_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.
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