Football crazy
Sir: This observation, quoted by Dr G. Gordon CouIton in his Mediaeval Panor- ama, was made in 1366 and is contained in the records of the Halmote Rolls of Durham: Football was strictly forbidden. The fact is at those matches between village and village, bloodshed and vendettas were frequent. In one case William Batram, being struck by the foot of one who played with him, sustained long and intolerable pains. The game at which they had met for common recreation is called by some the foot-ball- game. It is one in which young men propel a huge ball not by throwing it into the air, but by striking and rolling it along the gound, and that not with hands but with their feet. A game, I say, abominable enough and, in my judgment at least, more common, undigni-
fied, and worthless than any other kind of game, rarely ending but with some loss, accident, or disadvantage to the players themselves.
In 1986 we might perhaps add: 'and with grievous injuries to the spectators and wanton damage to private as well as public property.'
Dennis Ward
Snowdon View Farm, Timble Great, Nr Otley, West Yorkshire.
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