Oldest football…
The game of ‘Association Football’ undoubtedly originates in England. The stone circles may have doubled up as training grounds. However the earliest records of man kicking something resembling a ball date back to the Chinese Han Dynasty, 2000 years ago. There are records of the ancient Greeks and Romans developing the pastime known as ‘Harpastum’, like football but also rugby. The Romans introduced this to Britain in the time of Julius Caesar. It was during the Middle Ages that the game took hold of the public with annual Shrovetide and Easter matches being played between neighbouring villages or from two sides of the same village (like ‘Uppies & Downies’ played in Workington, Cumberland) with teams of unlimited numbers. The ball was usually a pig’s bladder although in Chester the head of a dead Viking was used to celebrate a repelling of the invaders.
In the 13th century and 14th centuries, street matches were so popular in London that traders called on King Edward ll to outlaw the game in the city. On 13th April 1314 the first ever football ban came into force. The ban proved ineffective despite the threat of prison. Subsequent Kings Edward lll, Richard ll, Henry lV and James lll made all attempted bans, to no avail. In Shakespeare’s King Lear the character Kent taunts Oswald by calling him a “base football player”. In Comedy of Errors Shakespeare writes : ”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.”
The only ban on football with any level of effectiveness was that imposed by Oliver Cromwell, the game briefly disappeared but reappeared with even greater popularity following the Restoration in 1660. Some say there was a game played with his head. The peoples game lived on.
Up in Cumberland, Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned at Carlisle Castle from 18 May to 13 July 1568 and although lacking the comforts she was accustomed to, was allowed certain privileges under guard, such as riding, but also watching her minders play football on the castle green. This is an area known as “The Sorceries”. Sorceries = soccer ? Who really knows where the word comes from?
Before many of the great Border city clan descendants left for America and other places, they provided northern England & southern Scotland, Cumberland & Northumberland spectacles of football. Here were the play grounds for the FOOTBALL CRAZY REIVERS… the Charltons, Milburns and Robsons are all famous footballing names in the 20th Century but it is worth noting that football was a very popular sport and way of settling scores among the reiver clans 400 years ago. In 1599 a six-a-side football match involving the Armstrongs at Bewcastle in Cumbria was interrupted by enemies – a member of the Ridley clan had his throat cut and a Robson was killed. Much later on a great football match took place between the men of Tynedale and Redesdale at Kielder Castle in 1790. Final score: Tynedale 3 Redesdale 2.
The popularity of the game had continued to soar in Elizabethan times, the author Strutt in his ‘Sports and Pastimes’ publication gave an insight into football in the 1700’s. He described two teams of equal numbers who lined up between two goals made of sticks placed about 1 yard apart. The goals were between 80–100 yards from each other, he also wrote: “The ball, which is commonly made of a blown bladder and cased in leather, is delivered in the midst of the ground, and the object of each party is to drive it through the goal of their antagonists, which being achieved, the game is won.”
By modern standards of officials, rules, crossbars and throw-ins, football remained a fairly lawless and unruly game until the mid-1840s when the desire of teams, particularly public schools, to play against each other made for consensual sport. In 1848 Mr. H. de Winton and Mr. J.C. Thring, two football players from Cambridge University called a meeting of the major public schools, and an 8 hour meeting produced a (small) book to change the World : the first formal set of rules for the game of association football.
Sheffield FC, the world’s oldest football club came into existence in 1855 and has recovered its spirit recently with a new ground and momentum. 12 clubs formed the original Football League :
Accrington (Old Reds)
Aston Villa
Blackburn Rovers
Bolton Wanderers
Burnley
Derby County
Everton
Notts County
Preston North End
Stoke City
West Bromwich Albion
Wolverhampton Wanderers
…of which Notts County formed in 1862 is the oldest. In the great scheme of things all these clubs are young and the first 150 years since Sheffield FC are early days , or, if looked at differently, the culmination of a great time coming.
Age is relative, as we shall discover in the coming blogs of June, where ‘age’ is the theme.
Stanley Matthews
‘Wizard of dribble’
In his size Sevens (I was given a pair of his boots to look after in my Museum) Stanley Matthews was known as the ‘Wizard of dribble’. Legend has it he walked to the ground in heavy boots and wear them right up to kick-off so that, when in his size sevens, he would feel light footed, as if he could fly. All his youth he played with the ball in the backyard and kicked a ball to and from school. He played at the top flight of English football til after his 50th birthday. Chopped and hacked, he never once retaliated that he was ever booked.
