r/todayilearned • u/Double-decker_trams • 9h ago
TIL in Medieval England, a form of football (also called mob football) was played between neighbouring villages/towns. Team sizes were unlimited. The teams had to move an item (for example an animal's bladder) to a particular geographical point, such as their opponents' church.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football#Early_history:~:text=The%20early%20forms,between%20neighbouring%20parishes160
u/Chrono_Convoy 9h ago
Native American lacrosse was similar with laced sticks and balls made of animal hides stuffed with fur, feathers, or made of wood or the heads of sturgeon
Tribes competing for days with unlimited players
Used to play a modern version at camp spanning multiple soccer fields and I thought it was more fun than a regulation game.
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u/Confident-Poetry6985 9h ago
Not even joking...removing the standard field from lacrosse makes it sounds waaaay more fun lol.
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u/Typhoon-class_Romney 9h ago
We used to play tennis ball golf on campus in college. Lotta hole map planning
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u/Confident-Poetry6985 9h ago
Yooooooo. Throwing it?
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u/Typhoon-class_Romney 9h ago
Nope. Tennis ball. Golf club. Tennis balls rarely break shit and are easy to see
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u/spudmarsupial 7h ago
I suspect the sturgeon was a clever way of limiting the length of the game.
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u/Lexxxapr00 1h ago
I played something similar at a boyscout camp in Wisconsin back in the 90’s. We did it over two days, and of the four camps, two would join up for 2v2, and it was so much fun!
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u/Hamsternoir 9h ago
Ashbourne still plays it this way every Shrove Tuesday.
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u/WiggyDiggyPooPoo 9h ago
If you visit Ashbourne they have a museum about it, King Charles (as Prince of Wales) once started the game.
Police once tried to stop the game, so a woman hid the ball under her jumper to stop them taking it.
My favourite story is the guy who got the ball but pretended to be on the other team, got away with for a while too as there's no real team kits (though players will their own to use).
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u/Double-decker_trams 8h ago
Almost as fun as the festive game of Squirt between the voluteer firefighters of Kettering and Geddinfton.
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u/DontTellHimPike 9h ago
And in North Lincolnshire we have the Haxey Hood on Jan 6th, which started in the 14th century.
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u/Awibee 9h ago
Still happens in Orkney. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkwall_Ba%27_Game
And a bunch in the borders as well.
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u/EugeneHarke 9h ago
There was a year when they feel into the harbour which was covered in ice. The local doctor didn't have enough anesthetic so he just had to stich everyone up with out pain relief.
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u/WesleyDonaldson 9h ago
I mean what else did they have to do that day?
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u/thispartyrules 9h ago
Longbow practice. They tried to outlaw football because it cut into archery practice time, and they wanted a bunch of good bowmen at the ready for military purposes.
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u/1CEninja 3h ago
It was honestly kind of brilliant, making archery the main and only sport people could engage in ensured that even the peasantry could make useful conscripts with minimal training.
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u/pitshands 9h ago
Terry Pratchett used that( a form of it) in one of his books. Blast to read GNU Sir Terry
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u/PsychGuy17 6h ago
You've got to at least mention the title, Unseen Academicals.
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u/pitshands 5h ago
If I get even one non believer to look deeper into the disc world I had a good day
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u/quequotion 9h ago
Isn't there still a festival like this, where the whole town goes to war over a rugby ball?
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u/OllyDee 9h ago
Yes and there’s more than one, of which Atherstone is probably the most famous.
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u/ViridianKumquat 2h ago
The game itself has few rules, two being that play is restricted to Long Street and participants are not allowed to kill anyone.
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u/Tobar_the_Gypsy 4h ago
Yes but it’s not a rugby ball it’s like a giant medicine ball filled with sand or dirt. The country Georgia does it still and it’s called lelo (which is now the name of the rugby national team).
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u/OllyDee 9h ago
It’s worth noting that deaths were not uncommon in this “sport”. If you look at footage of local games that survive to this day you can see why.
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u/CrowLaneS41 6h ago
Just a consequence of how much we love freedom in Britain. I would very happily die if it meant sticking it to those twats the next town over.
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u/iheartrugbyleague 9h ago
And thus rugby union was born.
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u/PassiveTheme 8h ago
Pretty much all football sports originate from mob football. They just slowly added some rules and regulations until we created the sports we know today.
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u/Space_Hunzo 9h ago
Its the common origin point for Gaelic football and soccer, too! Ireland called the 'town' game Cáid
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u/CalabreseAlsatian 8h ago
Better union than league. :)
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u/KeiranG19 4h ago
League was formed from poorer northern players wanting to actually get paid instead of it being a recreation for the wealthy southerners.
So I have to side with rugby league just out of class solidarity.
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u/CalabreseAlsatian 3h ago
Fair enough. I just didn’t care for the toe-tap behind you/5 attempts as I played union. Preferred the continuous flow and rucking over
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u/bigloudbang 1h ago
Modern professional league actually flows a lot better than union with much more ball in play time (fewer penalties, slow set pieces, scrum resets etc)
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u/bit_cliff 5h ago
we played a game kinda like this at church camp, called “Slaughter”.
There was a rugby ball, and each team had a “goal” which was a milk crate. Only rule was get the ball into the other team’s milk crate to score.
No other rules or restrictions.
It was wicked fun but we had to stop after a kid either dislocated his shoulder or broke a bone, I forget what injury exactly
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u/Mindhost 9h ago
The British version of calcio fiorentino I guess - Terry Pratchett has a great book that is the pastiche fantasy version of this, worth reading
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u/StupidMastiff 9h ago
The British version of calcio fiorentino I guess
Nah, calcio florentino is much more of a sport. This is just a mass brawl with a loose objective thrown in for fun.
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u/Bolehillbilly 8h ago
I’ve worked in pubs when it’s happening at Ashbourne Shrovetide. It’s a nightmare!
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u/circleribbey 8h ago
Still happens in many places. Hallaton and Medbourne in the midlands have the “bottle kicking” where three small barrels of beer are used.
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u/CFCYYZ 9h ago edited 9h ago
The national sport of Eire (and my fave) is hurling. It is the fastest game played on grass and 3,000+ y.o.
Historically, whole villages miles apart would play it for 2 to 3 days! Hurling is a hybrid of field hockey, lacrosse, rugby and murder. Here is a short vid of highlights from the 2026 All-Irish Championships held in Dublin. Wow!
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u/enter_yourname 8h ago
Fun fact, this is what eventually organized into all the modern football codes today! Rugby, soccer, rugby league, american/canadian football, australian football, and gaelic football can all be traced back to British isles mob football
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u/bigloudbang 1h ago edited 1h ago
Which is why football refers to a game played with a ball and on foot
Many universities codified their games like Cambridge (leading to soccer), rugby, and others that never caught on
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u/HaloGuy381 6h ago
As if medieval England didn’t spend enough time fighting itself, guess they had to practice invading the next own over for when they get levied by their lord.
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u/Head_Northman 6h ago
You mean Uppies and Downies, as played three nights over Easter every year in Workington.
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u/HaraldRedbeard 5h ago
You can watch a variation happen at St Columb in Cornwall where the goal is to be the one holding the silver ball for your team (townsmen or countrymen) when you cross the parish boundary
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u/Friend-Boat 43m ago
Should we use a painted stone, or a piece of wood, or maybe fashion some type of ball?
Nah fuck it just grab an animal bladder
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u/eatsrottenflesh 9h ago
So I can bombard churches with animal bladders and just claim I'm playing old school football. Got it.
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u/Syrairc 9h ago
I'm just now realizing how hilarious team sports with much larger teams could be.