Football is the name of several similar
team sports, all of which involve (to varying
degrees)
kicking a
ball with the
foot in an attempt to
score a
goal. The most popular of these
sports worldwide is
association
football, more commonly known as just "football" or "soccer".
However the word football is applied to whichever form of football
became most popular in each particular part of the world. Hence the
English language word
"football" is
applied to "
gridiron football" (a
name associated with the North American sports, especially
American football and
Canadian football),
Australian football,
Gaelic football,
Rugby league,
Rugby
union, and related games. These rule variations are known as
"codes."
These games involve:
- 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; and
- players using only their body to move the ball.
In most codes, there are rules restricting the movement of players
offside, and players
scoring a goal must put the ball either under or over a
crossbar between the goalposts.
Other features common to several football codes include: points
being mostly scored by players carrying the ball across the goal
line; and players receiving a
free
kick after they
take a mark or make a fair catch.
Peoples from around the world have played games which involved
kicking or carrying a ball, since
ancient
times.
However, most of the modern codes of football
have their origins in England
.
Etymology
While it is widely believed that the word "football" (or "foot
ball") originated in reference to the action of the foot kicking a
ball, there is a rival explanation, which has it that football
originally referred to a variety of games in
medieval Europe, which were played
on
foot. These games were usually played by
peasants, as opposed to the
horse-riding sports often played by
aristocrat. There is no conclusive evidence for
either explanation, and the word football has always implied a
variety of games played on foot, not just those that involved
kicking a ball. In some cases, the word football has even been
applied to games which have specifically outlawed kicking the
ball.
Present day codes and families
Association football and descendants

- Association football, also
known as football, soccer, footy and
footie
- Indoor/basketball court varieties of Football:
- Five-a-side football —
played throughout the world under various rules including:
- Futsal — the FIFA
-approved
five-a-side indoor game
- Minivoetbal — the
five-a-side indoor game played in East and West Flanders where it is hugely popular
- Papi fut the five-a-side game played in
outdoor basketball courts (built with goals) in Central
America.
- Indoor soccer — the six-a-side
indoor game, known in Latin America,
where it is often played in open air venues, as fútbol
rápido ("fast football")
- Masters Football six-a-side
played in Europe by mature professionals (35 years and older)
- Paralympic football —
modified Football for athletes with a disability. Includes:
- Beach soccer — football played on
sand, also known as beach football and sand soccer
- Street football — encompasses a
number of informal varieties of football
- Rush goalie — is a variation of
football in which the role of the goalkeeper is more flexible than
normal
- Headers and volleys — where
the aim is to score goals against a goalkeeper using only headers
and volleys
- Crab football — players stand on
their hands and feet and move around on their backs whilst playing
football as normal
- Swamp soccer — the game is played
on a swamp or bog
field
Rugby school football and descendants
- Rugby football
- Rugby league — often referred to
simply as "league", and usually known simply as "football" or
"footy" in the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland.
- Rugby league nines (or
sevens)
- Touch football — a
non-contact version of rugby league. Often called simply "touch",
in South Africa it is known as "six down"
- Tag Rugby — a non-contact version of
rugby league, in which a velcro tag is
removed to indicate a tackle
- Rugby union
- Beach rugby — rugby played on
sand
- Touch rugby — generic name for forms
of rugby football which do not feature tackles
- Gridiron football
- American football — called
"football" in the United States and Canada, and "gridiron" in
Australia and New Zealand. Sometimes called "tackle football" to
distinguish it from the touch versions
- Indoor football, arena football — an indoor version of
American football
- Nine-man football, eight-man football, six-man football — versions of tackle
football, played primarily by smaller high schools that lack enough
players to field full 11-man teams
- Touch football —
non-tackle American football
- Flag football — non-tackle
American football, like touch football, in which a flag that is
held by velcro on a belt tied around the waist is pulled by
defenders to indicate a tackle
- Street football —
American football played in backyards without equipment and with
simplified rules
- Canadian football — called
simply "football" in Canada; "football" in Canada can mean either
Canadian or American football depending on context
- Canadian flag football —
non-tackle Canadian football
- Nine-man football — similar to nine-man
American football, but using Canadian rules; played by smaller
schools in Saskatchewan
that lack enough players to field full 12-man
teams
Irish and Australian varieties
These codes have in common the absence of an offside rule, the
requirement to bounce or solo (toe-kick) the ball while running,
handpassing by punching or tapping the ball rather than throwing
it, and other traditions.
