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Playing with Balls, part 1

By Mrs Trellis of North Wales
June 14 2015

As we struggle our way through the fallow summer period until the important stuff starts up again, there is still a need to keep the messageboard alive. Here's an interesting read from the fragrant Mrs. Trellis on the history of ball games.

Introduction


Many believe that rugby was born in 1823 when William Webb Ellis "with fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time at Rugby school, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus originating the distinctive feature of the Rugby game".

Although this is in fact apocryphal, since there is little in the way of evidence to substantiate this view, it is however the popular view. So much so in fact that the international committee named the Rugby world cup the "William Webb Ellis Trophy".

Early Ball Games


Various early ball games were played during the middle ages (5th to 16th century) and are sometimes referred to as folk football, mob football or Shrovetide football. Such games would usually be played between neighbouring towns and villages, involving an unlimited number of players on opposing teams, who would fight and struggle to move an inflated pig's bladder by any means possible to markers at each end of a town. Authorities would later attempt to outlaw such dangerous and unproductive pastimes.


Some of these games still exist in the United Kingdom to this day:

  • Alnwick in Northumberland: the game survives and begins with the Duke of Northumberland dropping a ball from the battlements of Alnwick Castle.
  • Ashbourne in Derbyshire (known as Royal Shrovetide Football)
  • Atherstone in Warwickshire
  • Corfe Castle in Dorset The Shrove Tuesday Football Ceremony of the Purbeck Marblers
  • Haxey in Lincolnshire (the Haxey Hood, actually played on Epiphany)
  • Hurling the Silver Ball takes place at St Columb Major in Cornwall: A "Town against Country" match takes place on Shrove Tuesday and a return match is played the following Saturday. Another version of Cornish Hurling takes place at St Ives this game used to involve men who lived at the top of town against those at the bottom end. Now days it is a much gentler version for children only. This version takes place on Feast Monday, normally February.
  • Sedgefield in County Durham
  • Workington in Cumbria has a game between teams named the Uppies and Downies
  • In Scotland the Ba game ("Ball Game") is still popular around Christmas and Hogmanay at:
    • Duns, Berwickshire
    • Scone, Perthshire
    • Kirkwall, Orkney


All branches of the Celtic race played Caid. There were two basic forms, Cross-country and field Caid. The word Caid means 'scrotum of the bull'. The ball was usually made out of animal skins with a natural bladder inside.
Webb Ellis' father was stationed in Ireland with the Dragoons and stayed with his cousins in Tipperary, where, it is said, he would have witnessed the native game of Caid (Cad), but this is pure speculation - Source: letter to Irish Times 23rd January, 1968 by Rev. Liam Ferris. Ferris later admitted that he was stating hearsay in his letter.
The Welsh say that Caid was just a derivative of their sport of Cnapan (sometimes spelt Knapan or Knappan), which is claimed to have originated (and seems to have remained largely confined to) the Western counties of Wales, especially Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire. When this game was first played is a matter for speculation but the last recorded Cnapan type game in Wales is known to have occurred in Neath on Shrove Tuesday 1884, three years after the formation of the Welsh Football Union. Cnapan is similar to the Cornish game of 'hurling to goales'.

The Vikings also played a similar game to hurling called Knattleikr. In 865 a Great Army of Danish Vikings invaded England. There were fierce battles for several years. In the end the Vikings conquered all of northern, central and eastern England, and seized much of the land for their own farms. This area was called 'The Danelaw'. During the same period, Norwegian Vikings sailed to northern and western Scotland, and seized land for their farms around the coast and islands. They also settled in the Isle of Man, and parts of Wales.
The East Cornish game of hurling to goales dates back to the bronze age. West Cornwall and the West country played hurling over country.
East Anglians played Campball whose name suggests a Germanic origin, the French la Soule or la Chole (a rough-and-tumble cross-country game, very similar to the mass football being played in England and also played mainly on Shrovetide).


In fact, there had been traditions of ball sport games for many centuries before Webb Ellis' was born.
Pastimes of this kind were also known to many nations of antiquity, the existence of ball games among the tribes, such as the Maoris, Faroe Islanders, Philippine Islanders, Polynesians and Eskimos, points to their primitive nature. Although it is extremely unlikely that these had anythingto do with the development of football in England.
Documented References and attempts to ban the game
The first recorded game of ball being played in London (in a large flat open space just outside the city) was during the annual festival of Shrove Tuesday in 1175. This was documented by a London born monk called William Fitzstephen (c.1174-1183) who wrote a 'history of London' in Latin where he documented:
"After lunch all the youth of the city go out into the fields to take part in a ball game. The students of each school have their own ball; the workers from each city craft are also carrying their balls. Older citizens, fathers, and wealthy citizens come on horseback to watch their juniors competing, and to relive their own youth vicariously: you can see their inner passions aroused as they watch the action and get caught up in the fun being had by the carefree adolescents"
The earliest confirmation that such ball games in England involved kicking comes from a verse about St Hugh, the Anglo-French bishop of Lincoln. This was probably written in the twelfth century, although the specific date cannot be known: "Four and twenty bonny boys, were playing at the ball.. he kicked the ball with his right foot".
In about 1200 "ball" is mentioned as one of the games played by King Arthur's knights in "Brut", written by Layamon, an English poet from Worcestershire. This is the earliest reference to the English language "ball". Layamon states: "some drive balls (balles) far over the fields".

