Camping (game)

Last updated October 03, 2024

Camping, also known as campyon, campan, or campball, was a football game played in England. It appears to have been popular in Norfolk and other parts of East Anglia. Of all the traditional forms of football played in Europe, it appears to have been one of the toughest and most dangerous, which probably explains why it died out during the early 19th century.

The first English-Latin dictionary, Promptorium parvulorum (circa 1440), offers this definition of camp ball: "Campan, or playar at foott balle, pediluson; campyon, or champion"

The game was originally played in the middle of town, where the objective was to take the ball to the opposing side of town. It was later played in the country, often in a special field set aside for the purpose known as a camping-place, camping close, or camping pightle. A reminder of this old game can be found in Swaffham, where behind the market place lies the Camping land, where the game was played. The custom in medieval times was to play games after church services, and often camping fields were sited near the church.

Although this game was rough, it was not without rules. In fact, evidence from Moore (1823) indicates teams, goals, rules, and even ball passing existed between team members (a development often attributed to a much later time):

Each party has two goals, 10 or 15 yards apart. The parties, 10 or 15 on a side, stand in line, facing each other at about 10 yards’ distance midway between their goals and that of their adversaries. An indifferent spectator throws up a ball the size of a cricket ball midway between the confronted players and makes his escape. The rush is to catch the falling ball. He who first can catch or seize it speeds home, making his way through his opponents and aided by his own sidesmen. If caught and held or rather in danger of being held, for if caught with the ball in possession he loses a snotch, he throws the ball [he must in no case give it] to some less beleaguered friend more free and more in breath than himself, who if it be not arrested in its course or be jostled away by the eager and watchful adversaries, catches it; and he in like manner hastens homeward, in like manner pursued, annoyed, and aided, winning the notch or snotch if he contrive to carry or throw it within the goals. At a loss and gain of a snotch, a recommencement takes place. When the game is decided by snotches seven or nine are the game, and these if the parties be well matched take two or three hours to win. Sometimes a large football was used; the game was then called “kicking camp”; and if played with the shoes on “savage camp.”^[1]

If the game described by Moore in 1823 was substantially the same as medieval "camping", then despite the Promptorium's notable definition of it as a form of "foott balle," the game apparently involved no kicking and was rather reminiscent of the passing game in rugby.

A match at Diss Common in the early 19th century reportedly was so brutal that nine men were killed or died of their injuries. While some people thought that camping was a combination of all athletic excellence, others saw it as little more than a stand-up fight. The contest for the ball "never ends without black eyes and bloody noses, broken heads or shins, and some serious mischief," a writer ^{[ citation needed ]} said in 1830, when camping popularity was at its height.

A modified game called "civil play" banned boxing as a component of the game. The game was played by passing the ball from hand to hand. To score, a player had to carry the ball through his own goal. Matches were usually for the best of seven or nine goals or "snotches", which normally took two to three hours, but a game of 14 hours had been recorded in a county match.

A feature of so-called friendly matches were prizes for those who played well. These consisted of money, hats, gloves, or shoes. Incidents of violence seem in the end to have turned public opinion against camping, and it was gradually replaced by a gentler kicking game. This game had roused great scorn amongst camping enthusiasts when it first began to make its influence felt in the 1830s.^{[ citation needed ]}

Related Research Articles

Gaelic football, commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kicking or punching the ball into the other team's goal or between two upright posts above the goal and over a crossbar 2.5 metres above the ground.

In many team sports that involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting opposing shots on goal. Such positions exist in bandy, rink bandy, camogie, association football, Gaelic football, international rules football, floorball, handball, hurling, field hockey, ice hockey, roller hockey, lacrosse, ringette, rinkball, water polo, and shinty, as well as in other sports.

Offside is one of the laws in association football, codified in Law 11 of the Laws of the Game. The law states that a player is in an offside position if any of their body parts, except the hands and arms, are in the opponents' half of the pitch, and closer to the opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent.

A touchdown is a scoring play in gridiron football. Scoring a touchdown grants the team that scored it 6 points. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the football into the opponent's end zone. More specifically, a touchdown is when a player is in possession of the ball, any part of the ball is in the end zone they are attacking, and the player is not down.