- Australian rules
football — officially known as "Australian football", and
informally as "football", "footy" or "Aussie rules". In some areas
(erroneously) referred to as "AFL", which is the name of the
main organising body and competition
- Auskick — a version of Australian rules
designed by the AFL for young children
- Metro footy (or Metro rules footy) —
a modified version invented by the USAFL, for use on
gridiron fields in North American
cities (which often lack grounds large enough for conventional
Australian rules matches)
- Kick-to-kick - informal versions of
the game
- 9-a-side footy — a more open,
running variety of Australian rules, requiring 18 players in total
and a proportionally smaller playing area (includes contact and
non-contact varieties)
- Rec footy — "Recreational Football", a
modified non-contact touch variation of Australian rules, created
by the AFL, which replaces tackles with tags
- Touch Aussie Rules — a
non-contact variation of Australian Rules played only in the United
Kingdom
- Samoa rules —
localised version adapted to Samoan
conditions,
such as the use of rugby football
fields
- Masters Australian
football (a.k.a. Superules) — reduced contact version
introduced for competitions limited to players over 30 years of
age
- Women's Australian
rules football — played with a smaller ball and (sometimes)
reduced contact version introduced for women's competition
- Gaelic football — Played
predominantly in Ireland. Sometimes referred to as "football" or
"gaah" (from 'GAA', the acronym for Gaelic Athletic Association)
- International rules
football — a compromise code used for games between Gaelic and
Australian Rules players
Surviving mediæval ball games

The ball is hit into the air at the
2006 Royal Shrovetide Football match.
(Photographer: Gary Austin.)
Inside the UK
Outside the UK
Surviving UK school games
Games still played at UK
public
(
independent) schools:
Recent inventions and hybrid games
- Keepie uppie (keep up)
- :is the art of juggling with a football using feet, knees,
chest, shoulders, and head.
- Footbag
- :is a small bean bag or sand bag used as a ball in a number of
keepie uppie variations, including hacky
sack (which is a trade mark).
- Freestyle football
- a modern take on keepie uppie where freestylers are graded for
their entertainment value and expression of skill.
Based on FA rules
Based on rugby
Hybrid games
- Austus
- :a
compromise between Australian rules and American football, invented in Melbourne
during World War II.
- Bossaball
- :mixes Association football and volleyball and gymnastics; played on inflatables and trampolines.
- Footvolley
- :mixes Association football and beach volleyball; played on
sand
- Kickball
- :a hybrid of Association football and baseball, invented in the
United States in about 1942.
- Speedball
- :a combination of American football, soccer, and basketball, devised in the United States in
1912.
- Universal football
- :A hybrid of Australian rules and rugby league, trialled in
Sydney in 1933.
- Volata
- :a game resembling Association football and European handball, devised by Italian fascist leader, Augusto Turati, in the 1920s.
- Wheelchair rugby
- :also known as Murderball, invented in Canada
in 1977. Based on ice hockey and
basketball rather than rugby.
Tabletop games and other recreations
Based on Football (soccer)
Based on rugby
Based on American football
Based on Australian football
History
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 team game known as "επισκυρος"
(
episkyros) or
phaininda, 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). 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. These games appear to have resembled
rugby football. Roman ball games already knew
the air-filled ball, the
follis.
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. 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.
Variations of this game later spread to
Japan and Korea
, known as
kemari and chuk-guk
respectively. By the Chinese
Tang
Dynasty (618–907), the feather-stuffed ball was replaced by an
air-filled ball and cuju games had become professionalized, with
many players making a living playing cuju. Also, two different
types of goal posts emerged: One was made by setting up posts with
a net between them and the other consisted of just one goal post in
the middle of the field.
