Mob Football 1314

1. Mob Football 1314 • Mob football evolved from a more ancient and bloody ritual called the “Dane’s Head” where the head of a Danish soldier slain in battle was kicked from one village to another. • The game was a form of unarmed combat and all-in wrestling in pursuit of a round ball. • It consisted over 500 players a side. • It was aggressive and violent, and often played between the men of two adjacent villages. • Kicking and biting, the players often used the game as opportunity to settle old scores.

2. How it Continued….. • On Shrove Tuesday in 1847 the traditional game of football was played for the last time in Derby county. The mayor appeared on horse back to stop the game with the aid of the local constables. The cavalry was called in and the game was stopped. • For eight hundred years the popular pastime of mob football had survived, against every edict of every king who tried to stop it. • The introduction of the new system by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 gave the state enough power to stamped out the game. • The phrase “a local derby” is still used to describe a match between neighbouring teams where no love is lost and the game in derby provides the best example of the death of the ancient sport.

3. Taming The Game!! • It was in the area of the public schools  that the unruliness of the pastime became a cause for alarm among the educators of England's privileged children. • Rather than attempting to ban football as other masters had done, Dr Thomas Arnold(headmaster) legitimised the game and encouraged the pupils to formalise a set of rules to govern it. • As the fight for dominance among the pupils was pacified through entrustment of power, the real violence on the football field was ritualised by law. • Gradually, the newly refined and 'respectable' game permeated the rest of society.  It was in this form that football was exported to the continent.

4. Export of the new game! • In this twenty year inter-war period, continental football teams distinguished themselves with their own style, technique, and strong national allegiances ready to challenge the British dominance of the sport. • To the North, the Scandinavians also modelled their behaviour on the “Ideal British Gentleman.” Football matches in the early 1900's were attended by large but well mannered crowds, often including royalty. • In Sweden, spectators were largely segregated into the decorous upper classes and the more boisterous working class sections.  The press positively encouraged their extroverted behaviour as it added atmosphere to the game. • In France, the liberating nature of football once praised by the elite now came to symbolise  middle class, working industrial values antagonistic to the aristocracy and the church. At the turn of the century, English style football clubs were springing up all over Europe.