Records from 1280 report on a game at Ulgham, near Ashington in Northumberland, in which a player was killed as a result of running against an opposing player's dagger. This account is noteworthy because it the earliest reference to an English ball game that definitely involved kicking; this suggests that kicking was involved in even earlier ball games in England.
The earliest reference to ball games being played by university students comes in 1303 when "Thomas of Salisbury, a student of Oxford University, found his brother Adam dead, and it was alleged that he was killed by Irish students, whilst playing the ball in the High Street towards Eastgate".
Between 1314 and 1667, football was officially banned in England alone by more than 30 royal and local laws.
The earliest reference to a game called football occurred in 1314 when Nicholas de Farndone, Lord Mayor of London issued a decree on behalf of King Edward II banning football. It was written in the French used by the English upper classes at the time. A translation reads: "[f]orasmuch as there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large foot balls [rageries de grosses pelotes de pee] in the fields of the public from which many evils might arise which God forbid: we command and forbid on behalf of the king, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in the future."
Another early account of kicking ball games from England comes in a 1321 dispensation, granted by Pope John XXII to William de Spalding of Shouldham:
"To William de Spalding, canon of Scoldham of the order of Sempringham. During the game at ball as he kicked the ball, a lay friend of his, also called William, ran against him and wounded himself on a sheathed knife carried by the canon, so severely that he died within six days. Dispensation is granted, as no blame is attached to William de Spalding, who, feeling deeply the death of his friend, and fearing what might be said by his enemies, has applied to the pope."
Banning of ball games began in France in 1331 by Philippe V, presumably the ball game known as La soule.
King Edward III of England also issued such a declaration, in 1363: "moreover we ordain that you prohibit under penalty of imprisonment all and sundry from such stone, wood and iron throwing; handball, football, or hockey; coursing and cock-fighting, or other such idle games". It is noteworthy that at this time football was already being differentiated in England from handball, which suggests the evolution of basic rules. A clear reference is made ad pilam. . . pedinam in the Rotuli Clausarum, of Edward III (1365), as one of the pastimes to be prohibited on account of the decadence of archery. Richard II did the same thing in 1388.
The first clear reference to the English word, 'football' was not recorded until 1409, when King Henry IV of England issued an edict forbidding the levying of money for "foteball.
Both Henry VIII and Elizabeth also enacted laws against football, which, both then and under the Stuarts and the Georges, seems to have been violent to the point of brutality, a fact often referred to by prominent writers.
James I, immediately after his release from prison in England in 1424, held a council meeting and issued an act where he debarred "fute ball". This was also the earliest reference to football or kicking ball games in Scotland. James II followed suit in 1457. James III decreed against it at his sixth parliament in Edinburgh 1471 and James IV did the same in 1491.
Charles II again made the game unlawful. In fact during the period 1314 to 1527 no less than nine European monarchs make it a specific offence to play "foote balle", instead directing their subjects to practice archery instead or face fines or even imprisonment. Despite it all, youths continued to play the game.
In about 1430 Thomas Lydgate refers to the form of football, Camp Ball: "Bolseryd out of length and bread, lyck a large campynge balle".

The first reference to Irish football was the Statute of Galway in 1537.Some have tried to trace the origins of these games to the 6th century Roman sport of Harpastum, also known as Harpustum (also later on in Florence, Italy known as giuoco del calcio fiorentino ("Florentine kick game") or simply calcio ("kick"). The official rules of calcio were published for the first time in 1580 by a certain Giovanni Bardi. Just like Roman harpastum, it was played in teams of 27, using both feet and hands. Goals could be scored by throwing the ball over a designated spot on the perimeter of the field. The playing field is a giant sand pit with a goal running the width of each end. There is a main referee, six linesmen and a field master. Each game is played out for 50 minutes with the winner being the team with the most points or 'cacce'.
Athenaeus wrote: "Harpastum, which used to be called Phaininda, is the game I like most of all. Great are the exertion and fatigue attendant upon contests of ball-playing, and violent twisting and turning of the neck. Hence Antiphanes, "Damn it, what a pain in the neck I've got." He describes the game thus: "He seized the ball and passed it to a team-mate while dodging another and laughing. He pushed it out of the way of another. Another fellow player he raised to his feet. All the while the crowd resounded with shouts of Out of bounds, Too far, Right beside him, Over his head, On the ground, Up in the air, Too short, Pass it back in the scrum."
Galen, in On Exercise with the Small Ball, describes harpastum as: "better than wrestling or running because it exercises every part of the body, takes up little time, and costs nothing." He also considered it " profitable training in strategy", and said that it could be "played with varying degrees of strenuousness."
So Harpastrum was apparently a Romanized version of a Greek game called Phaininda whose name was derived from the Greek word ìto pretend,î as players elaborately tried to prevent the other team from intercepting a ball by deceiving them through a series of fake passes. The Romans conquered Greece in 146 BCE so it is fair to estimate that the Romans discovered the Greek versions of the games shortly after that date. Mind you, others have argued that the Romans learnt this games from the Far East, from China or even Japan, and so it goes on.

I guess we can be certain that ever since man learned to walk on two legs he was tempted to kick, throw and catch objects for his own enjoyment.

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