Football comes of age June 14, 2007

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.