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 century.
[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, the various codes
of football became amongst the most popular team sports in the world.
[6]
Common elements
The various codes of football share the following common elements
[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 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.
[7]
Etymology
There are confilicting 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
Ancient Greek football player balancing the ball. Depiction on an
Attic Lekythos.
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]
A
Song Dynasty painting by Su Hanchen, depicting Chinese children playing
cuju.
According to
FIFA the competitive game
cuju is the earliest form of football for which there is scientific evidence
[18] though this view is disputed by scholars.
[19] It occurs namely as an exercise in a military manual from the third and second centuries BC.
[18] 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]
A revived version of
kemari being played at the
Tanzan Shrine, Japan.
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.
Medieval and early modern Europe
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]
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).
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 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."[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.
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
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
..."
[38] 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):
Am I so round with you as you with me,
That like a football you do spurn me thus?
You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither:
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.
"Spurn" literally means
to kick away, thus implying that the game involved kicking a ball between players.
King
James I of England's
Book of Sports (1618) however, instructs Christians to play at football every Sunday afternoon after worship.
[39] The book's aim appears to be an attempt to offset the strictness of the
Puritans regarding the keeping of the
Sabbath.
[40]
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 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".
[41]
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".
[42]
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.
[43]
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.
[44] 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.
[45]
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.
[45] The first known codes — in the sense of a set of rules — were those of Eton in 1815
[46] and
Aldenham in 1825.
[46])
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,
[47] 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.
[48]
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
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.
[49][50]
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.
[51][52] The club forbade tripping but allowed pushing and holding and the picking up of the ball.
[52]
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.
[53] 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.
[54] 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
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.
[55] 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.
[56] 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.
[57]
Modern ball passing tactics
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.
[58]
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)
[59]
"Scientific" football is first recorded in 1839 from
Lancashire[60] and in the modern game in Rugby football from 1862
[61] and from Sheffield FC as early as 1865.
[62][63] The first side to play a passing
combination game was the
Royal Engineers AFC in 1869/70
[64][65] By 1869 they were "work[ing] well together", "backing up" and benefiting from "cooperation".
[66]
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"
[67] Passing was a regular feature of their style
[68] By early 1872 the Engineers were the first football team renowned for "play[ing] beautifully together"
[69] 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"
[70] The first side to have perfected the modern formation was
Cambridge University AFC[71][72][73] and introduced the 2–3–5 "pyramid" formation.
[74][75]
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.
[76] 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
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.
[78]
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.
[79]
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,
[80]
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 14, 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".
[81] 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.
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.
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".
[83]
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.
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