101 Things You May Not Have Known About Gaelic Football

'The perpetrators of these incidents are not above the law' - GAA President condemns club violence

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The early forms of football played in England, sometimes referred to as " mob football ", would be played between neighbouring towns and villages, involving an unlimited number of players on opposing teams who would clash en masse , [33] struggling to move an item, such as inflated animal's bladder [34] to particular geographical points, such as their opponents' church, with play taking place in the open space between neighbouring parishes.

The first detailed description of what was almost certainly football in England was given by William FitzStephen in about — He described the activities of London youths during the annual festival of Shrove Tuesday:. After lunch all the youth of the city go out into the fields to take part in a ball game. The students of each school have their own ball; the workers from each city craft are also carrying their balls. Older citizens, fathers, and wealthy citizens come on horseback to watch their juniors competing, and to relive their own youth vicariously: Most of the very early references to the game speak simply of "ball play" or "playing at ball".

This reinforces the idea that the games played at the time did not necessarily involve a ball being kicked. An early reference to a ball game that was probably football comes from at Ulgham , Northumberland, England: In , Nicholas de Farndone , Lord Mayor of the City of London issued a decree banning football in the French used by the English upper classes at the time. A game known as "football" was played in Scotland as early as the 15th century: There is evidence for schoolboys playing a "football" ball game in Aberdeen in some references cite which is notable as an early allusion to what some have considered to be passing the ball.

The word "pass" in the most recent translation is derived from "huc percute" strike it here and later "repercute pilam" strike the ball again in the original Latin. It is not certain that the ball was being struck between members of the same team.

The original word translated as "goal" is "metum", literally meaning the "pillar at each end of the circus course" in a Roman chariot race. There is a reference to "get hold of the ball before [another player] does" Praeripe illi pilam si possis agere suggesting that handling of the ball was allowed. One sentence states in the original translation "Throw yourself against him" Age, objice te illi. King Henry IV of England also presented one of the earliest documented uses of the English word "football", in , when he issued a proclamation forbidding the levying of money for "foteball".

There is also an account in Latin from the end of the 15th century of football being played at Cawston, Nottinghamshire. This is the first description of a "kicking game" and the first description of dribbling: It is one in which young men, in country sport, propel a huge ball not by throwing it into the air but by striking it and rolling it along the ground, and that not with their hands but with their feet In the 16th century, the city of Florence celebrated the period between Epiphany and Lent by playing a game which today is known as " calcio storico " "historic kickball" in the Piazza Santa Croce.

The young aristocrats of the city would dress up in fine silk costumes and embroil themselves in a violent form of football.

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For example, calcio players could punch, shoulder charge, and kick opponents. Blows below the belt were allowed. The game is said to have originated as a military training exercise. This is sometimes said to be the earliest code of rules for any football game. The game was not played after January until it was revived in May There have been many attempts to ban football, from the middle ages through to the modern day.

101 Things You May Not Have Known About Gaelic Football

The first such law was passed in England in ; it was followed by more than 30 in England alone between and Female footballers still face similar problems in some parts of the world. While football continued to be played in various forms throughout Britain, its public schools equivalent to private schools in other countries are widely credited with four key achievements in the creation of modern football codes.

First of all, the evidence suggests that they were important in taking football away from its "mob" form and turning it into an organised team sport. Second, many early descriptions of football and references to it were recorded by people who had studied at these schools. Third, it was teachers, students and former students from these schools who first codified football games, to enable matches to be played between schools.

Finally, it was at English public schools that the division between "kicking" and "running" or "carrying" games first became clear. The earliest evidence that games resembling football were being played at English public schools — mainly attended by boys from the upper, upper-middle and professional classes — comes from the Vulgaria by William Herman in Herman had been headmaster at Eton and Winchester colleges and his Latin textbook includes a translation exercise with the phrase "We wyll playe with a ball full of wynde".

Richard Mulcaster , a student at Eton College in the early 16th century and later headmaster at other English schools, has been described as "the greatest sixteenth Century advocate of football". Mulcaster's writings refer to teams "sides" and "parties" , positions "standings" , a referee "judge over the parties" and a coach " trayning maister ". Mulcaster's "footeball" had evolved from the disordered and violent forms of traditional football:.

