DROMIO, DROMIO WHEREFORE ART THOU?

What with the Queen's birthday and then Shakespeare's too it has been a busy week of celebrations. I suffered the television comedy last night with a cast of famous Shakespearean actors appearing on stage to champion the appropriate quote "To be or not to be, that is the question", putting emphasis on different words. Hilarity, I should say so, all topped off by The Prince of Wales appearing on stage, having the final word. Well done your highness. So with the Bard and royalty in mind, I turn to foteball, the original game.

Shakespeare was no stranger to football for before he had moved to London to further his writing career, he would have witnessed some "rural" football in the country where the mob game was at its peak. He wouldn't have had time for leisure in the city and then he became too old to play, so the practical side of the sport passed him by. But as a keen observer, he was able to use football to make the images of his plays come to life.

In King Lear Act 1 Scene 4 his daughter Regan's servant is being insolent to Lear. So Lear's protector, Kent, hits him and when he protests and says " I'll not be struck, my Lord", Kent trips him up replying "nor tripped neither, you base football player". He is acting the rough play that Shakespeare experienced in the game of football.

In the Comedy of Errors, Act 2 Scene 1, Dromio of Ephesus complains about his treatment by his masters and says:
"Am I so round with you as you with me,
That like a football you do spurn me thus?
You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither.
If I last in this service.you must case me in leather".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pnl_qvoLBw  The speech appears after 4 mins 45 secs into this.

Dromio accepts beatings and suffering as part of his duty and he accepts the treatment as playful and not violent. But he didn't like being kicked around and would prefer to be encased in leather to protect himself.

Living as I do near Penistone in South Yorkshire, I make reference to the mob game played at Bord Hill (on the A628 Woodhead pass) where Adam Eyre discovered a match between Penistone and Thurlston which" the crowd hindered and nothing was done".

Later an Etonian stated in 1831 that "I cannot consider this a game at all gentlemanly; after all, the Yorkshire common folk it".