The Japanese version of
cuju is
kemari (蹴鞠), and was developed during the
Asuka period. 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.
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
. 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 of the Jamestown
settlement
, Virginia
recorded a game played by Native Americans,
called Pahsaheman. In Victoria, Australia
, indigenous
people played a game called Marn
Grook ("ball game"). An 1878 book by
Robert Brough-Smyth,
The Aborigines
of Victoria, quotes a man called Richard Thomas as saying, in
about 1841, 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." It is widely
believed that
Marn Grook had an influence on the
development of
Australian
rules football (see below).
The
Maori 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.
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. 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."
These games and others may well go far back into antiquity and may
have felt the growing pains of the elected officials also
influenced which later affected football games.
However, the main
sources of modern football codes appear to lie in western Europe,
especially England
.
Medieval and early modern Europe
The
Middle Ages saw a huge rise in
popularity of annual
Shrovetide
football matches throughout Europe, particularly in England.
The game played in England at this time may have arrived with the
Roman occupation, but the only
pre-Norman reference is to boys playing "ball games" in the ninth
century
Historia Brittonum.
Reports of a game played in
Brittany,
Normandy, and
Picardy, known as
La
Soule or
Choule, suggest that some of these
football games could have arrived in England as a result of the
Norman Conquest.
These forms of football, 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 in a heaving mass of
people, struggling to move an item such as an inflated pig's
bladder, to particular geographical points,
such as their opponents' church. 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.
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". The first definite 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".
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]
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",
showing that "football" — whatever its exact form in this case —
was being differentiated from games involving other parts of the
body, such as handball.
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".
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.
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. 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."
- a pair of football boots was ordered by King Henry VIII of England in 1526.
- women playing a form of football was in 1580, when Sir Philip Sidney described it 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."
- 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". 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.
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
della Novere or 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
Numerous attempts have been made to ban football games,
particularly the most rowdy and disruptive forms. This was
especially the case in England and in other parts of Europe, during
the
Middle Ages and
early modern period. Between 1324 and
1667, football was banned in England alone by more than 30 royal
and local laws. The need to repeatedly proclaim such laws
demonstrated the difficulty in enforcing bans on popular games.King
Edward II was so troubled by
the unruliness of football in London that on April 13, 1314 he
issued a proclamation banning it: "Forasmuch as there is great
noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls from which
many evils may 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."
The reasons for the ban by
Edward
III, on June 12, 1349, were explicit: football and other
recreations distracted the populace from practicing
archery, which was necessary for war. In 1424, the
Parliament of Scotland passed
a
Football Act that stated
it
is statut and the king forbiddis that na man play at the fut ball
under the payne of iiij d - in other words, playing football
was made illegal, and punishable by a fine of four
pence.
By 1608,
the local authorities in Manchester
were complaining that: "With the
ffotebale...[there] hath beene greate disorder in our towne of
Manchester we are told, and glasse windowes broken yearlye and
spoyled by a companie of lewd and disordered persons ..."
That same year, the word"football" was used disapprovingly by
William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare's play
King Lear
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):
"Spurn" literally means
to kick away, thus implying that
the game involved kicking a ball between players.
King
James I of England's
Book of Sports (1618) however, instructs Christians to
play at football every Sunday afternoon after worship. The book's
aim appears to be an attempt to offset the strictness of the
Puritans regarding the keeping of the
Sabbath.
Establishment of modern codes
English public schools
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 Horman
in 1519.
Horman 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".
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". 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:
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").
A more detailed description of football is given in
Francis Willughby's
Book of
Games, written in about 1660. Willughby, who had studied at
Sutton Coldfield School, 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".
English public schools were the first to codify football games (in
particular Eton (1815) and Aldenham (1825)) They also devised the
first
offside rules, during the
late 18th century. 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 the each school, as is
shown by the rules of football from Winchester, Rugby
, Harrow
and
Cheltenham
, during in the period of 1810–1850.
By the early 19th century, (before the
Factory Act of 1850), 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.
