A Brief and Bloody History of Football Violence
An Overview of the Chaotic and Violent Days of Early Football
In an age when football is edging ever closer to a non-contact sport and in which players will go down as if shot at the merest suggestion of a foul, clutching their bodily parts and screaming as if Beelzebub himself had just inserted a flaming pitchfork into some unmentionable orifice, fans of a certain age can often be heard pining for the days when players were as hard as their tackling. When players like Chelsea’s Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris and Leeds United’s Norman ‘Bites Yer Legs’ Hunter earned their nicknames and The Beautiful Game could be more a war of attrition.
Delve further back into the game’s history however and even the fiery brand of football delivered by the infamous Leeds team of the late 60s and early 70s seems like a primary school game of kiss-catch.
The Historical Forerunners of Football
Team ball games were common in many cultures, from the Chinese Tsu Chu and Roman Harpastum (both of which were part of military training) to the native American Pasuckuakohowog, which was closer to all-out war in its own right. The origins of the modern game can be traced back to England however, where a version was played as early as the 9th Century. Often played on Shrove Tuesday, these chaotic games would sometimes involve the populations of entire villages, with the ‘pitch’ consisting of fields, streets, streams, woods and anything else that got in the way. The object was to get the ball into the opposing team’s ‘goal’ by any means necessary.
When Football was Against the Law
Over the following centuries, many laws would be passed attempting to ban the game of football although almost all would be flouted. In the case of Edward II, the ban had more to do with fears that the peasantry were neglecting their archery practice (essential for repelling the pesky French) in favour of football, but others were more concerned with the violence and ‘immorality’ of the game. In his 1583 book ‘Anatomy Of Abuses’, Philip Stubbs wrote: “Football playing... withdraweth us from godliness…Sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometimes one part is thrust out of joint, sometimes the noses gush out with blood... Football encourages envy and hatred... sometimes fighting, murder and a great loss of blood."
Football Moves into the Public Schools
By the 18th Century football was no longer the preserve of the lower classes and was routinely played in English public schools. It was no more gentile however. In ‘The Sports And Pastimes Of The English People’ in 1801, Joseph Strutt wrote: “When the exercise becomes exceeding violent, the players kick each other's shins without the least ceremony, and some of them are overthrown at the hazard of their limbs."
The Formation of the Football Association
The formal codification of the game by the Football Association in 1863 removed much of the violence, but only after a contested vote. In the first draft of the F.A.’s Laws Of The Game, Rule 10 stated:
If any player shall run with the ball towards his adversaries' goal, any player on the opposite side shall be at liberty to charge, hold, trip or hack him, or to wrest the ball from him, but no player shall be held and hacked at the same time.
Imagine how the millionaire prima donnas of today’s game would cope with that…
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