FOOTBALL
Football refers to a number of sports
that involve, to varying degrees, kicking
a ball with the foot to score a goal.
The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more commonly known as
just "football" or "soccer". Unqualified, the word football
applies to whichever form of football is the most popular in the regional
context in which the word appears, including association football, as well as American
football, Australian rules football, Canadian
football, Gaelic football, rugby
league, rugby union,[1] and
other related games. These variations of football are known as football codes.
Various forms of football can be
identified in history, often as popular peasant games.
Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at
English public schools in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[2][3] The
influence and power of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to
spread to areas of British influence outside of the directly controlled Empire,[4] though
by the end of the nineteenth century, distinct regional codes were already
developing: Gaelic Football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules
of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage.[5] In 1888,
The Football League was founded in England,
becoming the first of many professional football competitions. During the
twentieth century, several of the various kinds of football grew to become
among the most popular team sports in the world.[6]
Common
elements
The various codes of football share
certain common elements. Players in American football, Canadian football, rugby
union and rugby league take-up positions in a limited area of the field at the
start of the game.[7]
They tend to use throwing and running as the main ways of moving the ball, and
only kick on certain limited occasions. Body tackling is a major skill, and games
typically involve short passages of play of 5–90 seconds.[7]
Association football, Australian rules football and Gaelic football tend to use
kicking to move the ball around the pitch, with handling more limited. Body
tackles are less central to the game, and players are freer to move around the
field (offside laws are typically less strict).[7]
Common rules among the sports
include:[citation needed]
- Two teams of usually between 11 and 18 players; some variations that have fewer players (five or more per team) are also popular.
- A clearly defined area in which to play the game.
- Scoring goals or points, by moving the ball to an opposing team's end of the field and either into a goal area, or over a line.
- Goals or points resulting from players putting the ball between two goalposts.
- The goal or line being defended by the opposing team.
- Players being required to move the ball—depending on the code—by kicking, carrying, or hand-passing the ball.
- Players using only their body to move the ball.
In all codes, common skills include passing, tackling, evasion of tackles, catching and kicking.[7] In
most codes, there are rules restricting the movement of players offside,[citation needed] and players
scoring a goal must put the ball either under or over a crossbar
between the goalposts.[citation needed]
Etymology
Main article: Football
(word)
There are conflicting explanations
of the origin of the word "football". It is widely assumed that the
word "football" (or "foot ball") references the action of
the foot kicking a ball. There is an alternative explanation, which is that
football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval
Europe, which were played on foot. There is no conclusive evidence
for either explanation.
Early
history
Ancient
games
The Ancient
Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games, some
of which involved the use of the feet. The Roman game harpastum
is believed to have been adapted from a Greek
team game known as "ἐπίσκυρος"
(Episkyros)[8][9] or
"φαινίνδα" (phaininda),[10] which
is mentioned by a Greek playwright, Antiphanes (388–311 BC) and later referred
to by the Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215 AD).
These games appear to have resembled rugby
football.[11][12][13][14][15] The
Roman politician Cicero
(106–43 BC) describes the case of a man who was killed whilst having a
shave when a ball was kicked into a barber's shop. Roman ball games already
knew the air-filled ball, the follis.[16][17] The
Ancient Greek game of Episkyros recognised as an early form of football by
FIFA.[18]
According to FIFA the competitive
game cuju is
the earliest form of football for which there is scientific evidence.[19]
It occurs namely as an exercise in a military manual from the third and second
centuries BC.[19]
Documented evidence of an activity resembling football can be found in the
Chinese military
manual Zhan
Guo Ce compiled between the 3rd century and 1st century BC.[20] It
describes a practice known as cuju (蹴鞠,
literally "kick ball"), which originally involved kicking a leather
ball through a small hole in a piece of silk cloth which was
fixed on bamboo canes and hung about 9 m above ground. During the Han Dynasty
(206 BC–220 AD), cuju games were standardized and rules were
established.[citation needed] Variations of
this game later spread to Japan and Korea, known as kemari and chuk-guk respectively. Later, another
type of goal posts emerged, consisting of just one goal post in the middle of
the field.[citation needed]
The Japanese version of cuju
is kemari
(蹴鞠), and was developed during the Asuka
period.[citation needed]This is known to
have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about
600 AD. In kemari several people stand in a circle and kick a ball
to each other, trying not to let the ball drop to the ground (much like keepie
uppie). The game appears to have died out sometime before the mid-19th
century. It was revived in 1903 and is now played at a number of festivals.[citation needed]
There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric
ball games, played by indigenous peoples in many different parts of
the world. For example, in 1586, men from a ship commanded by an English
explorer named John Davis, went ashore to play a
form of football with Inuit
(Eskimo) people in Greenland.[21] There
are later accounts of an Inuit game played on ice, called Aqsaqtuk. Each
match began with two teams facing each other in parallel lines, before
attempting to kick the ball through each other team's line and then at a goal.
In 1610, William Strachey, a colonist at Jamestown, Virginia recorded a game played by Native Americans, called Pahsaheman.[citation needed] On the Australian continent several tribes of indigenous people played kicking and
catching games with stuffed balls which have been generalised by historians as Marn Grook
(Djab Wurrung for "game
ball"). The earliest historical account is an anecdote from
the 1878 book by Robert Brough-Smyth, The Aborigines of
Victoria, in which a man called Richard Thomas is quoted as saying, in
about 1841 in Victoria, Australia, that he had witnessed
Aboriginal people playing the game: "Mr Thomas describes how the foremost
player will drop kick a ball made from the skin of a possum and how
other players leap into the air in order to catch it." Some historians
have theorised that Marn Grook was one of the origins of Australian rules football.
The Māori
in New
Zealand played a game called Ki-o-rahi
consisting of teams of seven players play on a circular field divided into
zones, and score points by touching the 'pou' (boundary markers) and hitting a
central 'tupu' or target.[citation needed]
Games played in Mesoamerica with rubber balls
by indigenous peoples are also
well-documented as existing since before this time, but these had more
similarities to basketball or volleyball,
and since their influence on modern football games is minimal, most do not
class them as football.[citation needed]Northeastern
American Indians, especially the Iroquois Confederation, played a game which made use of net
racquets to throw and catch a small ball; however, although a ball-goal foot
game, lacrosse
(as its modern descendant is called) is likewise not usually classed as a form
of "football."[citation needed]
These games and others may well go
far back into antiquity. However, the main sources of modern football codes
appear to lie in western Europe, especially England.
A Song
Dynasty painting by Su Hanchen, depicting Chinese children playing cuju.
Paint of a
Mesoamerican ballgame player of the
Tepantitla murals in Teotihuacan.
A revived
version of kemari being played at the Tanzan
Shrine, Japan.
An
illustration from the 1850s of Australian Aboriginal hunter
gatherers. Children in the background are playing a football game, possibly
Woggabaliri.[22]
Medieval
and early modern Europe
Further information: Medieval
football
The Middle Ages
saw a huge rise in popularity of annual Shrovetide football matches throughout Europe,
particularly in England. An early reference to a ball game played in Britain
comes from the 9th century Historia Brittonum, which describes "a
party of boys ... playing at ball".[23]
References to a ball game played in northern France known as La Soule
or Choule, in which the ball was propelled by hands, feet, and sticks,[24] date
from the 12th century.[25]
An illustration of so-called "mob
football"
The early forms of football played
in England, sometimes referred to as "mob
football", would be played between neighbouring towns and villages,
involving an unlimited number of players on opposing teams who would clash en
masse,[26]
struggling to move an item, such as inflated animal's bladder[27]
to particular geographical points, such as their opponents' church, with play
taking place in the open space between neighbouring parishes.[28] The
game was played primarily during significant religious festivals, such as
Shrovetide, Christmas,
or Easter,[27]
and Shrovetide games have survived into the modern era in a number of English
towns (see below).
The first detailed description of
what was almost certainly football in England was given by William FitzStephen in about 1174–1183. He
described the activities of London youths during the annual festival of Shrove
Tuesday:
After lunch all the youth of the city go out into the fields
to take part in a ball game. The students of each school have their own ball;
the workers from each city craft are also carrying their balls. Older citizens,
fathers, and wealthy citizens come on horseback to watch their juniors
competing, and to relive their own youth vicariously: you can see their inner
passions aroused as they watch the action and get caught up in the fun being
had by the carefree adolescents.[29]
Most of the very early references to
the game speak simply of "ball play" or "playing at ball".
This reinforces the idea that the games played at the time did not necessarily
involve a ball being kicked.
An early reference to a ball game
that was probably football comes from 1280 at Ulgham, Northumberland,
England: "Henry... while playing at ball.. ran against David".[30]
Football was played in Ireland in 1308, with a documented reference to John
McCrocan, a spectator at a "football game" at Newcastle, County Down being charged with
accidentally stabbing a player named William Bernard.[31]
Another reference to a football game comes in 1321 at Shouldham, Norfolk, England:
"[d]uring the game at ball as he kicked the ball, a lay friend of his...
ran against him and wounded himself".[30]
In 1314, Nicholas de Farndone, Lord Mayor of the City of London
issued a decree banning football in the French used by the English upper classes
at the time. A translation reads: "[f]orasmuch as there is great noise in
the city caused by hustling over large foot balls [rageries de grosses
pelotes de pee][32] in the
fields of the public from which many evils might arise which God forbid: we
command and forbid on behalf of the king, on pain of imprisonment, such game to
be used in the city in the future." This is the earliest reference to
football.
In 1363, King Edward III of England issued a proclamation
banning "...handball, football, or hockey; coursing and cock-fighting, or
other such idle games",[33]
showing that "football" — whatever its exact form in this case — was
being differentiated from games involving other parts of the body, such as
handball.
A game known as "football"
was played in Scotland as early as the 15th century: it was prohibited by the
Football Act 1424 and although the law fell into disuse it was not repealed
until 1906. There is evidence for schoolboys playing a "football"
ball game in Aberdeen in 1633 (some references cite 1636) which is notable as
an early allusion to what some have considered to be passing the ball. The word
"pass" in the most recent translation is derived from "huc
percute" (strike it here) and later "repercute pilam" (strike
the ball again) in the original Latin. It is not certain that the ball was
being struck between members of the same team. The original word translated as
"goal" is "metum", literally meaning the "pillar at
each end of the circus course" in a Roman chariot race. There is a
reference to "get hold of the ball before [another player] does"
(Praeripe illi pilam si possis agere) suggesting that handling of the ball was
allowed. One sentence states in the original 1930 translation "Throw
yourself against him" (Age, objice te illi).
France circa 1750
King Henry IV of England also presented one of the
earliest documented uses of the English word "football", in 1409,
when he issued a proclamation forbidding the levying of money for
"foteball".[30][34]
There is also an account in Latin from the end of
the 15th century of football being played at Cawston, Nottinghamshire.
