Montague Shearman

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. [2] 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [50] 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [66] consideration of clothes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. [52] 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. ”

“ 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 [30] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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, [61] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”