Sports and Migration: United Kingdom

Migration in Football:
From England to the World and Back to England

Part 1

 

The game that flourished in the British Isles from the 8th to the 19th century was called shrovetide football, and it belonged in the "mob football" category, where the number of players was unlimited and the rules were fairly vague. The first footie in Britain was played by huge numbers of people on vast 'pitches' with very few rules. Villages were divided into two sides, often based on where they lived.

The games were usually linked to special dates in the calendar and some of these traditions have survived today. T

he biggest day of the year for folk football in Britain is Shrove Tuesday. Some 50 such local traditions are recorded, although only six survive today. One of these is at Sedgefield, County Durham, where at 1.00 pm, a ball is passed through a small ring, known as the Bull Ring, on the village green. It is then thrown to a baying pack of anything up to 1,000 players. The 500-yard pitch stretches between the two goals - an old duck pond and a stream - and the big match comes complete with its own traditional chant: "When the pancakes are sated, Come to the ring and you'll be mated,There this ball will be upcast, May this game be better than the last."

There was scarcely any progress at all in the development of football for hundreds of years. But, although the game was persistently forbidden for 500 years, it was never completely suppressed. As a consequence, it remained essentially rough, violent and disorganised.

 

 

One famous game is at Ashbourne, Derbyshire. The Up'ards, born on one side of the river Henmore, take on the Down'ards, born on the other. The goals are three miles apart, with several streams in between, making it rather tricky to score quickly on the break.

 

 

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