In the 1970s a ball made of leather and inflated with a pig\u2019s bladder was discovered in the rafters of the Queen\u2019s Chamber, Stirling Castle (Mary\u2019s residence). It is now proudly displayed in the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. It is claimed to be \u201cthe Oldest Football in the World<\/a>\u201d, although archaeologists at Winchester have dug up two leather balls (roughly the size of modern tennis balls) that are about 500 years older.<\/p>\n In June 1568, having abdicated and fled to England, Mary watched a football match on a \u201cplaying-green\u201d somewhere between Carlisle Castle and the Scottish border. The game involved about 20 of her retinue, who played for two hours \u201cvery strongly, nimbly and skilfully, without any foul play offered, the smallness of their balls occasioning fair play\u201d.<\/p>\n The 16th-century English physician John Caius (pronounced \u2018Keys\u2019) recommended a number of vigorous sports and pastimes to improve health \u2013 but not football. Although he discouraged men from playing football because they were likely to get their legs broken, it\u2019s interesting that Caius suggested women take up bowls as suitable exercise. Football, he appeared to have thought, was not suitable for women.<\/p>\n The playwright James Shirley had one of his comic characters express a similar sentiment: women were unsuited to football because they were too light and knocked down too easily. At first glance this seems to contradict other evidence. For in a pastoral \u201cdialogue between two shepherds\u201d the Elizabeth courtier and poet Sir Philip Sidney has a mother recall a time \u201cwhen she, with skirts tucked very high, with girls at stool-ball plays\u201d. (According to some sources, however, this was written by Sidney\u2019s sister, Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke.)<\/p>\n This, however, was not the \u2018violent\u2019 men\u2019s game of that name, but perhaps what was sometimes called \u2018balloon ball\u2019 \u2013 batting a large inflated ball back and forth, much like modern volleyball. Alternatively, Sidney may have meant a bat and ball game popular with young women of the period. A diarist even recorded that at Oxford on Shrove Tuesday<\/a> 1633 women played stool-ball and men football.<\/p>\n So we come to the earliest indisputable reference I\u2019ve found to a woman participating in a football match. It comes from a contemporary newspaper account of a match played on Shrove Tuesday, 23 February 1773.<\/p>\n The game involved married gentlemen playing against bachelors in Walton, a village in Yorkshire. After more than an hour\u2019s struggle, with much pushing to the ground and several broken shins, the married men were in trouble. Until, that is, a bold woman \u201cseeing her husband hard press\u2019d, entered the field to his assistance\u201d. Instead of being intimidated by the \u201csuperior strength\u201d of her opponent she, \u201clike a true Amazon\u2026\u00a0 pursued the ball, and soon determined the victory\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"Mary,](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2015\/06\/mary1_2_0-08175f4-df449ae-e1692275711966.jpg?quality=90&resize=316%2C229\" "\\"Mary,")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>When did women first play football?<\/h2>\n