Warning: some description of severe injuries
Traditionally, the beautiful game was brutal and riotous. Before the rules and regulations introduced by the Football Association (founded 1863), traditional football was a free-for-all that the authorities tried to ban on numerous occasions. The first recorded attempt to ban or curtail the playing of football dates from 1314, when the City of London decided that too much damage was being caused by the game.
In the Middle Ages football was played when people weren’t working, this meant Sundays and holidays (such as Christmas and Easter). Whole cities, towns or villages divided up into opposing teams, sometimes geographically (the north versus south) or according to marital status (married versus unmarried). Needless to say, squads were somewhat larger than today’s eleven players and could even run into the hundreds.
There were few, if any, rules – the ball could be handled and thrown, as well as kicked. Goals were often local landmarks and play could continue until nightfall, or even over several days. Play wasn’t usually confined to a pitch, as today, but was carried on through the town or village streets. It was a full contact game – think of a medieval Vinnie Jones, Nobby Stiles or Stuart Pearce without the constraints of an umpire, or rules. It is doubtless that many scores were settled during games.
A glimpse of the brutality of the game can be gleaned from the records of the Northumberland Quarter Sessions of 1680. Ralph Lowrison of Choppington appeared before a Justice of the Peace to complain about a football match that had taken place on the Tuesday after Easter at Bothal. He claimed that he was set upon by Bernard Smith and William Jackson, one on each side of him. (Just pass on to the next paragraph if you are squeamish…) Ralph claimed that Bernard and William had so violently bruised him that he did “…spitt blood from his Bowills…” and that a bone setter was needed to reset his arm and put his shoulder back in its socket. It isn’t clear why Ralph came in for such treatment – perhaps because he was an “outsider” or perhaps he was just at the wrong game at the wrong time.
It is therefore a bit of a surprise that the traditional game has survived at all, but it is still played in a handful of places throughout the country, usually on Shrove Tuesday. In the northeast, Sedgefield and Alnwick play a version of the traditional game.
At Alnwick, the game is now played on a field (an innovation of 1828), thanks to the Duke of Northumberland, who was probably fed up of the town getting smashed up every year. Originally, it seems that the married men of the village played the unmarried men, but that the division of the town into two parishes in the nineteenth-century lent itself well to the forming of teams; now St Michaels play St Pauls. Two “hales” are set up on the field as goals and are decorated with greenery. No handling of the ball is allowed; kicking only, but play is physical and opponents tackle each other to the ground (bone setters aren’t generally called upon, though.) Once the game is over (after three “hales” or periods have been played) the ball is lobbed into the River Aln and whoever dives in and retrieves it keeps the ball as a trophy.
Northumberland Archives are lucky enough to hold a copy of the minute books of the committee that has organised the Alnwick game since the nineteenth-century. The older of the two volumes contains posters, photographs and sometimes a short comment about that year’s game. Some of the posters advertising the game are of particular interest as they also list the “bye-laws” or rules of the game. The more recent volume (1954-1973) contains descriptions of each game, who scored goals, who played well and the weather conditions under which the games were played.
The Origins of Football: The Game That Couldn’t Be Banned
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-51445310
https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/ne1000000086166/
https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/shakespeares-deadly-game-football/
M C Balfour County Folklore Concerning Northumberland, 1903
Gavin Kitching ‘From Time Immemorial’: The Alnwich Shrovetide Football Match and the Continuous Remaking of Tradition in The International Journal of the History of Sport, April 2011
Northumberland Archives Alnwick Shrove Tuesday Football committee minutes (bound photocopies), 1954-1972,1871-1985 NRO 03851/1-2
Ha ha – very interesting .. My mum grew up in Orkney and there they also play an older version of the game – the ‘Ba’ – I found this document which explains it better than I can!!
http://www.orkneyjar.com/tradition/bagame/
What is the Ba’?
“It’s not so much a game . . .more a civil war.”
BBC Spectrum Programme 1982
The Kirkwall Ba’
The Ba’ players on Kirkwall’s Broad Street, in front of St Magnus Cathedral.
The Kirkwall Ba’
The pack forms around the ba’ after it is thrown from the Mercat Cross.
The Kirkwall Ba’
After the fight to decide the eventual winner, the triumphant player is raised high with his trophy.