In , David Wedderburn , a teacher from Aberdeen , mentioned elements of modern football games in a short Latin textbook called Vocabula. Wedderburn refers to what has been translated into modern English as "keeping goal" and makes an allusion to passing the ball "strike it here". There is a reference to "get hold of the ball", suggesting that some handling was allowed.

It is clear that the tackles allowed included the charging and holding of opposing players "drive that man back". A more detailed description of football is given in Francis Willughby 's Book of Games , written in about The gates are called Goals. He also mentions tactics "leaving some of their best players to guard the goal" ; scoring "they that can strike the ball through their opponents' goal first win" and the way teams were selected "the players being equally divided according to their strength and nimbleness".

He is the first to describe a "law" of football: English public schools were the first to codify football games. In particular, they devised the first offside rules, during the late 18th century. Players were not allowed to pass the ball forward, either by foot or by hand. They could only dribble with their feet, or advance the ball in a scrum or similar formation. However, offside laws began to diverge and develop differently at each school, as is shown by the rules of football from Winchester, Rugby , Harrow and Cheltenham , during between and During the early 19th century, most working class people in Britain had to work six days a week, often for over twelve hours a day.

They had neither the time nor the inclination to engage in sport for recreation and, at the time, many children were part of the labour force.

Feast day football played on the streets was in decline. Public school boys, who enjoyed some freedom from work, became the inventors of organised football games with formal codes of rules. Football was adopted by a number of public schools as a way of encouraging competitiveness and keeping youths fit. Each school drafted its own rules, which varied widely between different schools and were changed over time with each new intake of pupils.

Two schools of thought developed regarding rules. Some schools favoured a game in which the ball could be carried as at Rugby, Marlborough and Cheltenham , while others preferred a game where kicking and dribbling the ball was promoted as at Eton, Harrow, Westminster and Charterhouse. The division into these two camps was partly the result of circumstances in which the games were played.

For example, Charterhouse and Westminster at the time had restricted playing areas; the boys were confined to playing their ball game within the school cloisters , making it difficult for them to adopt rough and tumble running games. William Webb Ellis , a pupil at Rugby School, is said to have "with a fine disregard for the rules of football, as played in his time [emphasis added], first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus creating the distinctive feature of the rugby game. This act is usually said to be the beginning of Rugby football, but there is little evidence that it occurred, and most sports historians believe the story to be apocryphal.

The act of 'taking the ball in his arms' is often misinterpreted as 'picking the ball up' as it is widely believed that Webb Ellis' 'crime' was handling the ball, as in modern soccer, however handling the ball at the time was often permitted and in some cases compulsory, [53] the rule for which Webb Ellis showed disregard was running forward with it as the rules of his time only allowed a player to retreat backwards or kick forwards.

The boom in rail transport in Britain during the s meant that people were able to travel further and with less inconvenience than they ever had before. Inter-school sporting competitions became possible.

However, it was difficult for schools to play each other at football, as each school played by its own rules. The solution to this problem was usually that the match be divided into two halves, one half played by the rules of the host "home" school, and the other half by the visiting "away" school. The modern rules of many football codes were formulated during the mid- or late- 19th century. This also applies to other sports such as lawn bowls, lawn tennis, etc.

The major impetus for this was the patenting of the world's first lawnmower in This allowed for the preparation of modern ovals, playing fields, pitches, grass courts, etc. Apart from Rugby football, the public school codes have barely been played beyond the confines of each school's playing fields. However, many of them are still played at the schools which created them see Surviving UK school games below. Public schools' dominance of sports in the UK began to wane after the Factory Act of , which significantly increased the recreation time available to working class children.

Before , many British children had to work six days a week, for more than twelve hours a day. These changes meant that working class children had more time for games, including various forms of football. Sports clubs dedicated to playing football began in the 18th century, for example London's Gymnastic Society which was founded in the midth century and ceased playing matches in The first documented club to bear in the title a reference to being a 'football club' were called "The Foot-Ball Club" who were located in Edinburgh , Scotland, during the period — In , three boys at Rugby school were tasked with codifying the rules then being used at the school.

These were the first set of written rules or code for any form of football. One of the longest running football fixture is the Cordner-Eggleston Cup , contested between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College, Melbourne every year since It is believed by many to also be the first match of Australian rules football , although it was played under experimental rules in its first year.