This is the first description of a "kicking game" and the first
description of dribbling: "[t]he game at which they had met for
common recreation is called by some the foot-ball game. It is one in which
young men, in country sport, propel a huge ball not by throwing it into the air
but by striking it and rolling it along the ground, and that not with their
hands but with their feet... kicking in opposite directions" The
chronicler gives the earliest reference to a football pitch, stating that:
"[t]he boundaries have been marked and the game had started.[30]
Other firsts in the mediæval and early modern eras:
- "a football", in the sense of a ball rather than a game, was first mentioned in 1486.[34] This reference is in Dame Juliana Berners' Book of St Albans. It states: "a certain rounde instrument to play with ...it is an instrument for the foote and then it is calde in Latyn 'pila pedalis', a fotebal."[30]
- a pair of football boots was ordered by King Henry VIII of England in 1526.[35]
- women playing a form of football was first described in 1580 by Sir Philip Sidney in one of his poems: "[a] tyme there is for all, my mother often sayes, When she, with skirts tuckt very hy, with girles at football playes."[36]
- the first references to goals are in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In 1584 and 1602 respectively, John Norden and Richard Carew referred to "goals" in Cornish hurling. Carew described how goals were made: "they pitch two bushes in the ground, some eight or ten foote asunder; and directly against them, ten or twelue [twelve] score off, other twayne in like distance, which they terme their Goales".[37] He is also the first to describe goalkeepers and passing of the ball between players.
- the first direct reference to scoring a goal is in John Day's play The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (performed circa 1600; published 1659): "I'll play a gole at camp-ball" (an extremely violent variety of football, which was popular in East Anglia). Similarly in a poem in 1613, Michael Drayton refers to "when the Ball to throw, And drive it to the Gole, in squadrons forth they goe".
Calcio
Fiorentino
An illustration of the Calcio
Fiorentino field and starting positions, from a 1688 book by Pietro di
Lorenzo Bini.
Main article: Calcio
Fiorentino
In the 16th century, the city of Florence
celebrated the period between Epiphany and Lent by playing a game
which today is known as "calcio storico" ("historic
kickball") in the Piazza Santa Croce. The young aristocrats of the
city would dress up in fine silk costumes and embroil themselves in a violent
form of football. For example, calcio players could punch, shoulder
charge, and kick opponents. Blows below the belt were allowed. The game is said
to have originated as a military training exercise. In 1580, Count Giovanni de'
Bardi di Vernio wrote Discorso sopra 'l giuoco del Calcio Fiorentino.
This is sometimes said to be the earliest code of rules for any football game.
The game was not played after January 1739 (until it was revived in May 1930).
Official
disapproval and attempts to ban football
Main article: Attempts to ban football games
There have been many attempts to ban
football, from the middle ages through to the modern day. The first such
law was passed in England
in 1314; it was followed by more than 30 in England alone between 1314 and
1667.[38]:6
Football faced armed opposition in the 18th Century when used as a cover for
violent protest against the enclosure act. Women were banned from playing at
English and Scottish Football League grounds in 1921, a ban that was only
lifted in the 1970s. Female footballers still face similar problems in some
parts of the world.
Establishment
of modern codes
English
public schools
Main article: English public school football
games
While football continued to be
played in various forms throughout Britain, its "public" schools (known as
private schools in other countries) are widely credited with four key
achievements in the creation of modern football codes. First of all, the
evidence suggests that they were important in taking football away from its
"mob" form and turning it into an organised team sport. Second, many
early descriptions of football and references to it were recorded by people who
had studied at these schools. Third, it was teachers, students and former
students from these schools who first codified football games, to enable
matches to be played between schools. Finally, it was at English public schools
that the division between "kicking" and "running" (or
"carrying") games first became clear.
The earliest evidence that games
resembling football were being played at English public schools — mainly
attended by boys from the upper, upper-middle and professional classes — comes
from the Vulgaria by William Herman in 1519. Herman had been headmaster
at Eton
and Winchester colleges and his Latin textbook
includes a translation exercise with the phrase "We wyll playe with a ball
full of wynde".[39]
Richard
Mulcaster, a student at Eton College in the early 16th century and later
headmaster at other English schools, has been described as "the greatest
sixteenth Century advocate of football".[40] Among
his contributions are the earliest evidence of organised team football.
Mulcaster's writings refer to teams ("sides" and
"parties"), positions ("standings"), a referee ("judge
over the parties") and a coach "(trayning maister)". Mulcaster's
"footeball" had evolved from the disordered and violent forms of
traditional football:
[s]ome smaller number with such
overlooking, sorted into sides and standings, not meeting with their bodies so
boisterously to trie their strength: nor shouldring or shuffing one an other so
barbarously ... may use footeball for as much good to the body, by the chiefe
use of the legges.[41]
In 1633, David Wedderburn, a teacher from Aberdeen,
mentioned elements of modern football games in a short Latin textbook called
Vocabula. Wedderburn refers to what has been translated into modern
English as "keeping goal" and makes an allusion to passing the ball
("strike it here"). There is a reference to "get hold of the
ball", suggesting that some handling was allowed. It is clear that the
tackles allowed included the charging and holding of opposing players
("drive that man back").[citation needed]
A more detailed description of
football is given in Francis Willughby's Book of Games, written
in about 1660.[42]
Willughby, who had studied at Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, Sutton
Coldfield, is the first to describe goals and a distinct playing field:
"a close that has a gate at either end. The gates are called Goals."