Every Christmas Eve and Hogmanay, householders and shopkeepers along Kirkwall’s winding central streets can be seen barricading doors and windows in preparation for the following days’ ba’ games.
The Kirkwall Ba’ is a mass-football game played out in the streets of the town every Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
The game pits two rival “factions” against each other in a battle to secure a goal and win the game.
Uppies and Doonies
The men and boys of Kirkwall are designated either “Uppies” or “Doonies”, or “Up the Gates” and “Doon the Gates”. This is thought to be a corruption of the Old Norse gata, meaning road.
Whether you were an Uppie or a Doonie originally depended upon the individual’s place of birth. Those born to the north of the Cathedral were a Doonies, with Uppies being those born to the south.
These days, however, family loyalty is usually more important than the place of birth, with stalwart players playing for the same side as their father, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did before them, regardless of where they now live.
The ba’
Grandad’s Ba’The ba’ itself is a handmade, cork-filled, leather ball. Each game is played with a new ba’, each one handmade by one of a few Orcadian ba’ makers.
A finished Men’s ba’ weighs about 3 lbs with a circumference of approximately 28 inches. The Boys’ Ba’ is slightly smaller.
The ba’ shown right was won by my grandfather, George Borwick, in the 1950 Christmas Day game. This ba’ is now well over 100 years old, having first been used in 1898.
The game begins
Two ba’ games are played every Christmas and New Year’s Day.
The first, the Boys’ Ba’, begins at 10.30am. If the battle for the Boys’ Ba’ is long and hard, it is not uncommon for it, and the Men’s Ba’, which starts at 1pm, to be running concurrently.
The game begins on Kirkwall’s Broad Street, in the shadow of St Magnus Cathedral.
The Uppie goal is to touch the ba’ against a wall in the south end of the town, while the Doonies have the unenviable task of getting the ba’ into the water of Kirkwall Bay, to the north.
There are no hard and fast rules. Although the game is fairly rough, tempers are usually held in check and foul play, or “inappropriate behaviour”, is not tolerated. Surprisingly, given the nature of the Ba’, serious injuries to players are fairly rare. More often than not it is usually unfamiliar spectators who are hurt. When the pack breaks, there is often not much room to run!
As the cathedral clock strikes 1pm, a specially chosen individual, usually someone with a long association with the game, throws the ba’ from the Mercat Cross into the gathered crowd of players. As soon as it lands in the pack, the fight for possession begins, with each side trying to gain ground and carry the ba’ towards their territories.
A tight scrum forms around the leather trophy, while players on the outside brace themselves against any nearby buildings to prevent the opposition capturing ground. With the streets now their playing field, a heaving throng of men push and pulling to try and gain a few metres nearer their goal. In the cold, winter air, steam hangs above the pack.
But when the pack breaks, chaos erupts, as those in possession of the ba’ try and get as close to their goal as possible before being stopped. As soon as they are intercepted, however, the scrum quickly reforms.
This struggle to gain ground means that a typical game can last for hours. Based on recent years, an average Men’s Ba’ lasts about five hours, but this could be anything up to eight hours, or more.
Throughout the game, numerous tactics are used to achieve the goal. Very often, the majority of players have no idea where the ba’ actually is. This leads to numerous attempts to smuggle the ba’ out of the pack or create fake “breaks” in the hope that the opposition will follow the wrong players.
A successful break allows players to sprint towards their goal, making the most of Kirkwall’s winding lanes to slow down pursuers. Players have been known to attempt to reach their goals via the rooftops.
When the goal is finally reached, the ba’ – itself a coveted trophy – is awarded to a player in the winning side who has been a notable participant over a number of years.
“It breaks out twice a year at a time when peace and goodwill might be expected to prevail, the warring armies engaging in close combat with a ferocity that precludes respect for person or property.
“Even the law has been known to stand impotent as combatants surged and counter-surged through the environs of the police station, and memory has hardly dimmed the occasion when the local manse was invaded and despoiled. Casualties are high — but who cares?
“Crushed ribs and broken limbs are never enough reasons for the enthusiastic participants to desist from this traditional orgy of Orcadian violence which not even a sheriff’s edict could ban — the Kirkwall Ba’ Game.”
BBC Spectrum Programme 1982
Thank you very much.