He was born February 1, 1915 at Seymour Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. Son of a professional featherweight boxer, he joined Stoke City straight from school at the age of fourteen.
In 1947, after war service in the RAF, he left Stoke City, and joined Blackpool Football Club, with which he stayed for 14 years. Matthews rejoined Stoke City in 1961, when they were near the bottom of the second division. The team was transformed, gates rose from 9,000 to 36,000 and the following year they were promoted.
Tony Waddington, most successful Stoke manager ever, who brought Stan back to Hanley, in opening my “Homes of Football” exhibition in the city spoke of Matthews and of “the working mans ballet” .
Stanley lived to 85.
I think AS YOU LIKE IT is my favourite book. Not just for the backdrop of the forest, the role playing, the dipping in and out of characters and genders, the wrestling match, the marriages and the return in happiness ‘home’... but in particular for the keynote speech about the ages of man : infant, school-boy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, and finally, second childhood. Shakespeare means that the world is but a theatrical stage where we humans are actors. From our birth we parade this stage and keep on acting true to our age, until old age which becomes our last scene…
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
— Jaques (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139–166)
Shakespeare’s men and women did not live as long as us. With longer lives and all the information at hand (internet etc.) about getting value for money and buying us time, can we better control and shape our destinies and performances on the stage?
Today is father’s Day. I have my first ever card – from Ava. I have “waited” until my forties to have a first child. In William’s day I would more likely have conceived when the ‘lover’ or the ‘soldier’ “seeking the bubble reputation”. Perhaps that is where I am indeed at in the great sequence but back then with life expectancy maybe 50 and not 80 the lover/soldier period was surely when you were in your twenties. I am 45.
p.s. Happy birthday Sally, 35???
I’ve lived half my life here in The Lake District. And I’ve lived half my life. A man today might expect to live to 90 if he has never smoked, drank, had serious illness. I’ve had my excesses nevertheless.
As I head for 50, might not this be the new ‘30’? Might 70 not be the new ‘50’? Women as ever might live longer still. And what about age difference? Bruce Springsteen was saying in an interview with Nick Hornby that one has basically learnt everything that’s going to feed you and stimulate you by age of 12. My friend Andrew meanwhile, training to become a social care worker believes that the brain doesn’t reach its physical full size until about 22 , before which age one might expect to be “immature”. I reflected on a girlfriend I had who was 15 when I was 23. That seemed a big difference then. She became my girlfriend again when she was 20 and I was 28 and it wasn’t such a big difference – she was seemingly ‘catching up’. At 90 she would be 82 and we would both seem ‘much the same age’ to the outside eye. But perhaps I would remember our first meeting and still treat her with kid gloves.
Travelling along one of the World’s most scenic railways, through Cumbria, one has the chance to view the course of the River Eden almost from birth to where it meets the sea. There is said to be 3 ages of a river. Young, middle and plain or old age. The Eden’s source is hidden away high up in the moorlands above the Mallerstang Valley, between Wild Boar Fell and Black Fell Moss where two streams – Red Gill and Little Grain – filter from Hugh Seat (2257 ft), and join forces to form Hell Gill Beck including Hangingstone Scar. Here in its youth it enjoys a spectacular date with Hell Gill Force waterfall.
Then its settles down to middle age for most of its passage through a wider valley, liable to exceptional twists and gorges, picking up passengers – tributary streams.
At Appleby its course is about half done. In June, humans with their horses have taken to creating a fair. A horse fair. This year a horse drowned as its rider, bare-topped took her too deeply into the river where she stumbled. The crowd looked on in horror. The rider disappeared into the crowd as the horse was dragged out.
It was here, being a gypsy fair, I had my fortune read. She read that I was in need of love and concentrated on the love thing. I would meet a woman from across the water. Whose people were once my invader. Yet who had a Christian name. And shared my occupation. And who had a son of seven.
Miles further north and heading north – unusual for an English River – and now in its middle age, the Eden passes Long Meg And Her Many daughters, a stone circle of much merit. At water’s edge faces are carved in the sandstone cliff walls by people with time, probably fishermen.
My house meanwhile is west of Eden – on the other bank – but in this middle age are some great stretches for river swimming almost into the night. The waters in which the horse had drowned had no doubt washed through here already and were well on their way to the Sea by this time that I came swimming about there the Monday evening after the weekend of the horse.
