I bought a new pair of footy boots this week (it may be my last!!) to help me through walking football and coaching, mainly on astro....occasionally on grass. Sondico, plastic moulded sole, £19...bargain. So what about boots and balls in history??
This is a link that will take you to the history of "gutta percha". Never heard of that?-you have now.
historyhttps://www.englandsoldestfootballclubs.com/gutta-percha-from-reinforcing-football-boots-to-filling-root-canals/
Written in November 1893, by Quinbus Flestrin, in a Victorian magazine known as "Chums", an article entitles "Football and Football Boots" spent several pages enlightening readers as to the importance of the Football and the Football Boot!
The ball is of course very important in the game of football, much depending on the conditions of the pitch and the weather though. As Jack Bunsby remarked in "Domby and Sons" "the bearing of this remark lies in the application thereof. "
What Jack was implying was the value of investigation and experimentation, for although the ball is very important in our game, so are many other pieces of equipment; the boots, the pitch. the players and the officials, these days the crowd!!
Writing under the "non de plume", Quinbus Flestrin borrowed his name from Lemeul Gulliver, who was named thus by the Lilliputians in Gulliver's Travels. It means "man mountain". Lemeul means "devoted the God".
Please remember I am acquiring this information from a multitude of resources-I'm not stacked full of such detail and knowledge (as many of you know)!
So, apparently it is usually proper to use a new ball in a match and an old one in practice, but how does this prepare any player to "get use" to the most important piece of equipment??
Maybe using an old ball which has been kicked it around a bit is best used in a match, one that the players are use to?
A new ball (in the 19th Century mark you) would have been made of leather, with no coating, stitched at the valve by a lace and 27-28 inches in circumference and weighing 13-15 ozs. Not many readers will know what the hell I am talking about! Where are the cms and grams? Here's a leather ball. Shiney with dubbin...never heard of it....
Sadly many lads today will have know idea what I'm writing about!
On dry grounds, the new ball will fly and bounce everywhere, on wet grounds it may be best.
Perhaps an old ball is better on dry ground since it will have a bit of "give" in it? A bit heavier.
The light ball will be good for heading by when shooting it may fly over the bar!
In the North of England, the rugby and footballers prefer a light ball on their wet, soft grounds. In the South the dry grounds are best suited to a less "busy" ball.
Bit of environmental determinism here, you will get my drift.
WN Cobbold, an Old Carthusian, who distinguished himself for England, was the "Prince of Dribblers". He could not dribble as well in the north, on sticky pitches!
After a few games the leather skin absorbed water and became heavier than the offically stated weight and when the ball dried out it was like concrete. Believe me, I played with footballs like that when I first ventured out!
So we had to kick the ball and what better than a decent pair of boots!
Gutta Percha was the name given to the material that made the stud. It was made of latex...yes from the rubber tree (getch means latex and percha comes from the Sumatran, where as you all know rubber tress are grown under tropical conditions). These were rubber studs, relatively soft but in the leather boot sole, which was also scratched and sliced making the boot "lethal", likely to shred a passing leg!
(ps gutta percha is used in trans Atlantic cables and more-see the link---especially the bit about golf balls)
Some boots had iron plates and nails of flashing steel inserted into the boot soles in leather pegs (studs).
NC Bailey (no relation), a Corinthian full back, once found a leather stud in his stocking, 1/2 an inch long, after a game against a Lancashire club!! Northern ********!!
Of course, shin guards were necessary, once they got invented.
When England rugby played against the Scots in Glasgow in 1873, the England captain, Boyle, sent all the team boots to a local cobbler to be re-soled in preparation for the upcoming vicious game. When the batch was returned, one of his boots was missing and he had to play in one of his "dress boots"!!
PM Walters of the famous Walters brothers (the other one called AM of course), had brass studs of varying length, the head the size of a pea, screwed into his leather soles and even included cricket spikes to add to the armoury, for use in the summer.
Needless to say all these chaps were prepared for dry ground, wet and muddy surfaces and even frozen pitches as the invented the leather bars (shown above) suggest.
Note the boot went well above the ankle bone to protect this delicate part of the leg and the toe cap was reinforced because that's where a lot of the ballistics came from! Big toes had to be padded to prevent the dreaded blood bruising under that big toe nail!
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