Some misguided Australian souls think that Australian Rules Football predates ‘The Beautiful Game’. To back this up they claim that ‘Rules’ was codified earlier than Association Football (A.F.)
They also claim that a form of ‘Rules’ was played by Aborigines going back thousands of years. There is no evidence to back up this claim, apart from some evidence that they did indeed indulge in kicking stuffed possums around for a bit of fun. This would not really merit any serious consideration that it was a precursor to ‘Rules’.
There is however, hard evidence that the first game of A.F. was played in Britain about 2,000 years ago, between the home side represented by the Iceni and a team of Roman Legionnaires.
In order to get some revenge on Julius Caesar for stumbling onto a British beach and uttering the immortal words “Veni, Vidi, Vici” (which roughly translated from Latin, means “I came, I saw, I beat the crap out of ‘em”). Queen Boadicea/Boudicca/Bouca, (depending on which school you went to.) challenged Julio to a football match.
In fairness to the Romans, the match was played on a neutral ground at what was to become known later as Clacton-on-Sea, which is about halfway?? between East Anglia and Londinium as the dog legs it. The date was set, being the 15th March 0005, (an Ides, co-incidentally).
The Legionnaires left on foot on the 13th (a Friday, co-incidentally) and after a forced march, arrived in Clacton at about 2:30pm on the 15th, about a half hour before kick-off.
Meanwhile, Boadicea (I went to New Mills Grammar) had charioted in her team, who were fresh and raring to go. The Iceni were led onto the pitch by the Queen herself, and she played no further part in the match itself, but was pivotal to the result.
The Iceni had eleven players, including the goalkeeper, but the Romans started off with ten, (they couldn’t count in anything more than tens) In the end they co-opted a Russian Merchant named Leviticus Yashin, who just happened to be passing through, to be their goalkeeper.
The official in charge was Benticus the recently appointed Consul for a City that was later called Scunthorpe, in North Anglia. He had originally been destined for Constantinople, but having been caught ‘In flagrante’ in a public convenience, with two under-aged slaves, a dove and a large female hamster, he had been downgraded in the Diplomatic Corps.
To start the game, Benticus threw the ‘ball’ (an inflated pig’s bladder), towards the Romans, but although they had divested themselves of most of their weapons and armour, they still clanked as they ran. The Iceni, who were clad only in loincloths and a very thick veneer of woad ran rings around them. If it wasn’t for the brilliance of Leviticus ‘The Cat’ Yashin, they would have been 10 goals up by half-time, as it was they were only 2 up.
At half-time Benticus invented the ‘off-side’ rule and ‘substitutes’. He installed a marble bench for each side, which fitted exactly ten men. The Romans took advantage of this and at any one time, there were between 15 and 18 Romans on the pitch. The Iceni had neglected to foresee this and only had a young lad in reserve, who was there to run on with a sponge and a supply of sliced limes.
After an exciting ten minutes the score was 4-3 to the Romans. Queen Bee decided to take some action and sent the lad off to cut down and sharpen a straight branch of good Anglian Yew. She then positioned herself behind Lev’s goal and proceeded to prod him vigorously in the arse, whenever the Iceni looked like scoring, thus destroying his concentration.
Even though the Romans had 19 men in defence, the Iceni managed to score three unanswered goals and emerged victorious. This feat was commemorated by the erection of a plaque on the foreshore of Clacton-on-Sea, but it was unfortunately swept away by the tide that King Canute failed to stem.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
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