All the rivers flow into the sea but the sea is never filled it is said and has been said for some time and in bliblical times people wanted answers to such mysterious truths… they believed that the waters of the ocean must be “water which swallows water.”
These seas do not truly swallow, but accommodate. They surely possess the oldest waters on all the planet.
About this time, and indeed on this very day in the British Isles, all sorts of people look to the light and to the old rocks, especially those arranged in a circle, to give them that extra something. Perhaps belief.
Or babies. It’s a time of ancient ritual.
I met a grandmother this very morning at Castlerigg in Cumbria with a green and flowered laurel on her head and a vivid red dress open to the bosom “my puppies” as she called them. Her eyes were brown and fierce…and kind. She argued with her friend, drunk like the skunk as to whether she should be called grannie or nan, as she found the one term particularly ageing or ageist. Clutching her leg was Phoebe, her daughter who was perhaps only 3. The women demeaned themselves, calling themselves “two unattractive menopausal women” as if I with camera should have been chasing younger more nubile females. Given Phoebe puppied nanny must have only recently had fertility plucked from her.
The topic of at what age a woman can still conceive, is emotive. Men are reckoned to have it easy, having no cut off period. Generally it appears the age for women is going up. An American woman held the record, then an Indian, now a Romanian, at 66. Indeed there are treatments beyond visiting the ancient stones on midsummer’s day.
But this is the Summer Solstice, so let’s dwell…
Cerne Abbas in Dorset. There on a hill is a huge giant, carved into the hillside from chalk rock. He boasts a club and an impressive erection.
It is not known exactly when the giant was carved, or how, but was thought to be somewhere around the Iron Age. There are also speculations as to whether he was meant to represent Hercules, the Greek God who held a club.
Praying or meditating on the hillside prior to trying to conceive is rumoured to increase your chances as is making love on the giant’s member.
The site would have originally been for pagan festivals (the main pre-Christian religion) and for the celebration of events like Beltane, which was a traditional fertility ritual, in which couples would be sent on walks through the woods to gather flowers and fires would be lit to give thanks for the upcoming summer and a good harvest. Many people formed romantic attachments at these ceremonies and marriages were then performed almost immediately. Even the maypole dancing which was popular until the 19th century had intrinsically sexual symbolism.
In fact this is a newspaper report dating from January and from Glastonbury, Connecticut, USA : Emma Faust Tillman, who became the world’s oldest known living person, died at a nursing home. She was 114.
Tillman, the daughter of former slaves ”went peacefully,” said observers “She was a wonderful woman.” Several family members were with Tillman when she died.
Tillman, who lived independently until she was 110 years old, was deeply religious since childhood and always attributed her longevity to God’s will”
Tillman’s great-nephew, former Hartford fire chief John B. Stewart Jr., has said she never smoked, never drank, didn’t need glasses and only reluctantly agreed to wear a hearing aid.
Tillman was born November 22, 1892, on a plantation near Gibsonville, North Carolina, where her father had been born into slavery and where her parents and grandfather were sharecroppers, according to interviews she gave the Glastonbury, Connecticut, Historical Society for a 1994 newsletter.
She was one of 23 children in the family, some of whom died at birth or in infancy. Many of those who survived displayed longevity almost as notable as Tillman’s, including a brother who lived to be 108, a sister who reached 105 and two others who reached 102.
Tillman’s family moved from North Carolina to Glastonbury in 1900. She was the only black student in her high school when she graduated in 1909, but said she never experienced discrimination there whether she was in class, churning butter for a local family or playing shortstop on a town baseball team.
“In Glastonbury, I didn’t know if I was white or black,” she said in 1994. “People were just fine, even way back then, to me. They treated me just like everybody else.”
Tillman worked as a cook, maid, party caterer and caretaker for several wealthy Hartford-area families. She later ran her own baking and catering service whose regular customers included Dr. Thomas Hepburn, a noted Hartford Hospital urologist and father to actress Katharine Hepburn.
Taken from The Observer newspaper on the eve of Glastonbury 2005
Athelstan Joseph Michael Eavis was born in 1935 and educated at the Wells Cathedral School, but left at 15 to join the Union Castle Shipping Line as a trainee midshipman, spending four years plying the routes between Britain, Kenya and South Africa. He was 19 when his father, a Methodist preacher, died of cancer and he reluctantly agreed to inherit 150 acres of land, 60 cows and an overdraft; he eventually came to love it. Even during the festival’s rapid expansion, he worked seven-day weeks, rising at 5.30 to milk the cows. The farm still produces 10,000 litres of milk a day.
