Member-only story
The Brutal Origins of the Beautiful Game
How football went from being “a bloody and murthering practice” to a global sensation
In 1583, a pamphleteer named Philip Stubbes railed against the growth of a violent game that was sweeping across England. He wrote about the game in his pamphlet “An Anatomie of Abuses,” calling it (in Old English, which I’ve cleaned up a bit) more of
A bloody and murthering practise, then a felowly sporte or pastime.
For: dooth not euery one lye in waight for his Aduersarie, seeking to ouerthrowe him & to picke him on his nose, though it be uppon hard stones…
He goes on to catalog the injuries that result from this game:
sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometimes their legs, sometimes their armes, sometimes one part thrust out of joynt, sometimes an other, sometimes the noses gush out with blood, sometimes their eyes start out: and sometimes hurt in one place, sometimes in another. But whosoever scapeth away the best goeth not scotfrée, but is either sore woūnded, craised and bruseed, so as he dyeth of it…
What happened in the game caused people to break their backs and have their eyes “start out” of their heads? Well, a lot of underhanded violence. Stubbes said that players tried:
