work of more pretentious size, would deserve detailed description,
besides those of Westminster and Charterhouse. There is, for instance,
the Shrewsbury game, noted for its name of “dowling,” supposed to be
connected with δοῦλος, “a slave,” which carries in itself the notion
of compulsory football. But space does not permit us to enter into
the merits of this game; and the omission may be justified partly
on the ground that it was a game of a mixed kind, and partly on the
ground that it has now fallen into disuse, and has given place to the
Association game.
Between the game as played in the cloisters at the Charterhouse, and
that played on “Green” at Westminster School there would not appear to
be any essential similarity. The rules of both games were absolutely
determined by their environment and the circumstances under which they
were played. In a certain sense, both were similar. Both were played
in a confined space, though, of course, the space in “Green” was less
confined than that of the cloisters; and from this cause it follows
that both Westminster and Charterhouse boys developed an astounding
capacity for dribbling through dense masses of boys. Both games again
were played at odd times and in ordinary clothes; and though both were
rough and boisterous enough in all conscience, they clearly were not
so injurious to clothes as the Rugby game, in which it was allowed to
seize and hurl an opponent. The worst that can follow from a charge
in which the hands are not employed, is downfall into mud which a
clothes-brush will remove more or less completely from the injured
garment; but from being collared, there may ensue results in the shape
of torn clothes. Hence it came that the boys educated at these schools,
in the first place, prohibited “collaring” and all use of the hands and
arms, and, in the second place, became extremely clever at dribbling
and at charging with the shoulders. While this subject is uppermost, it
may not be amiss to enter very slightly into the question of roughness.
The Rugby game unquestionably appears far rougher to the spectator
than the Association. But, in fact, it is a very doubtful matter which
is the more dangerous. It must be remembered that it is not the fall to
the ground which is most perilous to life and limb. Seldom, indeed, is
it that anything more serious than a collar-bone is broken by a fall to
the ground. From the concussion of two bodies, on the contrary, ribs
and arms are apt to suffer, and in proportion to the preponderance
of kicking is the danger of broken legs. These are of comparatively
rare occurrence, except as the results of crossed shins; and the more
rational conclusion is, that the rules from which the Association game
took its origin were originally formulated, or rather grew naturally,
from a regard for clothes rather than limbs.
In another chapter the formulation of the Association Rules will be
discussed; for the present, it will be enough to say that they owe
their origin mostly to Westminster and Charterhouse. Indeed, it is not
too much to say of the games of football at present in vogue, that they
are due almost entirely to the desire of men at the Universities and
elsewhere for a continuance of their old school exercises, and that
their connection with the ancient games is accidental rather than real,
remote rather than near.
Of the history of the other form of the game, in which running with the
ball is encouraged, but little need be said; for from Rugby School, and
from Rugby School alone, what is now known as the Rugby Union game is
derived.
If the view we have taken in the foregoing pages be correct, while the
running and collaring game was the original national sport of England,
the dribbling game owes its origin to schools in which the playgrounds
were limited in size, and where various considerations rendered the
rough horseplay which characterized football in the ancient times
impracticable. In the beginning of this chapter we have pointed out
that the size of the Close at Rugby rendered it possible for the
boys of that school to play the original game without fear of being
hurled when collared against stone walls, or iron railings, or upon
surfaces of gravel. Hence we should naturally expect to find, in the
game practised at this school, an absence of any restriction in the
way in which the ball was to be taken towards the adversaries’ goal,
and an equal absence of any restriction in the means of collaring or
stopping one of the attacking party in his course, and with no limits
to the field of play except those which necessity demanded. It is the
very style of game which is known to have been in vogue at Rugby
fifty years ago. We need scarcely refer to the well-known description
of the football match in “Tom Brown’s Schooldays at Rugby,” as that
description is hardly likely to be unknown to any of our readers; but
if any take the trouble to reperuse it after reading these pages, they
can scarcely fail to notice how little the Rugby game described there
differs from a Rugby Union “Big-side” at the present day. Indeed, until
within the last few years the Rugby School game suffered no alteration;
but lately the tripping, hacking, and indiscriminate charging have been
abandoned, no doubt more in respect to the feelings of the numerous
fifteens who visit the school to play matches, than from any assumed
effeminacy of the hard-shinned Rugbeians. At the present day we believe
the Rugby School fifteens, at any rate in their foreign matches,
conform to the Rugby Union Code.
No doubt there were many other schools at which a game which allowed
running with the ball was practised; but at no other public school than
Rugby, as far as we are aware, did the collaring, hacking, and tripping
game take root. We can hardly help thinking, when we recollect with
what rapturous delight football was regarded at Rugby, that the real
cause which kept Rugby football in the background in other schools,
was the sublunary consideration of clothes. In ancient times a suit
of clothes was an expensive item of expenditure for a young gentleman,
while the beef and mutton that he ate cost but a few pence the pound;
and so in every sport the question of how the clothes would stand it
had to be considered. Had Carlyle been still alive, we might have
provided him with materials for another chapter of _Sartor Resartus_.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CONCLUSION.
_The Modern Revival of Football._
A very useful rule forbids an historian to deal with the matters of
his own day; and in obedience to this rule we have decided not to
discuss the developments, changes, and general progress of modern
football since the institution of the governing bodies of the two
games--Association and Rugby Union--placed each of them upon a firm
basis as a national sport. The only task, therefore, left to us before
we conclude our welcome labours, is to sketch in outline the steps
which led to the re-establishment of football in its old position as
the chief of the winter sports of England.