His book includes a diagram illustrating a football field. He also mentions
tactics ("leaving some of their best players to guard the goal");
scoring ("they that can strike the ball through their opponents' goal
first win") and the way teams were selected ("the players being
equally divided according to their strength and nimbleness"). He is the
first to describe a "law" of football: "they must not strike [an
opponent's leg] higher than the ball".[citation needed]
English public schools were the
first to codify football games. In particular, they devised the first offside
rules, during the late 18th century.[43]
In the earliest manifestations of these rules, players were "off their
side" if they simply stood between the ball and the goal which was their
objective. Players were not allowed to pass the ball forward, either by foot or
by hand. They could only dribble with their feet, or advance the ball in a scrum
or similar formation. However, offside laws began to diverge and develop
differently at each school, as is shown by the rules of football from
Winchester, Rugby, Harrow
and Cheltenham, during between 1810 and 1850.[43]
The first known codes — in the sense of a set of rules — were those of Eton in
1815 [44]
and Aldenham
in 1825.[44])
During the early 19th century, most working
class people in Britain had to work six days a week, often for over twelve
hours a day. They had neither the time nor the inclination to engage in sport
for recreation and, at the time, many children were part of the labour force. Feast day
football played on the streets was in decline. Public school boys, who enjoyed
some freedom from work, became the inventors of organised football games with
formal codes of rules.
Football was adopted by a number of
public schools as a way of encouraging competitiveness and keeping youths fit.
Each school drafted its own rules, which varied widely between different
schools and were changed over time with each new intake of pupils. Two schools
of thought developed regarding rules. Some schools favoured a game in which the
ball could be carried (as at Rugby, Marlborough and Cheltenham), while others
preferred a game where kicking and dribbling the ball was promoted (as at Eton,
Harrow, Westminster and Charterhouse). The division into these two
camps was partly the result of circumstances in which the games were played.
For example, Charterhouse and Westminster at the time had restricted playing
areas; the boys were confined to playing their ball game within the school cloisters,
making it difficult for them to adopt rough and tumble running games.[citation needed]
William Webb Ellis, a pupil at Rugby School, is
said to have "with a fine disregard for the rules of football, as
played in his time [emphasis added], first took the ball in his arms and
ran with it, thus creating the distinctive feature of the rugby game." in
1823. This act is usually said to be the beginning of Rugby football, but there
is little evidence that it occurred, and most sports historians believe the
story to be apocryphal. The act of 'taking the ball in his arms' is often
misinterpreted as 'picking the ball up' as it is widely believed that Webb
Ellis' 'crime' was handling the ball, as in modern soccer, however handling the
ball at the time was often permitted and in some cases compulsory,[45] the
rule for which Webb Ellis showed disregard was running forward with it
as the rules of his time only allowed a player to retreat backwards or kick
forwards.
The
boom in rail transport in Britain during the 1840s meant that people were
able to travel further and with less inconvenience than they ever had before.
Inter-school sporting competitions became possible. However, it was difficult
for schools to play each other at football, as each school played by its own
rules. The solution to this problem was usually that the match be divided into
two halves, one half played by the rules of the host "home" school,
and the other half by the visiting "away" school.
The modern rules of many
football codes were formulated during the mid- or late- 19th century. This also
applies to other sports such as lawn bowls, lawn tennis, etc. The major impetus
for this was the patenting of the world's first lawnmower in
1830. This allowed for the preparation of modern ovals, playing fields,
pitches, grass courts, etc.[46]
Apart from Rugby football, the
public school codes have barely been played beyond the confines of each
school's playing fields. However, many of them are still played at the schools
which created them (see Surviving UK school games below).
Public schools' dominance of sports
in the UK began to wane after the Factory
Act of 1850, which significantly increased the recreation time
available to working class children. Before 1850, many British children had to
work six days a week, for more than twelve hours a day. From 1850, they could
not work before 6 a.m. (7 a.m. in winter) or after 6 p.m. on
weekdays (7 p.m. in winter); on Saturdays they had to cease work at
2 p.m. These changes mean that working class children had more time for
games, including various forms of football.
Firsts
Clubs
Main article: Oldest football clubs
Sports clubs dedicated to playing
football began in the 18th century, for example London's Gymnastic Society which was founded
in the mid-18th century and ceased playing matches in 1796.[47][48]
The first documented club to bear in
the title a reference to being a 'football club' were called "The
Foot-Ball Club" who were located in Edinburgh, Scotland,
during the period 1824–41.[49][50]
The club forbade tripping but allowed pushing and holding and the picking up of
the ball.[50]
Two clubs which claim to be the
world's oldest existing football club, in the sense of
a club which is not part of a school or university, are strongholds of rugby
football: the Barnes Club, said to have been founded in 1839, and Guy's Hospital Football Club, in 1843.
Neither date nor the variety of football played is well documented, but such
claims nevertheless allude to the popularity of rugby before other modern codes
emerged.
In 1845, three boys at Rugby school
were tasked with codifying the rules then being used at the school. These were
the first set of written rules (or code) for any form of football.[51] This
further assisted the spread of the Rugby game. For instance, Dublin University Football Club—founded
at Trinity College, Dublin in 1854 and later
famous as a bastion of the Rugby School game—is the world's oldest documented
football club in any code.
Competitions
Main article: Oldest football competitions
One of the longest running football
fixture is the Cordner-Eggleston Cup, contested between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College, Melbourne every year
since 1858. It is believed by many to also be the first match of Australian rules football, although it
was played under experimental rules in its first year. The first football
trophy tournament was the Caledonian Challenge Cup, donated by the Royal Caledonian
Society of Melbourne, played in 1861 under the Melbourne
Rules.[52]
The oldest football league is a rugby football competition, the United Hospitals Challenge Cup
(1874), while the oldest rugby trophy is the Yorkshire Cup, contested since 1878.
The South Australian Football
Association (30 April 1877) is the oldest surviving Australian rules
football competition. The oldest surviving soccer trophy is the Youdan Cup
(1867) and the oldest national soccer competition is the English FA Cup (1871).
The Football League (1888) is recognised as the
longest running Association Football league. The first ever international football
match took place between sides representing England and Scotland on March
5, 1870 at the
Oval under the authority of the FA. The first Rugby international took
place in 1871.
