Athletics and Football (extract)

8 ATHLETICS and others were famous runners, and that Epaminondas not only ran but jumped every morningbefore breakfast for health and amusement. He goes on : ' Nedes must rennynge be taken for a laudable exercise sens one of the mooste noble capitaynesof all the Romans took his name from it' (meaning Papirius Cursor). In this argument he seems to us to be meet­ ing the scholarsof the ' newlearning,' who, while they studied the classics and classical models, were irreverent enough to decry athletics. That they did so there is no doubt from other sources. Roger Ascham, in his great book, ' Toxophilus,' says roundly that ' running, leaping, and quoiting be too vilefor scholars.' However,although in the sixteenth century opinions were divided as to whether running, leaping, and bar-casting were genteel or not, there is no doubt whatever that the common people were little affected by this, and went on with their amusements as before. A very few years after 'The Boke called the Governour' was published, we learn from one of the Harleian MSS. that as the great footballmatch which was usuallyplayed upon the Roodee at Chester became productive of much inconvenience, it was decided to substitute a foot­ race ; and accordingly, instead of the shoemakers presenting the drapers, ' in the presence of the Mayor at the Cross on the Rodehee,' with a football of the ' value of three shillingsand fourpence or above, by consent of all parties concerned the ball was changed into six glayvesof silverof the like value,as a reward for the best runner that day upon the aforesaid Rodehee.' This affordsa curious picture of sixteenth-century manners. Instead of the annual football match, 'Shoemakers v. Drapers,' the ' Championship of Chester ' footrace is sub­ stituted. Shakespeare, no doubt, saw some running matches both amongst gentle and simple folk. His own experiences of all kinds are reproduced in his pages,and 'private matches' and public competitionsare alike mentioned by him. In the First Part of ' Henry IV.,' Act II., Scene 4, we have Falstaffoffering