CAMPUS NEWS CULTURAL LIFE
Gravel Football Match 19th Century
GRAVEL FOOTBALL Declan O’Keeffe, College Historian, was asked to contribute a chapter on behalf of Clongowes to a book entitled Puddings Bullies and Squashes, Early Public School Football Codes. Below is an excerpt from the book that deals with the uniquely Clongowes game: gravel football:
“The game was played on a gravel surface (to save the cricket grounds in the winter) with tall pine goalposts (without crossbars) facing one another diagonally across the ground. The balls, made in advance of each game by the college shoemaker, were small, weighed about twenty-five ounces, quickly became misshapen and had to be replaced several times in a match. One Old Clongownian described his first view ‘of boys kicking very pebbly looking footballs’ and explained that ‘the flabby football…when… wet…became paved all over with little particles of gravel’. In this condition, it was ‘truly horrible, a terror to many and a prolific source of fights’. Play was advanced mainly through the primary skill of ‘forcing’ – that is dribbling the ball towards the opponents’ goal and one point was awarded for every score. The game was played from
the start of September until St. Patrick’s Day, when the season concluded with the Colours Matches. These gala occasions, which foreshadowed the schools’ rugby finals of today, were a high point in the college calendar and were preceded by preliminary rounds to decide which team sported red and which green. Following a ceremonial march to the ground ‘with colours flying’ the rector gave ‘the initial kick-off’ before retiring ‘amid cheers’. Christopher Palles, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, first president of the Clongowes [past pupils] Union, and arguably ‘the most distinguished Old Clongownian of [his] day’ recalled that for every goal scored on St Patrick’s Day ‘there was an extra pancake at dinner for the scorer, with the thoughtful proviso that a boy could transfer his extra pancakes to his friends!’ Gravel football was extraordinarily popular in both Clongowes and Tullabeg as described in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as well as in the writings of other Old Clongownians. This chapter tells the story of ‘gravel’, which had its own detailed set of laws, (including the peculiar provision that the first score was reckoned as only a half, to make draws impossible) and its place in the Ratio Studiorum that formally established the system of Jesuit education.”
TREE PLANTING To mark World Earth Day as part of our Green Schools Programme, Mr Conry’s Young Social Innovators class planted trees around the campus to commemorate the day.
CLONGOWES LIFE
SUMMER 2021
13