Modern
balls
Main article: Football
(ball)
Richard
Lindon (seen in 1880) is believed to have invented the first footballs with
rubber bladders.
In Europe, early footballs were made
out of animal bladders, more specifically pig's
bladders, which were inflated. Later leather coverings
were introduced to allow the balls to keep their shape.[53]
However, in 1851, Richard Lindon and William Gilbert, both shoemakers from the
town of Rugby (near the school), exhibited both round
and oval-shaped balls at the Great
Exhibition in London. Richard Lindon's wife is said to have died of lung
disease caused by blowing up pig's bladders.[54] Lindon
also won medals for the invention of the "Rubber inflatable Bladder"
and the "Brass Hand Pump".
In 1855, the U.S. inventor Charles
Goodyear — who had patented vulcanized
rubber — exhibited a spherical football, with an exterior of vulcanized
rubber panels, at the Paris Exhibition Universelle.
The ball was to prove popular in early forms of football in the U.S.A.[55]
The iconic ball with a regular
pattern of hexagons and pentagons (see truncated icosahedron) did not become popular
until the 1960s, and was first used in the World Cup in 1970.
Modern
ball passing tactics
Main article: Passing (association football)
The earliest reference to a game of
football involving players passing the ball and attempting to score past a
goalkeeper was written in 1633 by David Wedderburn, a poet and teacher in Aberdeen, Scotland.[56]
Nevertheless, the original text does not state whether the allusion to passing
as 'kick the ball back' ('Repercute pilam') was in a forward or backward
direction or between members of the same opposing teams (as was usual at this
time)[57]
"Scientific" football is
first recorded in 1839 from Lancashire[58] and in
the modern game in Rugby football from 1862[59] and
from Sheffield FC as early as 1865.[60][61] The
first side to play a passing combination
game was the Royal Engineers AFC in 1869/70[62][63]
By 1869 they were "work[ing] well together", "backing up"
and benefiting from "cooperation".[64] By
1870 the Engineers were passing the ball: "Lieut. Creswell, who having
brought the ball up the side then kicked it into the middle to another of his
side, who kicked it through the posts the minute before time was called"[65]
Passing was a regular feature of their style[66] By
early 1872 the Engineers were the first football team renowned for
"play[ing] beautifully together"[67] A
double pass is first reported from Derby school against Nottingham
Forest in March 1872, the first of which is irrefutably a short
pass: "Mr Absey dribbling the ball half the length of the field delivered
it to Wallis, who kicking it cleverly in front of the goal, sent it to the
captain who drove it at once between the Nottingham posts"[68] The
first side to have perfected the modern formation was Cambridge University AFC[69][70][71] and
introduced the 2–3–5 "pyramid" formation.[72][73]
Cambridge
rules
Main article: Cambridge
rules
In 1848, at Cambridge University, Mr. H. de Winton and Mr. J.C. Thring,
who were both formerly at Shrewsbury
School, called a meeting at Trinity College, Cambridge with 12 other
representatives from Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury. An eight-hour meeting
produced what amounted to the first set of modern rules, known as the Cambridge
rules. No copy of these rules now exists, but a revised version from circa
1856 is held in the library of Shrewsbury School.[74] The
rules clearly favour the kicking game. Handling was only allowed when a
player catches the ball directly from the foot entitling them to a free
kick and there was a primitive offside rule, disallowing players from
"loitering" around the opponents' goal. The Cambridge rules were not
widely adopted outside English public schools and universities (but it was
arguably the most significant influence on the Football Association committee members
responsible for formulating the rules of Association football).
Sheffield
rules
Main article: Sheffield
rules
By the late 1850s, many football
clubs had been formed throughout the English-speaking world, to play various
codes of football. Sheffield Football Club, founded in 1857 in the
English city of Sheffield by Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest, was
later recognised as the world's oldest club playing association football.[75]
However, the club initially played its own code of football: the Sheffield
rules. The code was largely independent of the public school rules, the
most significant difference being the lack of an offside rule.
The code was responsible for many
innovations that later spread to association football. These included free
kicks, corner kicks, handball, throw-ins and
the crossbar.[76]
By the 1870s they became the dominant code in the north and midlands of
England. At this time a series of rule changes by both the London and Sheffield FAs
gradually eroded the differences between the two games until the adoption of a
common code in 1877.
Australian
rules
Main article: Australian rules football
See also: Origins of Australian rules
football
Tom Wills,
widely regarded as the father of Australian football
There is archival evidence of
"foot-ball" games being played in various parts of Australia
throughout the first half of the 19th century. The origins of an organised game
of football known today as Australian rules football can be traced back to 1858
in Melbourne,
the capital city of Victoria.
In July 1858, Tom Wills,
an Australian-born cricketer educated at Rugby
School in England, wrote a letter to Bell's Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle,
calling for a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to
keep cricketers fit during winter.[77] This
is considered by historians to be a defining moment in the creation of Australian
rules football. Through publicity and personal contacts Wills was able to
co-ordinate football matches in Melbourne that experimented with various rules,[78]
the first of which was played on July 31, 1858. One week later, Wills umpired a
schoolboys match between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College. Following these matches,
organised football in Melbourne rapidly increased in popularity.
Wood engraving of an Australian
rules football match at the Richmond Paddock, Melbourne,
1866
Wills and others involved in these
early matches formed the Melbourne Football Club (the oldest
surviving Australian football club) on May 14, 1859. Club members Wills, William Hammersley, J. B.
