Violence and Roughness in Traditional Games and Sports: The Case of Folk Football (England and Scotland)

Abstract

The article addresses old English and Scottish annual village games known as folk football, which still survive along with the more usual federal modern sports like soccer and rugby. The article suggests that the example of folk football enables us to better understand the relationship between sport and violence. The use of the ethnographic method throughout a long-term period allows us to compare different existing games. The article describes aggressiveness in the games and its historical background. It also shows how the authorities tried to control and rule these traditional games. On the field, however, the players argue that the game is rough rather than violent. It is then important to pay attention to the players' viewpoint. Fieldwork on folk football matches shows that violence is drawn off at different levels. The case presented is an interesting one, grasping the relations between sport and violence. The violence that regularly appears in modern sport and hooliganism can be interpreted as an unconscious restoration of very old dual cultural schemes, connected in a broad psychological perspective to the youth's universal taste for pride and parade.