Cultural Marginalization and Folk Football in England:The case of Hurling, 1600-1860

ABSTRACT

This article explores the history of Hurling, a form of folk football, played predominantly in the south-west of England, between 1600 and 1860. In so doing, it seeks to contribute to the so-called ‘origins of football’ debate by examining evidence of the ’cultural marginalization’ of the game, originally outlined by the sociologist Eric Dunning. First, though, it examines Carew’s early account of the sport in which he describes two varieties of the game. Hurling ‘to goals’ and Hurling ‘to the country’, one a relatively small sided game, the other a mass spectacle. The decline of the mass game is outlined indicating that the local gentry were increasingly discouraged from sponsoring it as a result of the rise in strong Evangelical beliefs. The general population being substantively influenced by the growth in Methodism, temperance reform and teetotal movements. Original evidence is presented, however, of the survival of the small-sided game through mid-century as more commercially oriented sponsors, notably publicans, continued to play a significant role in the recreational life of miners at a time when is has been claimed by some ‘dominant paradigm’ historians that folk football was, in essence, ‘dead’ by the 1830s. Smaller contests persisted and were even supported by local authorities with some still remaining in place to the current day. This evidence then furthers the notion that distinct forms of football in different regions of Britain had divergent histories and cannot be accounted for within all-encompassing grand narratives such as a ‘civilizing process’

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Shearman, Athletics and Football; Alcock, Association football; Gibson and Pickford, Association Football; Green, The History of the Football Association; Marples, A History of Football; and Young, A History of British Football.

2. Dunning, Sport Matters. 90-1; Dunning and Sheard, Barbarians, 2-3; Dunning and Curry, Public Schools, 38-9. Malcolmson, Popular Recreations, Cunningham, Leisure in the Industrial Revolution. Storch, Popular Culture, 1-19.

3. Taylor, The Association Game, 20.

4. Curry, The Origins of Football Debate; The Power Game; Introduction; The Making of Modern Soccer. Curry and Dunning, The Problem with Revisionism; Association Football. Curry, Dunning, Sheard, Sociological versus Empiricist History. Collins, History, Theory and the ‘Civilizing Process’; Early Football and the Emergence of Modern Soccer. Swain, Cultural Continuity; Modern Football in Formation; The Continuing Demise; The Grander Design; The Evidence Mounts; Football and Cultural Continuity; Early Football; Football Club Formation; and Reclassifying History; The Emergence of Football.

5. Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes.

6. Curry and Dunning, Association Football, 22-23.

7. Swain, The Emergence of Football, 29-58.

8. Cunningham, Time, Work and Leisure, 66.

9. Hole, English Sports and Pastimes, 55.

10. Ibid, 38.

11. Durfey, Collins Walk through London, 1690, 192.

12. Hamilton’s Papers (Camden Soc.), 171, quoted in Strutt’s, The Sports and Pastimes, 93.

13. Malcolmson, Popular Recreations, 83, quoting Bourlase, 300.

14. Carew, The Survey of Cornwall, 86-89.

15. Ibid, 88.

16. Kitching, ‘Old’ Football, 1741.

17. Elias and Dunning, Quest for Excitement; Dunning and Sheard, Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players; Curry and Dunning, Association Football, 23.

18. Borlase, The Natural History, 300.

19. Polwhele, The Old English Gentleman, 114.

20. Polwhele (ed), Lavington’s Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists in Storch, Popular Culture, 68.

21. Harvey, Football, 2-3.

22. Rule, Methodism, Popular Beliefs, 48-70.

23. Rule, Albion’s People, 164.

24. Rule, Methodism, Popular Beliefs, 50.

25. Harvey, Football, 3.

26. Methodism, Popular Beliefs, 55.

27. Rabey, Hurling, 5.

28. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 12 June 1824.

29. Cornishman, Thursday, 25 February 1937.

30. Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 4 June 1831.

31. North Devon Journal, 9 June 1831.

32. Rabey, Hurling, 5.

33. Ibid.

34. North Devon Journal, 5 July 1838.

35. North Devon Journal, 23 August 1838.

36. Exeter Flying Post, 20 February 1845.

37. Exeter Flying Post, 13 March 1845.

38. Rabey, Hurling, 5.

39. Exeter Flying Post, 19 July 1849.

40. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 14 March 1851.

41. The Cornish Telegraph, 30 May,1851.

42. North Devon Journal, 29 April 1852.

43. Exeter Flying Post, 13 May 1852.

44. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 4 March 1853.

45. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 22 February 1856.

46. Exeter Flying Post, 5 June 1856. See also North Devon Journal, 5 June 1856; Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 7 June 1856.

47. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 13 March 1857.

48. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 29 May 1857.

49. Western Daily Mercury, 23 February 1864.

50. Western Daily Mercury, 23 July 1864.

51. Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 7 June 1856.

52. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 23 May 1856.

53. The Cornish Telegraph, 4 June 1856.

54. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 13 June 1856.

55. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 27 June 1856.

56. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 27 November 1857.

57. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 13 March 1857.

58. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 3 July 1857.

59. Cornish Telegraph, 30 December 1857.

60. Cornish Telegraph, 10 March 1858.

61. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 9 July 1858.

62. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 25 June 1858.

63. Cornish Telegraph, 24 November 1858. Launceston Weekly News and Cornwall and Devon Advertiser, 27 November 1858.

64. Lake’s Falmouth Packet and Cornwall Advertiser, 7 May 1859.

65. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 30 December 1859.

66. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 24 February 1860. Cornish Telegraph, 29 February 1860.

67. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 9 March 1860.

68. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 13 August 1860.

69. Western Morning News, 15 August 1860.

70. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 30 November 1860.

71. See Swain, The Origins of Football Debate: The Grander Design, 519-543.

72. Dunning and Sheard, Barbarians, 21-62.

73. See James, The Emergence of Footballing Cultures. It is somewhat difficult, however, to envisage the ‘longue duree’ as constituting any kind of model for sports history or football history. James’ stages of the development of Manchester football seem ‘teleological’ and subject to an unacceptable ‘presentism’ which appears to take this development backwards from a sophisticated modern football culture, tracing an ‘evolution’ which is confined simply to ‘Manchester’. For a critique of James’ definition of ‘Manchester’ see Swain and Lewis, Manchester and the Emergence, 1160 −1180. James attempts a rather convoluted, yet ultimately unconvincing, defence of his definition in The origins debate – how soccer triumphed, 89-106.

74. Hay, Political Analysis, 247.