Thompson and Thomas H. Smith met with the intention of forming a
set of rules that would be widely adopted by other clubs. The committee debated
rules used in English public school games; Wills pushed for various rugby
football rules he learnt during his schooling. The first rules share
similarities with these games, and were shaped to suit to Australian
conditions. H. C. A. Harrison, a seminal figure in Australian
football, recalled that his cousin Wills wanted "a game of our own".[79] The
code was distinctive in the prevalence of the mark, free kick, tackling, lack of an offside rule and that
players were specifically penalised for throwing the ball.
The Melbourne football rules were
widely distributed and gradually adopted by the other Victorian clubs. The
rules were updated several times during the 1860s to accommodate the rules of
other influential Victorian football clubs. A significant redraft in 1866 by H.
C. A. Harrison's committee accommodated the Geelong Football Club's rules, making the
game then known as "Victorian Rules" increasingly distinct from other
codes. It soon adopted cricket fields and an oval ball, used specialised goal
and behind posts, and featured bouncing
the ball while running and spectacular high marking. The game spread quickly to other Australian colonies. Outside of
its heartland in southern Australia the code experienced a significant period
of decline following World War I but has since grown throughout Australia
and in other parts of the world, and
the Australian Football League emerged as
the dominant professional competition.
Football
Association
The first football international, Scotland versus England. Once kept by the Rugby Football Union as an early example of rugby
football.
Main article: The Football Association
During the early 1860s, there were
increasing attempts in England to unify and reconcile the various public school
games. In 1862, J. C. Thring, who had been one of the driving forces behind the
original Cambridge Rules, was a master at Uppingham
School and he issued his own rules of what he called "The Simplest
Game" (these are also known as the Uppingham Rules). In early October 1863
another new revised version of the Cambridge Rules was drawn up by a seven
member committee representing former pupils from Harrow, Shrewsbury, Eton, Rugby,
Marlborough and Westminster.
At the Freemasons' Tavern, Great Queen Street, London
on the evening of October 26, 1863, representatives of several football clubs
in the London Metropolitan area met for the inaugural
meeting of The Football Association (FA). The aim of
the Association was to establish a single unifying code and regulate the
playing of the game among its members. Following the first meeting, the public
schools were invited to join the association. All of them declined, except
Charterhouse and Uppingham. In total, six meetings of the FA were held between
October and December 1863. After the third meeting, a draft set of rules were
published. However, at the beginning of the fourth meeting, attention was drawn
to the recently published Cambridge Rules of 1863. The Cambridge rules differed
from the draft FA rules in two significant areas; namely running with
(carrying) the ball and hacking (kicking opposing players in the shins). The
two contentious FA rules were as follows:
IX. A player shall be entitled to
run with the ball towards his adversaries' goal if he makes a fair catch, or
catches the ball on the first bound; but in case of a fair catch, if he makes
his mark he shall not run.
X. If any player shall run with the
ball towards his adversaries' goal, any player on the opposite side shall be at
liberty to charge, hold, trip or hack him, or to wrest the ball from him, but
no player shall be held and hacked at the same time.
—[80]
At the fifth meeting it was proposed
that these two rules be removed. Most of the delegates supported this, but F. M.
Campbell, the representative from Blackheath and the first FA treasurer,
objected. He said: "hacking is the true football". However, the
motion to ban running with the ball in hand and hacking was carried and
Blackheath withdrew from the FA. After the final meeting on 8 December, the FA
published the "Laws of Football", the
first comprehensive set of rules for the game later known as Association Football. The term
"soccer", in use since the late 19th century, derives from an
abbreviation of "Association".[81]
The first FA rules still contained
elements that are no longer part of association football, but which are still
recognisable in other games (such as Australian football and rugby football):
for instance, a player could make a fair catch and claim a mark, which entitled him to a free
kick; and if a player touched the ball behind the opponents' goal line, his
side was entitled to a free kick at goal, from 15 yards
(13.5 metres) in front of the goal line.
Rugby
football
Main article: History of rugby union
A rugby scrum in 1871
In Britain, by 1870, there
were about 75 clubs playing variations of the Rugby school game. There were
also "rugby" clubs in Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
However, there was no generally accepted set of rules for rugby until 1871,
when 21 clubs from London came together to form the Rugby Football Union (RFU). The first official
RFU rules were adopted in June 1871. These rules allowed passing the ball. They
also included the try,
where touching the ball over the line allowed an attempt at goal, though
drop-goals from marks and general play, and penalty conversions were still the
main form of contest.
North
American football codes
This article needs additional
citations for verification. Please help improve
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sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2007)
|
Main articles: History of American football and Canadian football § History
As was the case in Britain, by the
early 19th century, North American schools and universities played their own
local games, between sides made up of students. Students at Dartmouth
College in New Hampshire played a game called Old division football, a variant of the
association football codes, as early as the 1820s.
The "Tigers" of Hamilton,
Ontario, circa 1906. Founded 1869 as the Hamilton Foot Ball Club, they
eventually merged with the Hamilton Flying Wildcats to form the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, a team still active in the
Canadian Football League.[82]
The first game of rugby in Canada is
generally said to have taken place in Montreal, in
1865, when British Army officers played local civilians. The game
gradually gained a following, and the Montreal Football Club was formed in 1868,
the first recorded football club in Canada.
In 1869, the first game played in the United States
under rules based on the FA code occurred between Princeton and Rutgers. This is also often considered to be the
first U.S. game of college football, in the sense of a game between
colleges (although the eventual form of American football would come from
rugby, not association football).
