Having just watched a highly entertaining football match (or, as it's better known to my fellow North Americans, soccer, a derivation of "association football"), the fact that the sport's first mention in print occured in King Lear came to mind. It comes as a result of the first meeting of Kent and Oswald in 1.4., when Oswald the steward, having been instructed by Goneril to behave in an insolent manner toward the king in the hope of instigating a confrontation, answers Lear's rhetorical, "... who am I, sir?" with a reply that is all the more insulting because it's the truth: "My Lady's father". This leads to a moment of incredulity from Lear followed by some name-calling and some blows which are met with another haughty reply ("I'll not be struck, my lord"). At which point, Kent (disguised as Caius, the rough-and-tumble servant) knocks him to the ground and says, "Nor tripped neither, you base football player". As first mentions go, it's a bit of an inauspicious one, I suppose, but there you have it: England's national game and the world's most popular team sport first appear in print as part of an insult.