Foot-ball

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. 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. 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.

The most learned historian of sports and pastimes, Joseph Strutt, indulges in an elaborate antiquarian inquiry into the origin of the ball, having recourse to the most ancient of the classics for his authorities. Hand-ball, he says, is, “if Homer may be accredited, coeval at least with the destruction of Troy. Herodotus attributes the invention of the ball to the Lydians; succeeding writers have affirmed that a female of distinction named Anagalla, a native of Corcyra, was the first who made a ball for the purposes of pastime, which she presented to Nausica (sic), the daughter of Alcinous, King of Phæacia, and at the same time taught her how to use it.” To emphasize his authority, the antiquary quotes three lines from Pope’s Odyssey (bk. v.).

The same author is much, and it would seem somewhat unnecessarily, distressed at the fact that the writer of a 14th century manuscript preserved in Trinity College, Oxford, and the Venerable Bede are not in harmony as to the early capacities of the athletic saint, Cuthbert. The former says of him that “he pleyde atte balle with the children that his fellowes were,” while the latter merely makes mention of his general excellence at games involving great muscular exertion. The plain fact of the matter is, that the origin of the ball is one of those matters which must of necessity be lost in antiquity. Nature herself supplies an endless variety of balls of all sizes, suitable for throwing from hand to hand, and the act of playing with them is instinctive. The apple and the orange are, so to speak, objects which nature supplies, not only as objects of food, but also as materials for pastime; clay, too, and snow, are of so plastic a nature that the hands even of children naturally mould them into a spherical form and hurl them to and fro in sport.

Before, however, an attempt be made to show how the game of football became developed as a specific sport, it is without doubt the duty of sober historians first to chronicle the legends which have attached themselves to the foundation of the game. Firstly, it is said that in ancient times it was the custom to kick a large stone from parish to parish, both in Scotland and in England, for the purpose of marking boundaries and asserting rights of way; and that in this practice, which was indulged in by large bodies of the parishioners, each of whom desired to give his kick when he got the opportunity, we are to find the origin of football. Certain it is, at any rate, that the practice of kicking a leather football over a path on Whit-Monday, for the purpose of exercising a right of way, endured into the present century in the Isle of Purbeck in Dorsetshire, a ball being annually presented to the workmen of certain quarries for that purpose. But the origin of the practice, both in that locality and in some other parts of the country where it is known to have been followed, is shrouded in antiquity; and there is little evidence to show that this practice caused the rise of football, instead of having arisen at a time when the game itself was well known. This latter view seems the most probable. The second legend of the origin of the game is one of a gruesome character, and far more suitable to be chronicled in connection with the legendary or mythical stage of history. The ancient Teutons, it is averred, did not scalp the bodies of their slaughtered enemies (as did the Choctaws), nor did they mutilate them (as do the Bashi-bazouks), but in grim sport cut off their heads and kicked them about, after the fashion of the Baron in the Ingoldsby legend of Sheppey, who, after he had donned the famous boots, first killed the holy father with a magnificent “punt,” and afterwards encompassed his own ruin by an ill-timed “place-kick” at the skull of Grey Dolphin. But even granting that our savage progenitors indulged in the amiable pastime which we have described (and after all it is far from improbable), we can still comfort ourselves by feeling certain that football had no such horrible origin; for the game of head-kicking may have been magnificent—may have been superb (to quote the famous mot), but it certainly was not football. It is curious, however, that amongst the traditions of the city of Chester, which is one of the oldest homes of the game, where it was played by all the inhabitants of the town on the Roodee, the head of a Dane is still stated to have been the original ball used in the game. Perhaps it is best to give these two legends, as in duty bound, and then to pass on to matters which are of unquestioned historical accuracy. Indeed, were it not for these legends, it would seem obvious that the foot-ball, as distinguished from the hand-ball, was the product of civilization and invention. Such indeed it seems to have been in fact, although it must be confessed that the subjoined explanation of the origin of the foot-ball is in part hypothetical and based upon à priori grounds. It is probable that the first foot-ball was the Roman follis, or inflated bladder, of which Martial speaks when he advises boys and old men alike to play it. But the follis was, primarily at least, a hand-ball; and a bladder was probably used first for that purpose, for the simple reason that it was able, on account of its lightness, to be struck into the air with the hand without pain, and with ease. At some uncertain but momentous date, an impetuous player must, after missing the ball with his hand, have kicked out petulantly with his sandalled foot, and so unconsciously made the first experiment in the art of drop-kicking, or punting. Swiftly and strongly the ball flew, farther than it could be cast by the strongest arm or smitten by the lustiest hand; and this must inevitably have been the first step to the later development of the game played with the follis, when it was kicked with the foot or struck with the hand at discretion and convenience.

Be this as it may, it is probable that the Romans, along with their other habits and fashions, imported the various games which they played with the follis or with other kinds of ball, into England. One of these balls, used by the Romans, and by them derived from the Greeks, was the harpastum, the game played with which was that the players of one side should try to carry the ball over a line defended by the other side, a pastime which bears no small resemblance to the game of “hurling,” which we shall describe later. But whether football was really introduced into Britain by the Romans, or whether it be an indigenous product of the country, yet, with the exception of the one doubtful reference to an anonymous manuscript to which allusion has formerly been made, we do not find any mention of the game in the annals of our Anglo-Saxon progenitors; and it is not until the 13th century that we find genuine historical authority on the subject.