The history of rugby union follows from various football games long before the 19th century, but it was not until the middle of that century that the rules were formulated and codified. The code of football later known as rugby union can be traced to three events: the first set of written rules in 1845, the Blackheath Club's decision to leave the Football Association in 1863 and the formation of the Rugby Football Union in 1871. The code was originally known simply as "rugby football". It was not until a schism in 1895, over the payment of players, which resulted in the formation of the separate code of rugby league, that the name "rugby union" was used to differentiate the original rugby code. For most of its history, rugby was a strictly amateur football code, and the sport's administrators frequently imposed bans and restrictions on players who they viewed as professional. It was not until 1995 that rugby union was declared an "open" game, and thus professionalism was sanctioned by the code's governing body, World Rugby—then known as the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB).

Strategy plays a crucial role in American football. Both teams carefully plan various aspects of their gameplay in an effort to win. This includes deciding on formations, selecting players for specific positions, and assigning roles and instructions to each player on offense and defense.

Gameplay in American football consists of a series of downs, individual plays of short duration, outside of which the ball is or is not in play. These can be plays from scrimmage – passes, runs, punts or field goal attempts – or free kicks such as kickoffs and fair catch kicks. Substitutions can be made between downs, which allows for a great deal of specialization as coaches choose the players best suited for each particular situation. During a play, each team should have no more than 11 players on the field, and each of them has specific tasks assigned for that specific play.

A kick-off is the method of starting and, in some cases, restarting play in a game of association football. The rules concerning the kick-off are part of Law 8 of the Laws of the Game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medieval football</span> Football game played in Europe

Medieval football is a modern term used for a wide variety of the localised informal football games which were invented and played in England during the Middle Ages. Alternative names include folk football, mob football and Shrovetide football. These games may be regarded as the ancestors of modern codes of football, and by comparison with later forms of football, the medieval matches were chaotic and had few rules.

The Sheffield Rules was a code of football devised and played in the English city of Sheffield between 1858 and 1877. The rules were initially created and revised by Sheffield Football Club, with responsibility for the laws passing to the Sheffield Football Association upon that body's creation in 1867. The rules spread beyond the city boundaries to other clubs and associations in the north and midlands of England, making them one of the most popular forms of football during the 1860s and 1870s.

The 1945 VFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the South Melbourne Football Club and Carlton Football Club, held at Princes Park in Melbourne on 29 September 1945. It was the 47th annual Grand Final of the Victorian Football League, staged to determine the premiers for the 1945 VFL season. The match, attended by 62,986 spectators, was won by Carlton by a margin of 28 points, marking that club's seventh premiership victory.

During the early modern era, pupils, former pupils and teachers at English public schools developed the rules of football, eventually leading to the first written codes of football most notably the Eton College (1815) and Aldenham school (1825) football rules, and rugby football (1845). British public schools football also directly influenced the rules of association football.

Passing the ball is a key part of association football. The purpose of passing is to keep possession of the ball by maneuvering it on the ground between different players with the objective of advancing it up the playing field.

This is a general glossary of the terminology used in the sport of rugby union. Where words in a sentence are also defined elsewhere in this article, they appear in italics.

This list is an alphabetical glossary of Australian rules football terms, jargon and slang. While some of these entries are shared with other sports, Australian rules football has developed a unique and rich terminology.

The following terms are used in American football, both conventional and indoor. Some of these terms are also in use in Canadian football; for a list of terms unique to that code, see Glossary of Canadian football.

Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football generally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly called football include association football ; Australian rules football; Gaelic football; gridiron football ; International rules football; rugby league football; and rugby union football. These various forms of football share, to varying degrees, common origins and are known as "football codes".

The 2014 Boston College Eagles football team represented Boston College as a member of the Atlantic Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in the 2014 NCAA Division I FBS football season. They were led by second-year head coach Steve Addazio and played their home games at Alumni Stadium. They were ]. They finished the season 7–6 overall and 4–4 in ACC play place fourth in the Atlantic Division. They were invited to the Pinstripe Bowl, where they lost in overtime to Penn State.

A free kick is a method of restarting play in association football. It is awarded after an infringement of the laws by the opposing team.

The Boston game, also known as the Boston rules, was an early code of football developed by the Oneida Football Club, formed in 1862 and considered by some historians as the first formal "football" club in the United States. Rules allowed carrying and kicking and is considered the first step to the codification of rules for association football, rugby football, or American football. After Oneida disbanded, former members established the Harvard University Football Club, which continued to play football under those rules.

References

↑ Moor, Edward (1823). Suffolk Words and Phrases: Or, an Attempt to Collect the Lingual Localisms of that County. J. Loder. p. 64. moor date:1823-2007.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Moor, Edward (1823). Suffolk Words and Phrases: Or, an Attempt to Collect the Lingual Localisms of that County. J. Loder. p. 64. moor date:1823-2007.

[1]