At around the time of his father’s death, he married his first wife, Ruth, and they had three children before divorcing in 1964. He was with a new love, Jean Hayball, when he underwent that epiphany listening to Led Zeppelin. He recalled: “Something flashes down and you suddenly change. Bit like St Paul; do you know what I mean? There’s a change of attitude, a change of purpose.”
Marriage to Jean produced more children, one of which was the Glastonbury Festival. When she died from cancer in 1999, the festival ceremonially burned a winged wicker sculpture in her honour and lit fireworks.
Eavis now has a third wife, Liz, around two decades his junior, whom he met at a medieval fancy-dress party in 2000. He was dressed as a cardinal and she asked if he had delusions of grandeur. He said no, it was all they had left in the fancy-dress shop. Yet for all the sense of fun, and his preternatural gift for tuning in to the tastes of Generations X, Y and Z, Eavis has an austere streak a mile wide.
One of his five children, Patrick, 37, a GP in Bath and master of festival T-shirts, recalls going on just one family holiday when he was growing up. “We were going to Scoraig, a little peninsula a long way north of Inverness. We got on trains as far as you could possibly go. We thought we’d get in a taxi but when we got off the train, the whole place was deserted and there was nothing for miles. That was the only holiday we went on.
“We were always pretty poor, really, and always had very old, rusty cars. Most of the fun was based on the farm. We used to have a yearly race up the hill, Glastonbury Tor, which he always used to win. He’s incredibly competitive; he always has to win whatever you do: table tennis, tennis, chess. It would drive him crazy if he ever lost at anything. Even now, if I go down to see him, he’s immediately got the table tennis bats out and challenges me to a game.”
Patrick adds: “I think he believes in Christian moral values which he thinks everyone should live by. He’s anti-smoking, anti-drinking, anti-drugs. For as long as I can remember, there were huge no smoking signs in our house. When I was growing up, he didn’t used to drink at all. When he walked down Bath High Street and there were lots of people sitting around drinking, his reaction was: why aren’t they out there trying to make a living?
“He believes in a work ethic and I don’t think he likes the idea of people sitting around smoking dope. People just do not believe it; he’s got this huge festival, where a certain number of people do these sorts of things. He would say it’s only a tiny percentage of people who come along to the festival.”
Eavis said yesterday: “I’m a bit of a Puritan, but I do enjoy myself immensely. I have a hell of a good time. I’ve got the best life anyone could possibly have. I’m not moaning. This whole festival thing is better than alcohol, better than drugs. It’s marvellous.”
He goes to Methodist chapel every Sunday with his wife and 93-year-old mother, Sheila, who plays the organ, as she always has. He added: “I don’t think I really believe in life after death. Methodism is more about social responsibility than it is about life after death. The chapel is quite social. We sing fantastic Wesley hymns, which must have something to do with my appreciation of pop music, I think. They’re very close.”
Eavis, who got stomach cancer in 1994 and insisted the show go on during his recovery, still lives frugally and is content to drive a yellow Mini and Land Rover. Next year will be a “fallow” one with no festival, allowing the land to recover, but then he will return for at least four years, helped as usual by daughter, Emily. “I think you should live fast and live long,” he once said, a doctrine perhaps for what he hopes will be another fun – but sensible – summer orgy of music, mud and myth-making.
Good morning Stuart,
Can’t wait to see more snaps of the festival and keep the home fires burning on that front. With reference to your questions (1) the feeling of when I got home was one of excitement to be re-united back with my wife and daughter who I had missed terribly over the weekend (thurs – Monday). My wife is expecting our second child in about a months time and since we were eighteen (14 years ago) we have only missed a couple since then. We got married there (2004), took Issy, our first child when she was 3 months (2005) and watched Beckham score that free-kick against Columbia on the main stage there. I stay with friends 15 minutes from the site so going back to a bed and a shower is a kop out but essential if you want to drink cider for 4 days. It only took me 40 mintues to get home from Pilton to Frome (next biggish town along where I live) but the short journey was seen as closure on yet another fantastic Glastonbury festival.