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
is 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 as the time was often
permitted and in some cases compulsory, 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.
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).
Firsts
Clubs
Sports clubs dedicated to playing football began in the eighteenth
century, for example
London's
Gymnastic Society which was founded in the mid-eighteenth
century and ceased playing matches in 1796.
The first documented
club to bear the title "football club" is one in Edinburgh
, Scotland
, during the period 1824-41. The club forbade
tripping but allowed pushing and holding and the picking up of the
ball.
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. 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
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. 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
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 ball to keep their shape.
Soccer Ball World - Early History (Accessed
June 9, 2006) 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.
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.
soccerballworld.com, (no date) "Charles Goodyear's Soccer
Ball" Downloaded 30/11/06.
Modern ball passing tactics
"Scientific" football is first recorded in
1839 from Lancashire
and in the modern game in Rugby football from 1862
and from Sheffield FC as early as 1865 . The first side to
play a passing
combination game was
the
Royal Engineers AFC in
1869/70 By 1869 they were "work[ing] well together", "backing up"
and benefiting from "cooperation". 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"
Passing was a regular feature of their style By early 1872 the
Engineers were the first football team renowned for "play[ing]
beautifully together" 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" The first side to have perfected the modern
formation was
Cambridge
University AFC and introduced the 2-3-5 "pyramid"
formation.
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. The rules clearly favour the kicking game.
Handling was only allowed for a player to take a
clean
catch 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
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.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. 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
Various forms of football were played in Australia during the
Victorian gold rush, from which
emerged a distinct and locally popular sport. While these origins
are still the subject of much debate the popularisation of the code
that is known today as Australian Rules Football is currently
attributed to
Tom Wills.
Wills wrote a letter to
Bell's
Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle, on July 10, 1858,
calling for a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep
cricketers fit during winter. This is considered by historians to
be a defining moment in the creation of the new sport.
Through publicity and
personal contacts Wills was able to co-ordinate football matches in
Melbourne
that experimented with various rules , the first
recorded of which occurred on July 31, 1858. On 7 August 1858,
Wills umpired a relatively well documented schoolboys match between
Melbourne
Grammar School
and Scotch College
. Following these matches, organised
football matches rapidly increased in popularity.
Wills and others involved in these early matches formed the
Melbourne Football Club (the
oldest surviving Australian football club) on May 17, 1859. The
first members included Wills,
William
Hammersley, J.B. Thompson and
Thomas
H. Smith. They met with the
intention of forming a set of rules that would be widely adopted by
other clubs.
The backgrounds of the original rule makers makes for interesting
speculation as to the influences on the rules. Wills, an Australian
of convict heritage was educated in England. He was a
rugby footballer, a cricketer and had strong
links to
indigenous
Australians. At first he desired to introduce rugby school
rules. Hammersley was a cricketer and journalist who emigrated from
England. Thomas Smith was a school teacher who emigrated from
Ireland. The committee members debated several rules including
those of English public school games. Despite including aspects
similar to other forms of football there is no conclusive evidence
to point to any single influence. Instead the committee decided on
a game that was more suited to Australian conditions and Wills is
documented to have made the declaration "No, we shall have a game
of our own". 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. They were redrafting several
times during the 1860s to accommodate the rules of other
influential Victorian football clubs. A significant re-write in
1866 by
H C A Harrison's committee to
accommodate rules from the
Geelong
Football Club made the game, which had become known as
"Victorian Rules", increasingly distinct from other codes. It used
cricket fields, a rugby ball, specialised goal and behind posts,
bouncing with the ball while running and later
spectacular high marking. The form of football spread
quickly to other
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
other parts
of the world at an amateur level and the
Australian Football League
emerged as the dominant professional competition.
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:
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
football (later
known in some countries as soccer).
The first FA rules still contained elements that are no longer part
of association football, but which are still recognisable in other
games (most notably Australian 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

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).
(Ironically, Blackheath now lobbied to ban hacking. ) 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.
Rugby league
In 1895, disputes amongst members of the RFU led to a breakaway
faction creating its own rules and competitions. Over time this has
developed into a distinct code of football known as
rugby league.
