What is foote balle, or football, as some call it.
Foote balle is a gayme of sport. Depending on who you ask, it might be illegal to play when men should be training in the king’s army.
Between adjacent villages, the rules vary according to the Saint’s day upon which it played. In generality, there is a balle, and the team must deliver it to a landmark in the opposing village to make a score. Sometimes a church or an inn, a mill or a bridge. Maybe a crossroad or other such marker. Weapons are forbidden. As is gouging, kicking or the deliberate taking of a life.
Play continues until sundown, or beyond if no team has scored.
- Gayme Results
Poste your Shrovetide, medieval, mob footballe, village, campyon, or campan results here. They will be published in the gazette for the enjoyement of one and all.
- þ Underwell Friendly, Yeomen & Miners
The friendly match between yeomen and coal miners in the village of Underwell, was interrupted by a skirmish between troops from King Charles, and those of the London Parlement. While the score was one-nil to the yeomen, the game will be resumed at Michaelmas.
The foote ballers and plough men had their lunch under such a tree.
- Ectone 3-2 Timble § Samhain (All Hallows’ Eve)
Very energetic gayme. Ectone’s star player was a groom wed that morning. The wedding party, his team mates.
† Mortality-0 Injured-1
- Hunderthwaite 0-0 Romaldkirk § Michaelmas
The gayme was abandoned when the balle was lost and a replacement could not be made before sundown.
† Mortality-1 Injured-17
- Ockendon 1-0 Aveley § St Swithin’s Day
A rain soaked day of play ended with the entire team of Aveley in the Mardyke covered in leeches, as Ockendon ran the ball to St Michael’s.
† Mortality-2 Injured-6
- Gregorian Calendar Only
While not wishing to bow to a Catholic invention, we believe that even though it has not been adopted, it is only a matter of time before the Julian Calendar is abandoned and replaced with the Gregorian calendar of 1582. For football fixtures, this aligns us with the games played in Spain, Portugal, France, Poland, Italy, Catholic Low Countries, Luxemburg, and colonies. For the purposes of scoring and record keeping we have found nothing that would suggest otherwise.
When submitting match results, please use the Gregorian dates. If you can’t calculate the Gregorian dates, please submit the Julian date and note this with a large letter “J” preceding.