Between thirty and forty years ago began the first movement in England
of the great athletic revival, which, after gradually spreading until
it covered the whole of the United Kingdom, is still rolling like a
wave over the colonies and all foreign countries where the English
tongue is spoken. It will not be too much for us to say, that the
great athletic movement, which is still too near for us to be able
to calculate its full effects with certainty, has worked a greater
revolution in English character and habits than any movement, religious
or secular, which has passed over the country since the time of the
Puritans. Of that great athletic movement the history has yet to be
written; but it would hardly be wise to attempt to touch it in the
present work. Suffice it to say, that the physical causes of the desire
for hard exercise which has seized upon men are apparent enough. In
modern times, when nearly all the world is given up to the feverish
bustle and worry of money-making, the body of a young and lusty man,
by a natural reaction, craves for a muscular exercise, which may
give a relief to the nerves and the brain. For the performance of
this function it is admitted that there is no game in the world like
football. The student at the University, and the young man who is tied
to his office-stool throughout all the daylight hours of the winter
months, with the solitary boon of a Saturday’s half-holiday, alike find
that an hour’s hustle at football sends them home, more tired perhaps,
but happier, calmer, and wiser men.
It is no doubt in some sense owing to the promptings of this
feeling that we find, about thirty years ago, football-playing being
revived fitfully at the Universities, and matches beginning to be
played between teams of men in London and the provinces, and with
still greater frequency as years went by. In 1857 the Sheffield Club
(Association) was founded, and in 1858 the great metropolitan Rugby
Union Club, Blackheath, was established, chiefly by some old pupils of
Blackheath School. About 1861 or 1862 a large number of clubs playing
the dribbling game sprang up in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, which
has since remained a most flourishing local centre for that game; while
in London two of the first clubs who started the dribbling game were
the Crystal Palace, in 1861, and the Barnes Club, in 1862. Indeed, at
this time the number and organization of the dribbling clubs, both in
London and the provinces, was superior to those of the advocates of
the running and tackling game. As far as we are aware, the Blackheath
Club was the only regularly organized club in the metropolis until the
great rival club at Richmond came into existence, in 1862. It is in
1863 that the history of football organization really commences. In
the autumn of that year a conference met for the purpose of attempting
to reduce to a uniform code the various conflicting rules which were
adopted by the different clubs. It was the intention of the promoters
of the meeting to unite all those who played football under any rules
into a united body; and the rules agreed upon at the first meeting
were a fair and liberal attempt to bring about what can hardly be
considered anything but an impossible task, viz., a fusion of Rugby
Union and Association rules. Indeed, the original rules, framed by the
promoters of the parent Association, included running with the ball
under certain restrictions, as well as hacking and tripping. In the
meantime, however, another conference of members of the public schools
had been arranging rules at Cambridge, where the dribbling game had
been played on Parker’s Piece as early as 1855. Eventually, a meeting
was arranged between delegates of the Cambridge and London conferences;
and between them a set of rules was agreed to which excluded all
running with the ball, and all tackling, hacking, or tripping. Thus
started in 1863 the Football Association; and, save that in 1867 the
strict off-side rule, which was at first insisted upon, was expunged
for the present modified rule, which gives rise to so many disputes,
there have been few substantial alterations in the rules up to the
present day, though many changes in the manner of playing. After this
alteration the players from Westminster and Charterhouse Schools joined
the Association ranks; and in 1870 the sixteen clubs which formed the
Sheffield Association abandoned their own rules in favour of those of
the Association, which has from that day exercised paramount authority
over all the dribbling clubs of the kingdom. At the present moment
the popularity of the Association game, especially in the provinces,
is enormous; and if the old governing body can stand firm amidst the
troubles which are arising at the present day upon the vexed question
of professionalism, its career of prosperity should be a long one.
To return, however, to the history of the running and tackling form
of the sport--the “Rugby game,” as it was called even in 1862. When
the Association code forbade running with the ball, the Blackheath
and Richmond Clubs, and the few other less important and scarcely
permanent teams who played the running rules, naturally held aloof
from the Associated clubs. In the meantime the number of permanent
clubs who played Rugby rules began to multiply greatly. In 1863 the
Civil Service Club, under these rules, was formed, and about the same
time the Harlequins. In 1865 Ravenscourt Park was founded; in 1866
the Flamingoes in London, and several provincial clubs, including
Liverpool; and between this time and 1870 the clubs playing the older
game sprang up in large numbers all over the kingdom. Although there
was a general similarity in all the rules played by the various clubs
who admitted running and tackling into their game, the difficulty of
arranging little disputes and differences of practice used to be very
great, as all old players who had their day before the foundation of
the Rugby Union in 1871 can testify. Disputes of any consequence were
avoided by the universal adoption of the rule that every club played
its own rules in home matches. It was evident, however, that a system
like this could not last amidst the rapid spread of the game through
the country, and in the autumn of 1870 negotiations commenced between
members of the Blackheath and Richmond Clubs, which ended, in January,
1871, in the foundation of the Rugby Union. It is pleasing to note that
the two governing bodies of football have never come into collision
since their respective foundations. We venture to express a hope that
the footballers of either game will ever continue to look upon skill in
the other and rival game with admiration, and not with envy.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized or underlined text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
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