(2) I always see as much as festival as I possibly can, even with the mud. Loads of cracking stuff to feast on again this year. If I had to pick just the one then I suppose it would have to be Saturday night me and many of my slightly wobbley friends walking up to Lost Vagueness doing the nutty dance on our way to watching Madness, who were great in the little tent.
(3) By the time next years festival comes along we will become four of us. I can’t wait to take them all (as long as it’s not quite as bad as this year, rain/mud wise). As someone pretty local to the whole thing I love it, hope it keeps going and going forever and to answer your question YES we will be back next year and the year after and the…....................................................
Michael Ford
Meanwhile Harriet who had big starry eyes, writes :
ah stuart what a grand idea!
in answer to question one it took us roughly 5 hours to get just out of the carpark leaving glastonbury and as i’m sure you know some people didn’t move for 10
hours – however not even that could tarnish the spirit of glastonbury – that
ambience of subtle euphoria!! I’m now in an office wearing pointy shoes working
for the man (thankfully this is only temporary) and the sudden transition is
unsettling, i have not yet taken stock of the glasto experience, but i surely
need to – as a first time goer i’m amazed and glad to have finally been a part
of of it!
Needless to say of course i’d go again!
As for the seminal picture- i don’t know, although i had an ace time all dressed-up… the following days in normal garb i felt distinctly drab!
more fancydress!
more mud!
woop!
Harriet x
In antiquity midsummer fires were lit in high places all over the countryside.
It was a time when the domestic beasts of the land were blessed with fire, generally by walking them around the fire in a sun-wise direction. It was also customary for people to jump high through the fires, folklore suggesting that the height reached by the most athletic jumper, would be the height of that years harvest.
After Christianity became adopted in Britain, the festival became known as St John’s day and was still celebrated as an important day in the church calendar; the birthday of St John the Baptist. Traditionally St John’s Eve (like the eve of many festivals) was seen as a time when the veil between this world and the next was thin, and when powerful forces were abroad. Vigils were often held during the night and it was said that if you spent a night at a sacred site during Midsummer Eve, you would gain the powers of a bard, on the down side you could also end up utterly mad, dead, or be spirited away by the fairies.
Indeed St Johns Eve was a time when fairies were thought to be abroad and at their most powerful (hence Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream).
St John’s Wort was also traditionally gathered on this day, thought to be imbued with the power of the sun. Other special flowers (Vervain, trefoil, rue and roses) were also thought to be most potent at this time, and were traditionally placed under a pillow in the hope of important dreams, especially dreams about future lovers.
For the modern day druids Midsummer’s Day signifies the sacred Awen. For witches the summer solstice forms one of the lesser sabbats, their main festivals being Beltane (1st May) and Samhain.
Some occultists still celebrate the ancient festivals around 11 days later than our calendar; this marks the 11 days, which were lost when the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar in 1751.
We are in the midst of those eleven lost days.
Explained to me by Deborah Houlding…
A batch of oysters were taken from their natural habitat and sealed in containers 1000 miles from the sea. Initially, they continued to open and close according to their old pattern but after a couple of weeks their behaviour regulated to the position of the Moon at the new location, demonstrating that they were sensitive to the cycle of the Moon and not simply the movement of the tide.
Proving the Moon’s influence over human fertility is more complex, but a study of over half a million births in New York, between 1948 and 1957, showed maximum births just after the full Moon and a clear minimum at the new Moon.
A Swiss investigation which recorded 11,807 menstrual periods discovered the onset of bleeding occurred most often during the waxing Moon than the waning Moon, with a peak on the evening before new Moon.
The Moon’s influence upon the waters of the Earth is also clearly recognised. Since the physical body is mainly comprised of water, it is scientifically logical to expect that the waxing and waning of the Moon should have far-reaching effects upon all natural conditions, including the human one. The Earth’s tides are mainly created by the force of the Moon’s orbit, along with the Earth’s own revolution and gravitational pull from the Sun. As the Moon passes overhead, its pull drags a bulge of water behind it, with a second bulge created on the opposite side of the Earth. The most dramatic tides occur at new Moon and full Moon, when the Sun, Moon and Earth fall in line with each other and there is a strong focus to their gravitational force. Tides vary least at a quarter Moon, when the Moon is in a square aspect (90°) from the Sun and their gravitational pulls conflict with, and counteract, each other. This atmospheric bombardment affects the Earth in many ways. The surface tension of water is increased, and even the density of air surrounding the Earth ebbs and flows like the tides in the sea.
