The history of football

The history of football

Football, (of a kind), can be traced back as far as the third century B.C.
Ancient Greeks and Romans played a team game as early as 388 B.C. However this resembled a type of rugby. Even at this time the Romans played with an air-filled ball.

Move forward just a few years and something akin to football is found in a Chinese Military manual.This was played with a feather-filled ball. Move forward a further thousand years and the Chinese, and other nationalities of that part of the world, also played with an air-filled ball. It was around this time that things became more organised. Players of kick-ball, a literal translation of cuju, found they could earn money at the game. So around 700 A.D. we had our first professional footballers.
Also around this time the game became more organised and goalposts were first used. There were two types. One a single pole in the middle of the pitch. The other much as we know it today. Two posts with a net attached. (To think that in the late 1800′s our forebears thought they were the bees knees when they "invented" nets,  to fix onto the goalposts and crossbars).

The Japanese had there own version, which was played with players in a circle passing to each other without the ball touching the ground. Keepie Uppie by any other name. It was a great favourite in the Imperial Palaces.
Throughout history there are many instances of football type games being played in many foreign countries. Explorer John Davis tells of a game played against Inuits in Greenland in the late 1580′s.

Around 1840 Richard Thomas reported some locals of Victoria, Australia played a game were one player drop-kicked a ball and others jumped to attempt to catch it. Could well have been an early version of Aussie rules football.  One of the earliest "official" references to football being played (1314),was the occasion of the Lord Mayor of the City of London issuing a decree ( made in French, then used by the upper-classes), banning the game because of "great noise……………….in public fields from which great evils might arise". Yes, I’m sure we know exactly what he meant. We call them "football yobs". So, is nothing new. English Public Schools were the first to offer any kind of set rules. These rules were slightly different from school to school but the basic rules were set down and have grown to what they are today. There was one rule in which a player could be "off his side". Yes it was as vague then as it is now. There seemed to be many variations of the rules, depended where the games were being played.

In the late 1850′s there were many clubs formed but they each seemed to play to their local rules, until SHEFFIELD FOOTBALL CLUB  came into being in 1857. They are recognised as the Oldest Club in the world. The rules they played by became the accepted norm from the Midlands northwards.The southern half played by the London Rules. However over the next twenty years, the two codes, courtesy of the two Football Associations gradually merged into what were the forerunners of today’s rules.. (After all the fiddling by the various National and International Associations).

We owe a lot to Sheffield Football Club. They brought us many other firsts. Whilst playing London City in Bttersea Park they reduced rival players and supporters to laughter for "butting the ball". Other firsts included, the free kick, the corner kick, the crossbar and what is so important today, the first FLOODLIT MATCH. At  Bramall Lane in 1878.

Quite a number of games were played under lights after this but the lighting equipment wasn’t all that reliable and after a good number of games had been played, with  many abandoned, the F.A. stepped in and banned them.