Modern American
football grew out of a match between McGill
University of Montreal, and Harvard University in 1874.[83] At the
time, Harvard students are reported to have played the Boston Game — a running
code — rather than the FA-based kicking games favoured by U.S.
universities. This made it easy for Harvard to adapt to the rugby-based game
played by McGill and the two teams alternated between their respective sets of
rules. Within a few years, however, Harvard had both adopted McGill's rugby
rules and had persuaded other U.S. university teams to do the same. In 1876, at
the Massasoit Convention, it
was agreed by these universities to adopt most of the Rugby Football Union rules, with some variations.
Princeton, Rutgers and others continued to compete using soccer-based rules for
a few years before switching to the rugby-based rules of Harvard and its
competitors. U.S. colleges did not generally return to soccer until the early
20th century.
Rutgers College Football Team, 1882
In 1880, Yale
coach Walter
Camp, devised a number of major changes to the American game. Camp's two
most important rule innovations in establishing American football as distinct
from the rugby football games on which it is based are scrimmage and down-and-distance
rules.
Scrimmage
refers to the practice of starting action by delivering the ball from the
ground to another player's hand. Camp's original rule allowed this delivery to
be done only with the feet; the rule was soon changed to allow the ball to be
passed by hand. The rule also established a distinct line
of scrimmage which separates the two teams from each other. When a player
is tackled, he is ruled down and play stops, while the teams reset
on either side of the line of scrimmage. Play then resumes with the delivery of
the ball. Teams are given a limited number of downs to achieve a certain
distance (always measured in yards). In American football, teams are given four downs to
advance the ball ten yards, after which possession of the ball changes. In
Canadian football, teams are allowed three downs to advance ten yards. These
rules created a fundamental distinction between the North American codes and
rugby codes. Rugby is still fundamentally a continuous-action game, while North
American codes are organized around running discrete "plays", as defined as starting with the
delivery from "scrimmage" and ending with the "down".
Criticisms
and partial adjustments
"No sport is wholesome in which ungenerous or mean acts
which easily escape detection contribute to victory." - Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard University (1869-1909) opposing football
in 1905.[84]
American football, in its early
years, was an excessively violent game, plagued with several deaths and
life-changing injuries every year. The violence became so drastic that President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to shut down the
game in 1905, should rules not be changed to minimize this violence.[85]
Several rule changes were put into place that year, but the most enduring has
been the introduction of the legal forward
pass which opened up the play and, like Camp's rule changes of the 1880s,
fundamentally changed the nature of the sport. When it became legal to throw
the ball forward, an entire new method of advancing the ball emerged. As a
result, players became more specialized in their roles, as the different
positions on the team required different skill sets. Thus, some players are
primarily involved in running with the ball (the running
back) while others specialize in throwing (the quarterback),
catching (the wide receiver), or blocking (the offensive
line). With the advent of free substitution rules in the 1940s and 1950s,
teams could deploy separate offensive and defensive "platoons" which
led to even greater specialization.
Over the years, Canadian football
absorbed some developments in American football, but also retained many unique
characteristics. One of these was that Canadian football, for many years, did
not officially distinguish itself from rugby. For example, the Canadian Rugby
Football Union, founded in 1884 was the forerunner of the Canadian Football League, rather than a
rugby union body. (The Canadian Rugby Union, today known as Rugby
Canada, was not formed until 1965.) American football was also frequently
described as "rugby" in the 1880s.
Gaelic
football
The All-Ireland Football Final
in Croke
Park, 2004.
Main article: History of Gaelic football
In the mid-19th century, various
traditional football games, referred to collectively as caid,
remained popular in Ireland, especially in County
Kerry. One observer, Father W. Ferris, described two main forms of caid
during this period: the "field game" in which the object was to put
the ball through arch-like goals, formed from the boughs of two trees; and the
epic "cross-country game" which took up most of the daylight hours of
a Sunday on which it was played, and was won by one team taking the ball across
a parish
boundary. "Wrestling", "holding" opposing players, and
carrying the ball were all allowed.
By the 1870s, Rugby and Association
football had started to become popular in Ireland. Trinity College, Dublin was an early
stronghold of Rugby (see the Developments in the 1850s section, above). The rules of the
English FA were being distributed widely. Traditional forms of caid had
begun to give way to a "rough-and-tumble game" which allowed
tripping.
There was no serious attempt to
unify and codify Irish varieties of football, until the establishment of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in
1884. The GAA sought to promote traditional Irish sports, such as hurling and to
reject imported games like Rugby and Association football. The first Gaelic
football rules were drawn up by Maurice
Davin and published in the United Ireland magazine on February 7,
1887. Davin's rules showed the influence of games such as hurling and a desire
to formalise a distinctly Irish code of football. The prime example of this
differentiation was the lack of an offside rule (an attribute which, for many
years, was shared only by other Irish games like hurling, and by Australian
rules football).
Schism
in Rugby football
An English cartoon from the 1890s
lampooning the divide in rugby football which led to the formation of rugby
league. The caricatures are of Rev. Frank Marshall, an arch-opponent of
player payments, and James Miller, a long-time opponent of Marshall. The
caption reads: Marshall: "Oh, fie, go away naughty boy, I don't play with
boys who can’t afford to take a holiday for football any day they like!"
Miller: "Yes, that's just you to a T; you’d make it so that no lad whose
father wasn’t a millionaire could play at all in a really good team. For my
part I see no reason why the men who make the money shouldn’t have a share in
the spending of it."
Further information: History of rugby league
The International Rugby Football Board (IRFB)
was founded in 1886, but rifts were beginning to emerge in the code. Professionalism was beginning to creep into the
various codes of football.