Ancient astrologers recognised the conjunction, square and opposition of the Sun and Moon as unfortunate, and claimed that when the lights of heaven are in bad aspect there is a state of imbalance in all mundane and human affairs. There is no shortage of statistics to support this assertion. Many documented studies show that suicide rates increase around the full Moon, and that new Moons, quarter Moons and full Moons all indicate crisis periods when reported incidents of violence and accidents increase.
Even before the use of statistics, popular belief in the power of the Moon was widespread and deep-rooted, based upon personal observation and the accumulated experience of many generations. ‘Moon madness’ was taken very seriously, hence the Latin word Luna, meaning Moon, forms the origin of the words ‘lunacy’, ‘lunatic’ and ‘loony’. Lunacy grows worse at full and new Moon — taught the famous 16th century physician, Paracelsus, referring to a disease that had been recognised since Classical times, and which became official under British Law in the mid-nineteenth century. The 1842 Lunacy Act defined as a ‘Lunatic’ a demented person enjoying lucid intervals during the first two phases of the Moon and afflicted with a period of fatuity in the period following after the full Moon.
Time-honoured folklore claims that the waxing and waning of the Moon reflects a monthly cycle of water content in the Earth and its produce, with the full Moon representing the time of greatest moisture. In gardening lore, the first quarter of the waxing Moon is the ideal time to plant seeds, repot plants, sow lawns, etc., but if the weather is particularly dry the gardener is advised to plant his seeds at the full Moon, when conditions are likely to be more moist. Full Moons are also favoured for harvesting plants that need to be rich in moisture content, such as grapes, tomatoes, and strawberries, while plants that produce ‘below the ground’, such as potatoes and carrots, are best planted during the ‘dark of the Moon’. The waning Moon is the time for killing weeds, cutting back dead growth, harvesting root vegetables and drying herbs, flowers and fruit.
The Moon’s influence over the Earth’s waters does not only extend to rivers and tides, but also effects rainfall cycles and the rhythms of bodily moisture (such as the menstrual cycle which mirrors its 28 day period). Heavy rain occurs most frequently on the days immediately following the full and new Moon. The marked increase in haemorrhaging during the full Moon period is well-known to researchers and medical practitioners, and confirms ancient astrological belief that it is unwise to ‘let’ blood during the opposition of the Sun and Moon.
Many omens concerning a strange lunar appearance warn of excess of moisture through floods or stormy weather. A halo around the Moon, for instance, is an ancient sign of rain, (which has a factual basis since the halo is caused by moisture in the atmosphere). The smaller the halo, the higher the likelihood of rain. If there are stars in the halo some omens say that it will rain for as many days as there are stars, others that the rain will come after so many days. The Moon on its back (when its horns point upwards) is said to hold water and presages a dry spell. In a general sense it is an unfortunate omen which is sometimes taken as an augury of death.
Another omen claims that if the first crescent of the new Moon appears with its lower horn obscured, stormy weather is indicated in the first phase of the Moon. If the obscuration is in the middle of the Moon, the storm will occur around the time of the new Moon. If the upper horn is affected, the storm will come during the wane of the Moon. By the way,the waxing Moon grows larger from right to left. It is called the ‘right-hand Moon’ because the curve of the crescent corresponds to the curve between the right-hand index finger and the thumb. Similarly, a waning Moon diminishes from right to left and is known as a ‘left-hand Moon’ because of its correspondence with the curve on the left hand.
Another lunar indication of floods is a ‘Blue Moon’, the term used when two full Moons fall in the same calendar month. This occurs, on average, once every two and a half years.
New Moons can also indicate bad weather. Sometimes, when a new Moon occurs on a clear night, a faint, golden outline of the full Moon can be seen as a continuation of the bright crescent. Traditional folklore refers to this as the ‘Old Moon in the New Moon’s arms’, a phenomenom created by earthshine — the reflection of light from the Earth back onto the surface of the Moon.
Old customs take this to be the sign of a storm or misfortune. Another omen claims that if the new Moon is high in Northern latitude, it brings cold or unpleasant weather, but if far south, it presages a period of fair weather.
