Dane’s Heads and Modern Football

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 636, 12 April 1929, Page 7

Dane’s Heads and Modern Football

ORIGIN LOST IN ANCIENT MYTHS

Booting it Down the Ages

The exact date when football first became an organised game in Britain is so remote that it is difficult to estimate its origin within a century or two. There is evidence that it was played before the historical occasion when King Alfred allowed a batch of scones to burn while dreaming of better and brighter warships for the English against the Danes.

fJMdERE is a persistent story that football originated in Last Anglia on those festive occasions when the Danish tax-gatherers used to visit the mandated portion of the Hast Coast to collect the poll-tax—and sometimes received a pole-axe instead. The' oppressoi’’s head provided a prize which every sturdy East Anglian was anxious to possess as a trophy, and the scrummage to secure one would soon constitute the nucleus of our national game. THE GAME THAT GROWS Ho we vex* obscure its origin, the game must have grown in popularity to such an extent that in the 14th century it had become a national problem, and was prohibited by a Royal edict. As one authority states, it was "Not that the King had cared* so much for the bumps and bruises of his subjects, but he saw that it was diverting the populace from the practice of archery, and he needed plenty of skilled archers for his armies. Football was so popular that it threatened the national defence!” In the 15th century one worthy and gallant K.8.E., the worthy Sir Thomas Elyot, felt constrained to write an essay warning all young genLemcn against this brutal sport “wherein is nothing but beastly fury and extreme violence.” Nor did conditions improve, for half a ceniury later, when Shuk-s----peare was a lad at school, we find Mr. Philip Stubbes broadcasting a pungent indictment of "prevalent abuses” with this reference to football: “As concerning football playing, I protest unto you it may rather be called a friendly kind cf fight, than a play or recreation: a bloody and murdering practice, than a fellowly sport or pastime. For doth not every one lie in wait for his adversary, seeking to overthrow him and to pick him on the nose? And he that can serve the most of this fashion, he is counted the only fellow, and who but he? So that by this means, sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometimes their legs, somepart thrust cut of joint, sometimes another, sometimes their noses gush out with blood, sometimes their eyes start cut, and sometimes hurt in one place, sometimes in another.” The fastidious Philip warms up to his tale of horror until one migh,t imagine lie is describing the modern Amer-

iean game of football. Stubbes states: “But whosoever scapeth away the best goeth not scot-free, but is either sore wounded, and bruised, so that he dieth of it, or else scapeth very hardly. And no marvel, fbr they have sleights to meet betwixt two, to dash him against the heart with their elbows, to hit him under the short ribs with their gripped fists, and with their knees to catch him upon the hip, and to. pick him on his neck, with a hundred such murdering devices. And here-of groweth envy, malice, rancour, choler, hatred, displeasure, enmity, and what not else; and sometimes fighting, brawling, contention, quarrel picking, murder, homicide, and great effusPon of blood, as experience daily teacheth.” “YOU BASE FOOTBALL PLAYER” Possibly Stubbes’ terrifying and circumstantial description of a friendly game of football inspired Shakespea*c later to condemn it with the opprobious epithet in "King Lear,” which is always a delightful passage to non-foot-ballers in a college class. That is when the faithful Kent to say something particularly nasty about Oswald he calls him "you base football player,” or, in other words, a thickeared "roughneck.” But in spite of Royal edicts, Orders-in-Council, bylaws and Poet Laureates, the game continued to grow, and a refining influence crept in when the gentlemen of England began to play it, and James I. found it necessary to prohibit his courtiers from "all rough and violent exercises, as the football, meeter for laming than making able the users thereof.” EARLY ITALIAN GAME It appears about this time that Englishmen who had travelled abroad brought back from Italy a more gentlemanly idea of the game, for in Italy it was by then a graceful pastime, played with system, style and elegance The first book ever printed on football was one by Giovanni de Bardi, published in Florence in 1580. A picture in the book shows the players lined up for the kick-off with military precision and exactitude, in the civic square of Florence. There are 26 players on each side: 15 forwards. 10 halves and a fullback. Although James I. banned the game by Royal proclamation in England, it was a popular sport across the border, where it was usually a holiday bout

between bachelors and benedicts. At Scone on Shrove Tuesday the game lasted from 2 p.m. till .sundown. The law against football was not broken as no one was allowed to kick the ball. An eye-witness thus describes this historic game: “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 th'ose cn the opposite side who seized him, he ran on; if not, he threw the fcfall from him, unless it was wrested from him by the other party, but no party 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 on 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 cf the play there was usually some violence between the parties; but it is a proverb in this part ’of the country that ‘A’ is fair at the ba’ o’ Scone.’ ” A BLADDER FULL OF PEAS In rural England the killing of a pig in winter provided the ideal medium for a football, from which the oval ball of to-day has evolved. Alex Barclay, a 16th century bard, thus describes the rustic game of “Merrie England”: Forgetting labour and many a grievous fall. . . . And nowe in the Winter, when men kill the fat swine. They get the bladder and blow it great and thin. With many beans and peason put within; It ratleth. soundeth and shineth clere While it is throwen and caste up in the ayre, Eche one contendeth and hath a great delite With foote and with hands the bladder for to smite: If it fall to grounde. they I if te it up agayne. And this waye to labour they count From this time on the game under i

varying codes and local rules was played in the big public schools and the varsities, and had become quite a respectable pastime. Great poets have been inspired by the game in spite of Kipling’s contempt for ‘•muddied oafs.” With the near approach of the new season the thousands of followers of the game may sing with the vigorous Scottish philosophy of Sir Walter Scott: 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 at football.