Charity having a riot at city’s ancient monument

“The oldest football in the world was found behind the walls of the Queen's bedroom in Stirling Castle,” he explained. “We had our own football made based on it,” he added, producing a small brown sphere about the size of a bag of flour.

Sheffield Home of Football became an official charity last week, and John and his colleagues were at Manor Lodge promoting their planned football museum for Sheffield.

But another aim of the Manor visit was to consider the logistics of holding a C16th football game (when there were effectively no rules at all) on the site of an ancient monument, to celebrate the royal connection in Sheffield’s claim to be the international home of the sport of Association Football.

After discussions with local historian David Templeman (an expert author on Queen Mary’s Sheffield confinement at Sheffield Castle and Manor Lodge in the late 1500s), John and colleagues concluded that Mary would have watched and refereed at football games among her guards and retinue.

It’s even possible one of the first ever Scotland v England matches was played at Manor Lodge.

As John and the Home of Football team gathered up their donated football programmes and 100 year old trophies, Ted Talbot of Manor Lodge custodians Green Estate described the problems of trying to manage the site’s ruined walls and windows.

He said that hot and cold and wet weather is leading to crumbling stonework, and he pointed out small trees also taking root in the old walls to add to the problem.

Green Estate made a recent bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund to trial a technique of turf capping the stonework, with different turf and wildflower mixes on top of the stones to reduce the frost and rain damage, and so protect the ruins.

As it stands, a recent survey shows that 200 points of ‘rectification’ are needed to preserve the walls in their current state, 20 of which are so urgent that they could become a danger, said Ted.

He pointed out the trees and plants among the 450 year old stonework, whose roots are slowly “blowing apart the stone slabs,” he said, as they would on a natural rock outcrop.

“Ruins become cliffs, and cliffs eventually fall down.”

The lottery bid was turned down on this occasion due to oversubscription from other organisations, but Green Estate have been encouraged to make a new application in the near future.

Meanwhile, Ted says the charity is planning a public appeal to support a revised bid to look at the science of saving the ruins using plants and soil.

He says they’ll probably start with a smaller trial of turf and seed mixtures on a short section of lower wall.

When Ted heard about the link to the footballing Queen, it seemed an ideal way to promote the Manor Lodge, Sheffield Home of Football and the royal referee, so the plan is to host a series of public football games at Manor Lodge next April, with four matches showcasing the development of the sport.

The 40 minute (or so) matches will probably be on one of the less fragile Green Estate plots near the lodge, with a more genteel reenactment for spectators in the Manor Lodge grounds.

Match 1 will be according to C16th rules, said John Clarke, i.e. no rules at all, but a gentlefolk’s agreement not to break anyone’s legs. Match 2 will be the next evolution, with no ball kicking, match 3 will be the return of kicking but with goalposts.

The first three games will be for brave participants of any gender, while match 4 will be a women’s match with modern rules.

Local referees Keith Hackett and Uriah Rennie are already working on their costumes, John said.