Despite the apparent risk of rain, many ancient festivals were timed for the period of the full Moon, partly for esoteric purposes, because it represented the fruition of the month, but mainly for practical purposes, because it was of course the time of greatest night-time illumination. For example, the Jewish Passover is celebrated at the full Moon, and the Christian Easter (which sets the dates of later festivals) occurs on the first Sunday following the first full Moon after the Sun’s return to the vernal equinox – delayed until the Sunday, the day of the Sun, since Easter is intrinsically connected to the resurrection of the Sun as it regains its strength in spring.
The appearance of the full Moon at the time near the Sun’s passage of the equinoxes can be particularly impressive, because of its size and golden illumination. The full Moon nearest to the September equinox is known as the ‘Harvest Moon’ because it appears large and bright in the early evening for several nights in a row, giving farmers valuable extra time to gather in their harvest.
Although many myths refer to the Moon as a feminine influence, some ancient civilisations considered the Moon a masculine deity, whose role was to structure society as a measurer and recorder of time. Folklore also continues to speak of the ‘Man in the Moon’, who is often described as carrying a bundle of twigs or a bucket and who is generally reported to be a thief or tramp, transported to the Moon in punishment for some criminal or immoral activity. One common folklore claims he was a beggar, whose crime was to gather firewood on Sunday, and whose punishment therefore was to live a perpetual ‘Monday’ on the Moon.
Most cultures have recognised images in the Moon and have their own folktales to tell. A charming Chinese legend speaks of the man in the Moon who secures the destiny of lovers by uniting them with an invisible, silken cord, which he ties around their waist. At the time they are destined to meet and fall in love, he draws the cords together.
The best form of synastry between the charts of lovers is to find their respective Moons in harmonious aspect.
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Dear Stuart,
I would like to thank you and Chris once again for showing us your amazing photography. I have been looking through my book that you kindly signed and some of the photos are brilliant. I especially preffered the image when Beckham was about to take the penalty against Portugal in Euro 2004. Your photo variations made the tour more interesting and i like the way that all your photography isnt always based on football. I am very keen on visiting the Homes of Football again and have a look at your more recent images.
Thanks,
Adam Bell
Thorncliffe School
Montauban, the nameshouldringabell…
In Maricourt, take the first road north to Montauban immediately beyond Péronne Road Cemetery. After 750m the road crosses the start-line for the 18th and 30th Divisions’ attack on 1 July 1916. About 1km to the west of the road Captain Wilfred ‘Billie’ Nevill kicked his football across no man’s land before he was killed close to the German barbed wire.
The 18th Division of which Nevill was part had been in the Somme for nearly a year. In May 1916 Nevill, made a Captain, went home to England on leave. He and his fellow officers concerned themselves about how their men would behave when finally called on to go ‘over the top’.
To provide his soldiers with a reassuringly familiar symbol, Nevill bought four footballs and took them back with him to France. His team would boot then dribble their way through the German ranks and into Montauban.
‘Over the top’ soon came…
At 07.27 on 1 July 1916, when the French artillery bombardment lifted, Nevill, along with another officer duly kicked two of the balls into no man’s land – and followed in pursuit. Captain Nev had promised a prize for the first ‘goal scored’ in crossing enemy lines.
Approaching the German barbed wire defence, the concerted attacking-line hesitated – yet Nevill dashed forward to dribble some more to move the attack on – and was killed instantly.
In total 60,000 British died in the first 90 minutes of battle.
The 18th Division was supported by the 30th Division, made up of four battalions each of Liverpool Pals, Manchester Pals and Regular battalions with the French allies in reserve… the attack was stepped up… Montauban was captured three hours after the advance had begun (although heavy fighting continued throughout the day).
A monument is there today in commemoration of the Pals. In total 420,000 British perished in the Somme in the 8 mile push that lasted 4 months. This figure made up nearly half the British casualties for the entire War.
That day in Montauban, two of the dribbled footballs were found and were hailed before the surviving members of the victorious Regiments reassembling the other side of the Montauban Trench which had been their goal. Immediately the story of these football-dribbling Brits was reported worldwide in the press. In Britain it stood for courage and strength of character. In Germany it was seen as a clear example of British madness.
A year ago today, in 2006, and a further 90 years on from the Somme debacles, Germany on home soil were preparing to take on Italy in the footballing World Cup. A World Cup where prejudices were slain and mankind revelled in exemplary human behaviour and bonhomie – save for France’s Zidane headbutting the chest of an Italian in the Final on the back of a racist insult.
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