several precursors to the modern football codes were highly popular in anglesey. they had few rules, and were quite violent. rhys cox, at the turn of the 18th century, described a game in llandrygan as ending with "[n]umbers of players... left here and there on the road, some having limbs broken in the struggle, others severely injured, and some carried on biers to be buried in the churchyard nearest to where they had been mortally injured." william bulkeley, in his april 1734 diary, records that the violence of such games left no hard feelings, with both sides parting "as good friends as they came, after they had spent half an hour together cherishing their spirits with a cup of ale... having finished easter holydays innocently and merrily."