My Virtual Reading Room

From recent reading, too bad I wasn't reading it during the World Cup, but I thought some people here might still enjoy this ;)
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Unknown malefactors to the number of over one hundred assembled themselves unlawfully and played a certain unlawful game called football, by means of which there was amongst them a great affray, likely to result in homicides and serious accident.

(Quarter Sessions Records of the County of Middlesex, 1576)

Football requires a ball and very little else. There are almost no rules. The game is usually played between neighbouring villages, each of whose men try to get the ball back into their home territory. In the capital, contests are usually between the apprentices of London and those of Westminster. Tripping, kicking, and punching opponents all appear to be part of what often seems to the onlooker like a common affray.

The authorities frown on football, which has been repeatedly banned by the monarch, the Lord Mayor and the magistrates, as a threat to public order, a cause of needless injury to Her Majesty's subjects and a distraction from archery practice. The English seem, however, to be addicted to this pastime and disobey all commands to desist from it.

(From "Shakespeare's London on 5 groats a day" by Richard Tames)