1st position2nd position3rd position
This game is general. Mr. Emslie describes the London version somewhat differently. After all the boys had jumped over the first boy’s back, a cry of “Foot it” was raised, and the boy who had given the back placed one of his feet at a right angle to the other, and in this way measured a “foot’s length” from the starting-place. All the boys then “overed” his back from the original line, the last one crying “Foot it,” and then the measuring ceremony was again gone through, and the game commenced again, and continued in the same manner until one of the boys failed to “over” the back, when he became Back.[Addendum]
Football
The modern game of “Football” is too well known to need description here, and, like “[Cricket],” it has become no longer a children’s game. As to its origin, there are many ball games, such as “[Camping],” which have been suggested as the original form of “Football.” Every school almost had some peculiarity in the method of playing, and Eton, Winchester, Uppingham, and Rugby are well-known examples. It is not a little interesting to note, now that “Football” has settled down into a national game organised by county committees, that one of the forms of play officially recognised is the old Rugby game, the other form, known as the “Association,” being arrived at by agreement of those interested in the game.
To illustrate the ancient origin of the game, and its serious import as a local contest rather than a sport, some examples may be given. It is still (1877) keenly contested at Workington on Easter Tuesday on the banks of, and not unfrequently in, the river Derwent (Dickinson’s Cumberland Glossary). At Derby there was a football contest between the parishes of All Saints’ and St. Peter’s. The ball was thrown into the market-place from the Town Hall. The moment it was thrown the “war cries” of the rival parishes began, and the contest, nominally that of a football match, was in reality a fight between the two sections of the town; and the victors were announced by the joyful ringing of their parish bells (Dyer’s Popular Customs, p. 75). At Chester-le-Street the game was played between what were termed “up-streeters” and “down-streeters,” one side endeavouring to get the ball to the top of the town, whilst their opponents tried to keep it near the lower or north end. At one o’clock the ball was thrown out from near the old commercial hotel, the Queen’s Head, in the centre of the town, and it has often been received by over three and four hundred people, so great was the interest taken in this ancient sport. At Asborne the struggle was between the “up’ards” and “down’ards.” At Dorking the divisions were between the east and west ends of the town, and there was first a perambulation of the streets by the football retinue composed of grotesquely dressed persons. At Alnwick the divisions were the parishes of St. Michael’s and St. Paul’s. At Kirkwall the contest was on New Year’s Day, and was between “up the gates” and “down the gates,” the ball being thrown up at the Cross. At Scarborough, on the morning of Shrove Tuesday, hawkers paraded the streets with parti-coloured balls, which were purchased by all ranks of the community. With these, and armed with sticks, men, women, and children repaired to the sands below the old town and indiscriminately commenced a contest. The following graphic account of Welsh customs was printed in the Oswestry Observer of March 2, 1887: “In South Cardiganshire it seems that about eighty years ago the population, rich and poor, male and female, of opposing parishes, turned out on Christmas Day and indulged in the game of ‘Football’ with such vigour that it became little short of a serious fight. The parishioners of Cellan and Pencarreg were particularly bitter in their conflicts; men threw off their coats and waistcoats and women their gowns, and sometimes their petticoats. At Llanwenog, an extensive parish below Lampeter, the inhabitants for football purposes were divided into the Bros and the Blaenaus. A man over eighty, an inmate of Lampeter Workhouse, gives the following particulars:—In North Wales the ball was called the Bêl Troed, and was made with a bladder covered with a Cwd Tarw. In South Wales it was called Bél Ddu, and was usually made by the shoe-maker of the parish, who appeared on the ground on Christmas Day with the ball under his arm. The Bros, it should be stated, occupied the high ground of the parish. They were nicknamed ‘Paddy Bros,’ from a tradition that they were descendants from Irish people who settled on the hills in days long gone by. The Blaenaus occupied the lowlands, and, it may be presumed, were pure-bred Brythons. The more devout of the Bros and Blaenaus joined in the service at the parish church on Christmas morning. At any rate, the match did not begin until about mid-day, when the service was finished. Then the whole of the Bros and Blaenaus, rich and poor, male and female, assembled on the turnpike road which divided the highlands from the lowlands. The ball having been redeemed from the Crydd, it was thrown high in the air by a strong man, and when it fell Bros and Blaenaus scrambled for its possession, and a quarter of an hour frequently elapsed before the ball was got out from among the struggling heap of human beings. Then if the Bros, by hook or by crook, could succeed in taking the ball up the mountain to their hamlet of Rhyddlan they won the day; while the Blaenaus were successful if they got the ball to their end of the parish at New Court. The whole parish was the field of operations, and sometimes it would be dark before either party scored a victory. In the meantime many kicks would be given and taken, so that on the following day some of the competitors would be unable to walk, and sometimes a kick on the shins would lead the two men concerned to abandon the game until they had decided which was the better pugilist. There do not appear to have been any rules for the regulation of the game; and the art of football playing in the olden time seems to have been to reach the goal. When once the goal was reached, the victory was celebrated by loud hurrahs and the firing of guns, and was not disturbed until the following Christmas Day. Victory on Christmas Day, added the old man, was so highly esteemed by the whole countryside, that a Bro or Blaenau would as soon lose a cow from his cow-house as the football from his portion of the parish.”
(b) In Gomme’s Village Community, pp. 241-44, the position of football games as elements in the traditions of race is discussed, and their relationship to a still earlier form of tribal games, where the element of clan feuds is more decidedly preserved, is pointed out.
Forfeits
Forfeits are incurred in those games in which penalties are exacted from players for non-compliance with the rules of the game; “[Buff],” “[Contrary],” “[Crosspurposes],” “[Fire, Air, and Water],” “[Follow my Gable],” “[Genteel Lady],” “[Jack’s Alive],” “[Old Soldier],” “[Twelve Days of Christmas],” “[Turn the Trencher],” “[Wadds],” and others. These games are described under their several titles, and the formula for forfeits is always the same. Small articles belonging to the players must be given by them every time a forfeit is incurred, and these must be redeemed at the close of the game. They are “cried” in the following manner:—One of the players sits on a chair having the forfeits in her lap. A child kneels on the ground and buries his face in his hands on the lap of the person who holds the forfeits. The “crier” then takes up indiscriminately one of the forfeits, and holding it up in the sight of all those who have been playing the games (without the kneeling child seeing it), says—
Here’s a very pretty thing and a very pretty thing,
And what shall be done to [or, by] the owner of this very pretty thing?
The kneeling child then says what the penance is to be. The owner of the forfeit must then perform the penance before the other players, and then another forfeit is “cried.”