American Football Poem & Shakespeare

The modern spelling of the word "football" is first recorded, when it was used disapprovingly by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's play King Lear (which was first published in 1608) contains the line: "Nor tripped neither, you base football player" (Act I Scene 4). Shakespeare also mentions the game in A Comedy of Errors (Act II Scene 1):

Am I so round with you as you with me,
That like a football you do spurn me thus?

You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither:
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.

("Spurn" literally means to kick away, thus implying that the game involved kicking a ball between players.)

(Note: The modern poem contains foul language, and is quite different from the lovely Shakespeare quantrain:

American Football

by Harold Pinter

Hallelujah!
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.

We blew the shit right back up their own ass
And out their fucking ears.

It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
They suffocated in their own shit!

Hallelujah.
Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew them into fucking shit.
They are eating it.

Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew their balls into shards of dust,
Into shards of fucking dust.

We did it.

Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.