Extract from Chapter 1: ‘Chasing the sun’ | Folk football and the Puritans
From the 16th century onwards, Shrove Tuesday was the biggest date on the football calendar. It was the last day of indulgence before the hardships of Lent, and, in many towns and villages, football became a central part of the festivities. One of the best-known annual fixtures took place in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, where most of the town would turn out to play, and the goals were three miles apart. Ashbourne’s Shrovetide game is still played today, as is the one in Atherstone, Warwickshire, which is believed to date back to around 1200 (and is contested by players acting as individuals, rather than in teams). Folk football also survives as an annual event in other places around Britain, from St Ives in Cornwall to Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands.
In The People’s Game, James Walvin suggests that the authorities were relatively lenient towards the Shrovetide games, on the understanding that order would be restored the next day. It was thought that working people should be given a limited chance to let off some steam, otherwise their pent-up anger and energy might boil over into actions that would be even more destructive. In the 16th century and beyond, the game was popular with apprentices – including many radical young men with a habit of stirring things up, while the authorities, employers and landowners battled to restrain them.
As if the tales of death, injury and broken windows weren’t enough, football’s detractors had another stick to beat it with, namely religion. For most workers, Sunday was the only day of the week that offered any substantial time for recreation. Inevitably, as the game became too popular to be confined to annual feast days, Sunday football became a regular sight in many towns and villages. In the eyes of many devout Christians, though, any energetic activity on a Sunday was a violation of the Sabbath.
In 1531, Sir Thomas Eliot published The Boke of the Governour, outlining his idea of a respectable way of life. Football clearly had no place in it. It was a game ‘wherein is nothinge but beastly furie and extreme violence whereof proceedeth hurte and consequently rancour and malice do remaine with them that be wounded’. More condemnation came from the Bishop of Rochester in 1572, demanding that the ‘evil game’ be banned. In the 16th and 17th centuries, there were numerous cases of people being prosecuted for playing (or even watching) football on Sundays and other Christian holy days, particularly while church services were in progress.
Much of this can be attributed to the emergence of the Puritans. With their strict interpretation of the Bible and their insistence on a ‘godly’, austere lifestyle, they frowned upon recreation in general, and especially on such riotous games as football. Many Puritans, such as the pamphleteer Philip Stubbes, saw it as a route towards sin. In his Anatomy of Abuses in the Realme of England, in 1583, Stubbes was particularly scathing, counting the game among the ‘develyshe pastimes’ that he believed were corrupting the nation:
‘For as concerning football playing, I protest unto you that it may be rather called a friendlie kinde of fight than a play or recreation, a bloody and murthering practice than a felowly sporte or pastime. For dooth not everyone lye in waight for his adversarie, seeking to overthrowe him and picke him on his nose, though it be upon hard stones?’
Stubbes went on to catalogue the injuries that he associated with the game: broken legs, arms, backs and necks, noses gushing with blood and so forth. Religious objections to football were nothing new, but it seems that they became more frequent and vehement as the Puritan movement gained momentum in the late 16th and 17th centuries, with prosecutions becoming increasingly common.
The Puritans’ stance on football even gave them a shared cause with their adversaries in the monarchy and aristocracy, who still saw it as a threat to property and social stability. James I (1603–25), for example, disapproved of his son Henry playing football, and forbade it from the royal court. But, in a show of defiance to the Puritans, he encouraged Sunday sporting activity in his 1618 Declaration of Sports, albeit with no explicit reference to football.
In The People’s Game, James Walvin suggests that the authorities were relatively lenient towards the Shrovetide games, on the understanding that order would be restored the next day. It was thought that working people should be given a limited chance to let off some steam, otherwise their pent-up anger and energy might boil over into actions that would be even more destructive. In the 16th century and beyond, the game was popular with apprentices – including many radical young men with a habit of stirring things up, while the authorities, employers and landowners battled to restrain them.
As if the tales of death, injury and broken windows weren’t enough, football’s detractors had another stick to beat it with, namely religion. For most workers, Sunday was the only day of the week that offered any substantial time for recreation. Inevitably, as the game became too popular to be confined to annual feast days, Sunday football became a regular sight in many towns and villages. In the eyes of many devout Christians, though, any energetic activity on a Sunday was a violation of the Sabbath.
In 1531, Sir Thomas Eliot published The Boke of the Governour, outlining his idea of a respectable way of life. Football clearly had no place in it. It was a game ‘wherein is nothinge but beastly furie and extreme violence whereof proceedeth hurte and consequently rancour and malice do remaine with them that be wounded’. More condemnation came from the Bishop of Rochester in 1572, demanding that the ‘evil game’ be banned. In the 16th and 17th centuries, there were numerous cases of people being prosecuted for playing (or even watching) football on Sundays and other Christian holy days, particularly while church services were in progress.
Much of this can be attributed to the emergence of the Puritans. With their strict interpretation of the Bible and their insistence on a ‘godly’, austere lifestyle, they frowned upon recreation in general, and especially on such riotous games as football. Many Puritans, such as the pamphleteer Philip Stubbes, saw it as a route towards sin. In his Anatomy of Abuses in the Realme of England, in 1583, Stubbes was particularly scathing, counting the game among the ‘develyshe pastimes’ that he believed were corrupting the nation:
‘For as concerning football playing, I protest unto you that it may be rather called a friendlie kinde of fight than a play or recreation, a bloody and murthering practice than a felowly sporte or pastime. For dooth not everyone lye in waight for his adversarie, seeking to overthrowe him and picke him on his nose, though it be upon hard stones?’
Stubbes went on to catalogue the injuries that he associated with the game: broken legs, arms, backs and necks, noses gushing with blood and so forth. Religious objections to football were nothing new, but it seems that they became more frequent and vehement as the Puritan movement gained momentum in the late 16th and 17th centuries, with prosecutions becoming increasingly common.
The Puritans’ stance on football even gave them a shared cause with their adversaries in the monarchy and aristocracy, who still saw it as a threat to property and social stability. James I (1603–25), for example, disapproved of his son Henry playing football, and forbade it from the royal court. But, in a show of defiance to the Puritans, he encouraged Sunday sporting activity in his 1618 Declaration of Sports, albeit with no explicit reference to football.