London's 'Devilish Pastime': Football
To claim the invention of the game of football for London would be naughty: as long as there have been balls, little boys will kick them. Prior to the 1580s, street or mob football has been assumed the only game, but between 1421 and 1423, the Brewers' Company records the hiring out of their hall to the football 'plaiers', for 20 pence (which I presume to be for their matches over the year as 20 pence is a reasonable sum).
In mob football, four white shirts were soaked in the nearest pump and balled up, two at each 'end', on the ground. Teams could contain any number of players, and often, like tug-o-war, there were many more players on one side than the other. Mob football was often played by gangs of apprentices from neighbouring parishes/villages on a Saturday afternoon when they got out from work (anyone see a pattern here?). High streets were a common venue as they provided a narrower field, but commons also served as improvised pitches. Beer compulsory at the close of play. In 1581, Richard Mulcaster (Old Etonian, and headmaster of Merchant Taylors' and St Paul's) wrote his treatise on the education of children. It is a remarkably modern document, and describes 'foteball' as a tool for instilling discipline, teamwork and physical fitness in the young. Mulcaster also recommended the involvement of a referee.By 1660, Francis Willughby had written his Book of English Games, which included the diagram of a pitch and a description of the ball:
They blow a strong bladder and tie the neck of it as fast as they can, then put it into the skin of a buls cod and sew it fast in...The harder the ball is blown, the better it flies.
The anatomy of the early football is intriguing: it is double-skinned like the modern ones. I had heard people talk about the kicking of a pig's bladder before, but thought it unlikely as bladders were used to contain paint and other retailed liquids such as floor polish, but they are not particularly durable. Anyone who has visited a petshop will have seen pieces of a bull's penis for sale. They are extremely strong and durable, and I am not surprised to learn they were used as the outer leather for footballs. There sounds to be a certain amount of skill in the making of them as well, so there may well have been specialist makers.
By 1747, boys at Eton were playing the game we would recognize today, followed rapidly by Westminster and the other public schools. The schools played amongst themselves, but across London, teams were forming. Hammersmith, Fulham and Chelsea were the three main villages to contribute teams to the London scene. The Fulham team were known for their rowdiness, and that of their followers and when they played Hammersmith there was almost always violence. Closer to the centre of London, teams of apprentices such as butchers, fishmongers and plaisterers. They wore their badges on their sleeves to distinguish between the teams. Villages wore different coloured arm-bands.
Hammersmith, Chelsea and Fulham Commons were the venues for the village matches and the apprentices played on the Blackguards' Ground near Moorfields in the City. By the late 18thC, a separate group was emerging: grown men from across Britain who found themselves in London, and banded together with their fellows to create teams. The most notable were the Westmoreland and Cumberland teams, who all trained together as The Gymnastic Society, thought to be the first modern football club. From the 1780s they played regularly on Kennington Common.
In 1826, a reincarnation of the Gymnastic Society mentioned the vast crowds of spectators drawn by football every weekend, and since the 12thC football has been regularly outlawed for causing people to congregate in an unruly fashion. There was no charge to watch. Up until the Victorian period, it was customary for gentlemen to arrive on their horses to watch from a better vantage point, and there are stories of makeshift grandstands collapsing under the weight of spectators. So it seems that for as long as boys have wanted to kick a ball, there are people who have wanted to watch them do it.
