Since the mid -19th century, England has been widely accepted as the cradle of modern football. The sport line is commonly tracked to “Mob Football”, a popular and chaotic game popular in the British islands during the Middle Ages.
Hundreds of neighboring village players were separated into two teams, locked in a huge cluster and blindly fought for the control of a circular object, often an inflated pork bladder. The pushing, kicks, and drunk beating could last hours, until days, and had no time limit. The only established rule: weapons were prohibited.
In a 1583 pamphlet, “The Anatomy of Abuses”, Puritan pamphletary Philip Stubbs protested against the brutality of this hobby, which he called “bloody and murderous practice.” In 1863, to reduce chaos and regulate the game, a young English lawyer prepared the first comprehensive rules book, which was adopted in London by the newly formed football association, established by alumni of boarding schools such as Eton and Harrow. Hence England’s claim to have been a pioneer in the current game.
“Unfortunately, this narrative is completely without merit,” said Ged O’Brien, a retired teacher and founder of the Scottish Football Museum in Glasgow. “The fact is that, for centuries, football has been thrown into all the cities and villages of Scotland. Not Mob Football, but football itself.”
Last month, O’Brien and a team of archaeologists identified what they believe to be the oldest known football field in the world, in an ancient 17th -century farm in the city of Anwoth in Kirkcudbrighshire, Scotland. The discovery offers a rare physical proof of an organized playing field at a time when reports written about working class recreations were scarce.
“Our discovery has serious implications for sports historians,” said O’Brien. “They will have to rewrite everything they think about the origins of the so -called beautiful game.”
The first tracks appeared in a letter written by Rev. Samuel Rutherford, a Presbyterian cleric who was a pastor at Anwoth Old Kirk from 1627 to 1638 and later Professor of Theology at St. Andrews University. In the document, he expressed dismay over parishioners who played “Foot-Ball” on Sunday afternoons in a place called Mossrobin Farm.
“As Anwoth’s minister, Rutherford was dedicated to ensuring that locals attended religious services,” O’Brien said. “Any time spent on leisure was time not dedicated to the service of God.” To end this sacrilege, Rutherford instructed members of his congregation to erect a barrier of stones through the field. “It was basically a primitive sign of ‘forbidden ball games’, designed to make the game difficult,” said O’Brien.
He and his archaeologists researched the farm slope – hey an area of deer fodder – which previously composed Mossrobin and discovered a line of 14 large rocks cutting a flat extension of 85 meters long and 45 meters wide, slightly smaller than a regulatory football field.
Kieran Manchip, a project officer at Archaeology Scotland, a non-profit organization, who worked in the effort, said the row of stones has neither the form nor the nature of a medieval or post-medieval agricultural feature, nor appears in historical mappings as having any of these attributes.
To determine the stratigraphy of the site, the order and relative positions of the rock layers, Archaeology Scotland opened two test wells. “These small interventions showed that the stones were loosely placed on an older soil surface rather than cut slits,” said Manchip.
The researchers concluded that the rocks were not intended to mark a border, or cultivable lands, or to help confine cattle. Soil analysis suggested that the arrangement dated about 400 years ago, approximately when Rutherford expressed his objections.
“The traditions and reports of Rutherford’s interaction with soccer players and the local community in Mossrobin fit with what is visible in the landscape,” said Manchip. “We have no reason to doubt the validity of these traditions and the regular organized football history being thrown there.”
This interpretation is strongly contested, not just English football fans. Steve Wood, administrator of the English charity Sheffield Home of Football, said there is no way to know what kind of foot-ball was thrown in Mossrobin. Founded in 1857, Sheffield FC is recognized by FIFA as the oldest football club in the world.
“If GED makes it clearer what may or may not have happened in terms of a ball game, and then explain that the game has no known connection with modern association football, then we will probably come closer to an agreement on any real historical significance that the field has,” he said.
O’Brien does not need theories. “As football matches were held every Sunday, the game could not be very violent, as participants had to work on Monday,” he said. “No work? You died of hungry.”
In O’Brien’s opinion, Wood’s rejection is another example of English chauvinism. “If you are trying to manipulate an entire nation to believe that your people are very poor, very small and very stupid, you need these people to know anything about the great things your ancestors have done,” he said firmly. “The game played in Mossrobin was the grandfather of modern football. And it was Scottish.”