In England, by the 1890s, a
long-standing Rugby Football Union ban on professional
players was causing regional tensions within rugby football, as many players in
northern England were working class and could not afford to take time off
to train, travel, play and recover from injuries. This was not very different
from what had occurred ten years earlier in soccer in Northern England but the
authorities reacted very differently in the RFU, attempting to alienate the
working class support in Northern England. In 1895, following a dispute about a
player being paid broken time payments, which replaced wages lost as a result
of playing rugby, representatives of the northern clubs met in Huddersfield
to form the Northern Rugby Football Union (NRFU). The new
body initially permitted only various types of player wage replacements.
However, within two years, NRFU players could be paid, but they were required
to have a job outside sport.
The demands of a professional league
dictated that rugby had to become a better "spectator" sport. Within
a few years the NRFU rules had started to diverge from the RFU, most notably
with the abolition of the line-out. This was followed by the
replacement of the ruck with the "play-the-ball
ruck", which allowed a two-player ruck contest between the tackler at
marker and the player tackled. Mauls were stopped once the ball carrier
was held, being replaced by a play-the ball-ruck. The separate Lancashire and
Yorkshire competitions of the NRFU merged in 1901, forming the Northern
Rugby League, the first time the name rugby
league was used officially in England.
Over time, the RFU form of rugby,
played by clubs which remained members of national federations affiliated to
the IRFB, became known as rugby union.
Globalisation
of association football
Main article: History
of FIFA
The need for a single body to
oversee association football had become apparent by the beginning of the 20th
century, with the increasing popularity of international fixtures. The English
Football Association had chaired many discussions on setting up an
international body, but was perceived as making no progress. It fell to
associations from seven other European countries: France, Belgium, Denmark,
Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, to form an international
association. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded in
Paris on May 21, 1904. Its first president was Robert
Guérin. The French name and acronym has remained, even outside
French-speaking countries.
Further
divergence of the two rugby codes
Rugby league rules diverged
significantly from rugby union in 1906, with the reduction of the team from 15
to 13 players. In 1907, a New Zealand professional rugby team toured Australia
and Britain, receiving an enthusiastic response, and professional rugby leagues were launched in Australia
the following year. However, the rules of professional games varied from one
country to another, and negotiations between various national bodies were
required to fix the exact rules for each international match. This situation
endured until 1948, when at the instigation of the French league, the Rugby League International Federation
(RLIF) was formed at a meeting in Bordeaux.
During the second half of 20th
century, the rules changed further. In 1966, rugby league officials borrowed
the American football concept of downs:
a team was allowed to retain possession of the ball for four tackles (rugby
union retains the original rule that a player who is tackled and brought to the
ground must release the ball immediately). The maximum number of tackles was
later increased to six (in 1971), and in rugby league this became known as the six tackle rule.
With the advent of full-time
professionals in the early 1990s, and the consequent speeding up of the game,
the five metre off-side distance between the two teams became 10 metres,
and the replacement rule was superseded by various interchange rules, among
other changes.
The laws of rugby union also changed
during the 20th century, although less significantly than those of rugby
league. In particular, goals from marks
were abolished, kicks directly into
touch from outside the 22 metre
line were penalised, new laws were put in place to determine who had possession
following an inconclusive ruck or maul, and the lifting of players in line-outs was legalised.
In 1995, rugby union became an
"open" game, that is one which allowed professional players. Although
the original dispute between the two codes has now disappeared — and despite
the fact that officials from both forms of rugby football have sometimes
mentioned the possibility of re-unification — the rules of both codes and their
culture have diverged to such an extent that such an event is unlikely in the
foreseeable future.
A player takes a free kick, while
the opposition form a "wall", in Association football
Use
of the word "football"
For more details on this topic, see Football
(word).
The word "football",
when used in reference to a specific game can mean any one of those described
above. Because of this, much friendly controversy has occurred over the term football,
primarily because it is used in different ways in different parts of the English-speaking world. Most often, the word
"football" is used to refer to the code of football that is
considered dominant within a particular region. So, effectively, what the word
"football" means usually depends on where one says it.
Players assemble at the line
of scrimmage in an American football game.
Association football is known generally as soccer
where other codes of football are dominant, including: the United States,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. American
football is always football in the United
States. In francophone Quebec, where Canadian
football is more popular, the Canadian code is known as football and
association football is known as le soccer.[86] Of the 45 national FIFA affiliates in
which English is an official or primary language, most currently use Football
in their organizations' official names. The FIFA affiliates in Canada and the United States use Soccer in
their names.
A few Fédération Internationale de
Football Association(FIFA) affiliates have recently "normalized" to
using "Football", including:
- Australia's association football governing body changed its name in 2005 from using "soccer" to "football"[87]
- New Zealand also changed in 2007, saying "the international game is called football."[88]
- Samoa changed from "Samoa Football (Soccer) Federation" to "Football Federation Samoa" in 2009.[89][90]
Football
codes board
Football
|
Cambridge
rules (1848)
|
Association Football (1863)
|
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Beach
(1992)
|
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Futsal (1930)
|
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Sheffield
rules (1857)
|
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Rugby rules (1845)
|
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Rugby
union (1871)
|
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Rugby
sevens (1883)
|
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Rugby
league (1895)
|
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American football (1869)
|
Arena
football (1987)
|
||||
Canadian football (1861)
|
|||||
Gaelic
(1887)
|
International rules (1967)
|
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Australian rules (1859)
|
Football
codes development tree
Football
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cambridge
rules (1848)
|
Sheffield
rules (1857)
|
Rugby
rules (1845)
|
Australian rules (1859)
|
Gaelic
(1887)
|
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Association Football (1863)
|
Canadian football (1861)
|
American football (1869)
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Rugby
union (1871)
|
Arena
football (1987)
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Rugby
sevens (1883)
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Rugby
league (1895)
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Futsal (1930)
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Beach
soccer (1992)
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