North American football codes
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 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. At the time, Harvard students are
reported to have played the
Boston Game
— a
running code — rather than the FA-based
kicking games favored 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 twentieth
century.

Rutgers College Football Team,
1882
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".
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. Several rule changes were put into place that year, but
the most enduring has been the introduction of the legal
forward pass, which, 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
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).
Split in Rugby football
[[File:Reverend marshall.jpg|thumb|200px|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."]]
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
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.
Reform of American football
Both forms of rugby and American football were noted at the time
for serious injuries, as well as the deaths of a significant number
of players. By the early 20th century in the U.S.A., this had
resulted in national controversy and American football was banned
by a number of colleges. Consequently, a series of meetings was
held by 19 colleges in
1905–06. This occurred
reputedly at the behest of President
Theodore Roosevelt. He was considered a
fancier of the game, but he threatened to ban it unless the rules
were modified to reduce the numbers of deaths and disabilities. The
meetings are now considered to be the origin of the
National Collegiate
Athletic Association.
One proposed change was a widening of the playing field.
However,
Harvard
University
had just built a concrete stadium
and therefore objected to widening, instead
proposing legalisation of the forward
pass. The report of the meetings introduced many
restrictions on tackling and two more divergences from rugby: the
forward pass and the banning of
mass formation plays. The
changes did not immediately have the desired effect, and 33
American football players were killed during 1908 alone. However,
the number of deaths and injuries did gradually decline.
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
could retain possession of the ball for no more than four tackles.
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 significantly during the 20th
century. 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.
Football today
Use of the word "football" in English-speaking countries
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.
"Soccer"
is the prevailing term for association football in the United
States, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand where other
codes of football are dominant, but the name "soccer" (or "soccer
football") was originally a slang abbreviation
of the word "association" and of the 45 national FIFA
affiliates
in which English is an official or primary language, only three
(Canada, Samoa and the United States) actually use
"soccer" in their organizations' official names. The rest
use football (although the Samoan Federation actually uses both and
in Australia and New Zealand, use of the word "football" by soccer
bodies is a recent change).
Use of the word "football" in non-English-speaking
countries
Generally around the world today the word "football" and direct
translations as such (such as Spanish
fútbol and German
Fußball/Fussball) is in widespread use as the name for
association football.
In Francophone
Quebec
, where
Canadian football is more popular,
the sport of association football is known as soccer and
the Canadian code as football.
See also
Notes
- Sports historian Bill Murray, quoted by The Sports Factor, "Tie Me Kangaroo Down,
Sport" (Radio National, Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
May 31, 2002) and Michael Scott Moore, "Naming the Beautiful Game: It's
Called Soccer" (Der Spiegel, June 7, 2006). See also:
ICONS Online (no date) "History of Football";
and Professional Football Researchers Association, (no
date) "A Freendly Kinde of Fight: The Origins of Football to
1633". Access date for all references: February 11, 2007.
- Sean Fagan, Breaking The Codes, RL1908.com,
2006
- E. Norman Gardiner: "Athletics in the Ancient World", Courier
Dover Publications, 2002, ISBN 0-486-42486-3, p.229
- William Smith: "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities",
1857, p.777
- He, Jin (2001). An Analysis of Zhan Guo Ce. Beijing:
Peking University Press. ISBN 7-301-05101-8, p. 59-82
- From William Blandowski's Australien in 142 Photographischen
Abbildungen, 1857, (Haddon Library, Faculty of Archaeology and
Anthropology, Cambridge)
- Richard Hakluyt, Voyages in Search of The North-West Passage,
University of Adelaide, December
29, 2003
- Stephen Alsford, FitzStephen's Description of London,
Florilegium Urbanum, April 5, 2006
- Francis Peabody Magoun, 1929, "Football in Medieval England and
Middle-English literature" (The American Historical
Review, v. 35, No. 1).
- Online Etymology Dictionary (no date),
"football"
- Vivek Chaudhary, “Who's the fat bloke in the number eight
shirt?” (The Guardian, February 18, 2004.)
