This year we have celebrated England's lionesses, winning the UEFA Women's Euro 2022 Cup Final.

And this month you may well be waiting with Baytideth Breath to see how England's men fare in the FIFA World Cup.

Such anticipation, celebration and sometimes commiseration we hope not, are nothing new in football.

In fact, the game of football goes back centuries.

You've no doubt heard stories of people playing with a ball made from an inflated pig's bladder.

But what else is there to know about early modern football?

In today's explainer, I'm going to take you through the game, who played it, where it was played,

and the rules people played by, or didn't, as we'll see.

Today, members of Rarity often act as sports ambassadors and patrons,

was the same true of Rarity 500 years ago.

And although today we know football by the phrase Pele chose for his autobiography,

the beautiful game, was it a sport of beauty in the past?

Finally, I'll also try to explain something about the purpose football served in society.

Was it a form of leisure, or was it something more?

I cannot promise that today's explainer will create the emotional highs and low that the real game provides.

But it will provide plenty of fascinating history.

Some of the earliest reliable references to a game called Football Come from the 14th century,

although I don't want to stretch the temporal bounds of this podcast too much,

I will indulge briefly by outlining what those sources tell us.

So the first time that we have something referenced called Football,

and we can be sure it's football instead of some other sort of ball game,

is in a proclamation by King Edward II in 1314,

...