Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 294, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1913 — FOOTBALL AN ANCIENT GAME [ARTICLE]

FOOTBALL AN ANCIENT GAME

Played at Derby as Early as Third Century In Commemoration of Victory Over Roman Legion.

Football is probably the oldest of our national games. At ber'by a game of football was played as early as the third century, in commemoration of a victory over the Roman Legion at Chester, says the London Chronicle. The first football used In the annual game—still played each Easter —Is said to have been the head of a Danish Invader. In the isle of Purbeck, too, the free quarrymen from time immemorial have perpetuated their claim to a grant of land by kicking a football across it In the fourteenth century the game was so popular as to call forth an edict forbidding It on the ground that it interfered with the practice of more martial exercises. In later times Shakespeare referred contemptuously to the game, but perhaps few would be able to turn up readily the passage In "King Lear” describing "a base football player.”