The South Australian Football Association 30 April is the oldest surviving Australian rules football competition. The oldest surviving soccer trophy is the Youdan Cup and the oldest national football competition is the English FA Cup The Football League is recognised as the longest running Association Football league. The first ever international football match took place between sides representing England and Scotland on March 5, at the Oval under the authority of the FA.

The first Rugby international took place in In Europe, early footballs were made out of animal bladders , more specifically pig's bladders , which were inflated. Later leather coverings were introduced to allow the balls to keep their shape. Richard Lindon's wife is said to have died of lung disease caused by blowing up pig's bladders. In , the U. The ball was to prove popular in early forms of football in the U. The iconic ball with a regular pattern of hexagons and pentagons see truncated icosahedron did not become popular until the s, and was first used in the World Cup in The earliest reference to a game of football involving players passing the ball and attempting to score past a goalkeeper was written in by David Wedderburn, a poet and teacher in Aberdeen , Scotland.

Creswell, who having brought the ball up the side then kicked it into the middle to another of his side, who kicked it through the posts the minute before time was called" [73] Passing was a regular feature of their style [74] By early the Engineers were the first football team renowned for "play[ing] beautifully together" [75] A double pass is first reported from Derby school against Nottingham Forest in March , the first of which is irrefutably a short pass: In , at Cambridge University , Mr.

Thring , who were both formerly at Shrewsbury School , called a meeting at Trinity College, Cambridge , with 12 other representatives from Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury. An eight-hour meeting produced what amounted to the first set of modern rules, known as the Cambridge rules. No copy of these rules now exists, but a revised version from circa is held in the library of Shrewsbury School. Handling was only allowed when a player catches the ball directly from the foot entitling them to a free kick and there was a primitive offside rule, disallowing players from "loitering" around the opponents' goal.

The Cambridge rules were not widely adopted outside English public schools and universities but it was arguably the most significant influence on the Football Association committee members responsible for formulating the rules of Association football. By the late s, many football clubs had been formed throughout the English-speaking world, to play various codes of football. Sheffield Football Club , founded in in the English city of Sheffield by Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest, was later recognised as the world's oldest club playing association football.

The code was largely independent of the public school rules, the most significant difference being the lack of an offside rule. The code was responsible for many innovations that later spread to association football. These included free kicks , corner kicks , handball, throw-ins and the crossbar. At this time a series of rule changes by both the London and Sheffield FAs gradually eroded the differences between the two games until the adoption of a common code in There is archival evidence of "foot-ball" games being played in various parts of Australia throughout the first half of the 19th century.

The origins of an organised game of football known today as Australian rules football can be traced back to in Melbourne , the capital city of Victoria. Through publicity and personal contacts Wills was able to co-ordinate football matches in Melbourne that experimented with various rules, [86] the first of which was played on July 31, Following these matches, organised football in Melbourne rapidly increased in popularity. Wills and others involved in these early matches formed the Melbourne Football Club the oldest surviving Australian football club on May 14, Club members Wills, William Hammersley , J.

Thompson and Thomas H. Smith met with the intention of forming a set of rules that would be widely adopted by other clubs. The committee debated rules used in English public school games; Wills pushed for various rugby football rules he learnt during his schooling. The first rules share similarities with these games, and were shaped to suit to Australian conditions. Harrison , a seminal figure in Australian football, recalled that his cousin Wills wanted "a game of our own".

The Melbourne football rules were widely distributed and gradually adopted by the other Victorian clubs.

We discussed it with five players from Division 3 and 4 counties.

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I was looking at some of these rule changes that might be coming in, if this whole three handpass thing came in for example, it would completely ruin a league for us because it would end up being a farce. A lot of the rules, some of them are absolutely ridiculous.

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You may change your settings at any time but this may impact on the functionality of the site. To learn more see our Cookies Policy. But what do the players themselves think? To make the weaker counties better you do need more games for a start. In soccer you have a Champions League and Europa League.

Turn the whole thing on its head, have division winners with promotion and relegation, finishing up with a big weekend of football at the end with the All-Ireland finals. Now, there will always be a few outliers but with inter-county football every county in Ireland has a minimum of 18 to 20 club teams so every county should be able to produce 15 footballers that can be reasonably competitive. It would give teams something to play for and some sort of incentive at the very end of the year.

Maybe even play the knock-out part of the B championship in conjunction with the Sam Maguire. I know some colleges played games recently and all managers said it was absolutely unworkable with three handpasses.

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