The town I grew up in, Chester-le-Street in County Durham, northern England, was one of these locations. But by the 19th and 20th centuries, as more genteel rules-based forms of football began to take hold, merchants and lawmakers succeeded in shutting down a game that often damaged property in location after location. None of the edicts were successful, suggesting games were widespread, frequent, and very popular. Kings from three separate English royal dynasties - Edward II, Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, Edward IV, and Henry VIII - all issued edicts banning football, fearing the game distracted from the archery practice required to send men off to war. What we know for sure is that elites spent centuries trying to get this most working-class tradition shut down. We don't know exactly how far back the history of medieval football stretches - it could have been the 'playing at ball' briefly mentioned in a 9th century history of Britain - and legends that it began with kicking around the severed heads of enemies have no basis in fact. Game on: Medieval football in my hometown circa 1920. Perhaps in future types of football, as suggested by SB Nation's speculative fiction 17776, the game will go back in the other direction, and range across entire landscapes. Its raw energy was refined, the size of its scrums (sometimes known as 'hugs') were reduced, its violence was curbed, its playing area was condensed. In fact, it's easy to see elements of medieval football in all the 19th century versions that sprung from it: Rugby (1845), Australian Rules (1859), Association or 'soccer' (1863), American (1869) and Gaelic (1887). Like gridiron, this original form of football was played with the hands as well as feet (the name referred to players being on foot). Nearly all of them have been played once a year on Shrove Tuesday, the pancake-based feast that precedes Lent (in 2022, it falls on March 1), going back at least to the 12th century. Welcome to the massively multiplayer and mostly rules-free world of medieval football - also known as 'folk football' or 'mob football.' Little remembered anywhere, forms of medieval football cling to life in just six provincial locations in the UK. And yet one so brutal and demanding, so wide-ranging and long-lasting, it makes the Super Bowl look like a tea party in a tent. We're talking about the great-grandaddy of all football sports, a people's contest in which everyone in a community can play. The burly dudes number in the hundreds, the pitch stretches past the horizon, the game will take days. For the lucky few who make it to the goal line, glory will be eternal. Every inch the ball advances on either side will be paid for in mud and blood. Two teams of burly dudes spoiling for a fight will line up to tussle over possession of a pigskin. The ritual game, eagerly awaited all year, is about to kick off.

Burly men at sea stuck on title screen