There are other games of football practised at various schools, which, in a work of more pretentious size, would deserve detailed description, besides those of Westminster and Charterhouse. There is, for instance, the Shrewsbury game, noted for its name of “dowling,” supposed to be connected with δοῦλος, “a slave,” which carries in itself the notion of compulsory football. But space does not permit us to enter into the merits of this game; and the omission may be justified partly on the ground that it was a game of a mixed kind, and partly on the ground that it has now fallen into disuse, and has given place to the Association game.
Between the game as played in the cloisters at the Charterhouse, and that played on “Green” at Westminster School there would not appear to be any essential similarity. The rules of both games were absolutely determined by their environment and the circumstances under which they were played. In a certain sense, both were similar. Both were played in a confined space, though, of course, the space in “Green” was less confined than that of the cloisters; and from this cause it follows that both Westminster and Charterhouse boys developed an astounding capacity for dribbling through dense masses of boys. Both games again were played at odd times and in ordinary clothes; and though both were rough and boisterous enough in all conscience, they clearly were not so injurious to clothes as the Rugby game, in which it was allowed to seize and hurl an opponent. The worst that can follow from a charge in which the hands are not employed, is downfall into mud which a clothes-brush will remove more or less completely from the injured garment; but from being collared, there may ensue results in the shape of torn clothes. Hence it came that the boys educated at these schools, in the first place, prohibited “collaring” and all use of the hands and arms, and, in the second place, became extremely clever at dribbling and at charging with the shoulders. While this subject is uppermost, it may not be amiss to enter very slightly into the question of roughness. The Rugby game unquestionably appears far rougher to the spectator than the Association. But, in fact, it is a very doubtful matter which is the more dangerous. It must be remembered that it is not the fall to the ground which is most perilous to life and limb. Seldom, indeed, is it that anything more serious than a collar-bone is broken by a fall to the ground. From the concussion of two bodies, on the contrary, ribs and arms are apt to suffer, and in proportion to the preponderance of kicking is the danger of broken legs. These are of comparatively rare occurrence, except as the results of crossed shins; and the more rational conclusion is, that the rules from which the Association game took its origin were originally formulated, or rather grew naturally, from a regard for clothes rather than limbs.
In another chapter the formulation of the Association Rules will be discussed; for the present, it will be enough to say that they owe their origin mostly to Westminster and Charterhouse. Indeed, it is not too much to say of the games of football at present in vogue, that they are due almost entirely to the desire of men at the Universities and elsewhere for a continuance of their old school exercises, and that their connection with the ancient games is accidental rather than real, remote rather than near.
Of the history of the other form of the game, in which running with the ball is encouraged, but little need be said; for from Rugby School, and from Rugby School alone, what is now known as the Rugby Union game is derived.
If the view we have taken in the foregoing pages be correct, while the running and collaring game was the original national sport of England, the dribbling game owes its origin to schools in which the playgrounds were limited in size, and where various considerations rendered the rough horseplay which characterized football in the ancient times impracticable. In the beginning of this chapter we have pointed out that the size of the Close at Rugby rendered it possible for the boys of that school to play the original game without fear of being hurled when collared against stone walls, or iron railings, or upon surfaces of gravel. Hence we should naturally expect to find, in the game practised at this school, an absence of any restriction in the way in which the ball was to be taken towards the adversaries’ goal, and an equal absence of any restriction in the means of collaring or stopping one of the attacking party in his course, and with no limits to the field of play except those which necessity demanded. It is the very style of game which is known to have been in vogue at Rugby fifty years ago. We need scarcely refer to the well-known description of the football match in “Tom Brown’s Schooldays at Rugby,” as that description is hardly likely to be unknown to any of our readers; but if any take the trouble to reperuse it after reading these pages, they can scarcely fail to notice how little the Rugby game described there differs from a Rugby Union “Big-side” at the present day. Indeed, until within the last few years the Rugby School game suffered no alteration; but lately the tripping, hacking, and indiscriminate charging have been abandoned, no doubt more in respect to the feelings of the numerous fifteens who visit the school to play matches, than from any assumed effeminacy of the hard-shinned Rugbeians. At the present day we believe the Rugby School fifteens, at any rate in their foreign matches, conform to the Rugby Union Code.
No doubt there were many other schools at which a game which allowed running with the ball was practised; but at no other public school than Rugby, as far as we are aware, did the collaring, hacking, and tripping game take root. We can hardly help thinking, when we recollect with what rapturous delight football was regarded at Rugby, that the real cause which kept Rugby football in the background in other schools, was the sublunary consideration of clothes. In ancient times a suit of clothes was an expensive item of expenditure for a young gentleman, while the beef and mutton that he ate cost but a few pence the pound; and so in every sport the question of how the clothes would stand it had to be considered. Had Carlyle been still alive, we might have provided him with materials for another chapter of Sartor Resartus.
CONCLUSION.
The Modern Revival of Football.
