February 10th 1763

Marrieds versus Bachelors

Football games were popular in many parts of Scotland though very different from football as we know it. In Scone there was an annual game played on Fastren’s E’en or what would now be called Shrove Tuesday. The game was played between the married men and the bachelors. The two sides lined up at the old market cross.

“A ball was then thrown up and they played from two o’clock till sunset. The game was this. He who at any time got the ball into his hands, ran with it till overtaken by one of the opposite party, and then, if he could shake himself loose from those on the opposite side who seized him, he ran on; if not he threw the ball from him, unless it was wrested from him by the other party; but no person was allowed to kick it. The object of the married men was to hang it, that is to say put it three times in a small hole in the moor, the dool (boundary mark) on the one hand; that of the bachelors was to drown it; that is to dip it three times into a deep place in the river, the boundary on the other. The party who could affect either of these objects won the game. But if neither party won the ball was cut into two equal parts at sunset……..whilst the custom continued, every man in the parish, the gentry not excluded, was obliged to turn out and support the side to which he belonged. The person who neglected to do his part on that occasion was fined.”

The custom died out around 1790.