- Anniina Jokinen, Sir Philip Sidney. "A Dialogue Between Two Shepherds"
(Luminarium.org, July 2006)
- International Olympic Academy (I.O.A.) (no date),
“Minutes 7th International Post Graduate Seminar on Olympic
Studies”
- John Lord Campbell, The Lives of the Lords
Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England, vol. 2,
1851, p. 412
- William Maxwell
Hetherington, 1856, History of the Westminster Assembly of
Divines, Ch.1 (Third Ed.)
- footballnetwork.org , 2003, “Richard
Mulcaster”
- Francis Willughby, 1660–72, Book of
Games
- Julian Carosi, 2006, "The History of
Offside"
- example of ball handling in early football from English writer
William Hone,
writing in 1825 or 1826, quotes the social commentator Sir
Frederick Morton Eden, regarding
"Foot-Ball", as played at Scone, Scotland: :The game was this: he
who at any time got the ball into his hands, run [sic] with it till
overtaken by one of the opposite part; and then, if he could shake
himself loose from those on the opposite side who seized him, he
run on; if not, he threw the ball from him, unless it was wrested
from him by the other party, but no person was allowed to kick
it. ( William Hone, 1825–26, The Every-Day Book,
"February 15." Access date: March 15, 2007.)
- THE SURREY CLUB Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle
(London, England), Sunday, October 07, 1849; pg. 6.New
Readerships
- Football: The First Hundred Years. The Untold Story. Adrian
Harvey. 2005. Routledge, London
- John Hope, Accounts and papers of the football club kept by
John Hope, WS, and some Hope Correspondence 1787-1886
(National Archives of Scotland, GD253/183)
- http://www.nas.gov.uk/about/071112.asp
- The Foot-Ball Club in Edinburgh, 1824-1841 - The National
Archives of Scotland
- History of the Royal Caledonian Society of
Melbourne
- The exact name of Mr Lindon is in dispute, as well as the exact
timing of the creation of the inflatable bladder. It is known that
he created this for both association and rugby footballs. However,
sites devoted to football indicate he was known as HJ Lindon, who
was actually Richards Lindon's son, and created the ball in 1862
(ref: Soccer Ball World), whereas rugby sites refer to him
as Richard
Lindon creating the ball in 1870 (ref: Guardian article). Both agree that his wife
died when inflating pig's bladders. This information originated
from web sites which may be unreliable, and the answer may only be
found in researching books in central libraries.
- Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (London, England),
Sunday, January 13, 1839.New Readerships
- Blackwood's Magazine, Published by W. Blackwood, 1862, page
563
- Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (London, England),
Saturday, January 07, 1865; Issue 2,229: "The Sheffield party,
however, eventually took a lead, and through some scientific
movements of Mr J Wild, scored a goal amid great cheering"
- Bell's life in london, November 26th 1865, issue 2275: "We
cannot help recording the really scientific play with which the
Sheffield men backed each other up
- [Cox, Richard (2002) The encyclopaedia of British Football,
Routledge, United Kingdom]
- History of Football
- Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 18 December
1869
- Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 5 November
1870,issue 2
- Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 18 November
1871,issue 2, 681
- Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 17 February
1872,issue 2694
- The Derby Mercury (Derby, England), Wednesday, March 20, 1872;
Issue 8226
- Association Football, chapter by CW Alcock, The English
Illustrated Magazine 1891, page 287
- Csanadi Arpad, Hungerian coaching manual "Soccer", Corvina,
Budapest 1965
- Wilson Jonathon, Inverting the pyramid: a History of Football
Tactics , Orion, 2008
- Sport: Touchstone of Australian Life from the
Australian Broadcasting Commission. First broadcast on Thursday
17/05/01
References
- Mandelbaum, Michael (2004); The Meaning of Sports;
Public Affairs, ISBN 1-58648-252-1
- Green, Geoffrey (1953); The History of the Football
Association; Naldrett Press, London
- Williams, Graham (1994); The Code War; Yore
Publications, ISBN 1-874427-65-8
External links