Football: a Bloody and Murthering Practice
Who would have thought it - the modern games of football, all of them, owe their existence to an ancient Chinese warlord, the Great Plague, the Industrial Revolution and, most importantly, railways.
There's also the rather interesting little bit of info that soccer - that most English of inventions - and quintessentially Australian Aussie Rules. both have quite recent roots in China.
There's also the rather interesting little bit of info that soccer - that most English of inventions - and quintessentially Australian Aussie Rules. both have quite recent roots in China.
I kid you not!!
Actually Aussie rules probably has the most ancient lineages of them all on several fronts.
Why did I write a book on football? It started on a whim, no plans for anything except satisfying idle curiosity.
I like watching football (rugby for me, league or union) and one sunny Sunday afternoon, work finished, cold beer in hand and relaxed in front of a game of league on the tele, my mind wandered.
There was an injury break in the game and I found myself wondering 'Why do people do this to themselves? Why do thousands, hundreds of thousands of people across the world spend hours in strenuous training just to spend eighty or ninety minutes trying to put a ball over an opponent's line, sometimes with extreme violence and the very real risk of serious injury, broken bones and occasionally a lifetime of paralysis, even death?'
At the end of the game nothing has changed in the world,
nothing has been produced and, except for the élite professional players who get
payed ridiculous sums for their efforts, no one is better off. Yet people enthusiastically risk life, limb
and dignity week in and week out to try and get a ball past an opposing team.
My idle wondering brought me inevitably to the question 'Where did it all start. Who kicked the first ball?'
That innocent question sent me down so many deep and dank rabbit holes where hosts of football's often fairly unsavoury ancestors lived. I came across very ancient Chinese warlords, Vikings with axes, Alexander the Great (or, rather, his soldiers), Spartans, Romans, plague victims, British engineers and colonials. I think I spent more time in the English Public School system than many an English gentleman has, and became acquainted with several lovely ladies that pioneered women kicking and carrying balls.
And I don't think I ever wanted to become that well acquainted with mediaeval British capital punishment, but somehow it became necessary.
My idle wondering brought me inevitably to the question 'Where did it all start. Who kicked the first ball?'
That innocent question sent me down so many deep and dank rabbit holes where hosts of football's often fairly unsavoury ancestors lived. I came across very ancient Chinese warlords, Vikings with axes, Alexander the Great (or, rather, his soldiers), Spartans, Romans, plague victims, British engineers and colonials. I think I spent more time in the English Public School system than many an English gentleman has, and became acquainted with several lovely ladies that pioneered women kicking and carrying balls.
And I don't think I ever wanted to become that well acquainted with mediaeval British capital punishment, but somehow it became necessary.
But the odd thing is - it turns out there's nothing new in the modern games, it's all been done before. Several times over a couple of millennia.
To be honest, what seemed at first to be a something fairly straight forward turned out to be nothing like it. Statements like 'The English invented football' and 'Webb-Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it' turned out to be either mildly jingoistic, inaccurate, just plain fibs, or all three. The best that can be said is that Soccer and Rugby were codified in England, but their origins lie in places as diverse as Central Asia, the Mediterranean and the Arctic.
And (spoiler alert) it seems that, like many other things we take for granted, it all began in China many thousands of years ago. All of it, even Aussie rules and soccer can be traced back to a common origin in Western China - actually soccer and Aussie rules can be traced to China much more recently.
How it reached the rest of the world is a fascinating journey. Like many journeys, its more recent pathways are reasonably clear but the further back the mistier they get. By looking at wider history - wars, invasions, migrations, those sort of things - it's possible to trace them with a reasonable degree of confidence, but, like most family trees, expect a lot of 'perhapses' 'maybes' and 'possiblies'. There's bastards out there, and a fair bit of dubious paternity, but that just makes it all the more interesting.
Anyway, you'll be able to read the whole thing yourself from 10th March.
Back to Books and Manuscripts