The hype has many fans wondering who actually invented football & where the game originated. So Who invented football ? Let’s find out here.
Who invented football, world’s most popular sport.
Modern football, or soccer as we know it today, has its rules and roots in England. It began in 1863 with Football Association laying out the rules for the game.
Even though over the years, the game has evolved to its current state, it has managed to retain its overall constitution and objectives.
The various codes of football share certain common elements and can be grouped into two main classes of football: carrying codes like American football, Canadian football, Australian football, rugby union and rugby league, where the ball is moved about the field while being held in the hands or thrown, and kicking codes such as Association football and Gaelic football, where the ball is moved primarily with the feet, and where handling is strictly limited.
Who invented Football / soccer ?
Each club from each area had its own set of rules which often caused confusion. However, in October 1863, Ebenezer Morley, the founder of the Barnes Football Club, called for a meeting of representatives from the 12 regional clubs.
They agreed on a common set of rules and formed Football Association (FA).
During the establishment of the standard rules in 1863, different games were categorized from the variations of football that existed at the time.
“Rugger,” the variation that allowed players to carry the ball and advance with it toward the opponent’s goalpost, became Rugby Football or Gridiron, while the variation that was played under Football Association was nicknamed “Asoccer” and later soccer.
Which country invented football ?
While looking at the history of football and attempting to answer the question of which country invented soccer first ?
England might be the inventor of modern football, but history shows that football existed in other parts of the world during ancient times.
For example, ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese, Romans, the Aboriginal people of Australia, and the Native Americans all had some game resembling football.
Furthermore, some claim that football existed in ancient Greek and Rome as early as 2500 BC.
In contrast to the modern game, though, this would often entail a distance of a few miles between scoring places, and it was also played by huge numbers of people with varying rules.
The game was eventually banned by authorities in the 14th century due to the “great noise” it produced.
The ball game was then taken up as a winter sport in public schools, where it is thought the game began to be standardised when rules and tactics were introduced.
The first football clubs then emerged in England in the 19th century, although the game still resembled rugby more than modern football.
Did football actually originate in Scotland ?
Meanwhile, some north of the border insist that it was the Scots that invented football.
Indeed, people in Scotland may have been playing the modern ball game for hundreds of years, according to leading historian Ged O’Brien, who is the founder of the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden Park.
Mr O’Brien has claimed that football originated in Scotland, saying today’s “passing and running” version of the game has been played in the country for 500 years.
Clan members played it in churchyards in the north of Scotland and then brought the game to Glasgow in the 1860s when they founded Queen’s Park Football Club, who played at Hampden Park, the historian told The Scotsman in an interview.
He said: “The genius of Scots over the last 500 years and particularly the clan system is what gave us football.
“Football is Scotland’s game. They have been playing passing and running for hundreds and hundreds of years mostly in churchyards after the Reformation where they flattened all the gravestones.
What were the early forms of football ?
While those associated with football in England take pride in the fact that they can be said to be ‘inventors’ of modern football, other forms have been recorded elsewhere – and much earlier.
Indeed, the earliest form of football is understood to be ‘cuju’ which was played in China during the Han dynasty from 206 BC to 220 AD.
‘Cuju’ translates literally as ‘kick ball’ and the aim of the game was to kick the ball into a net. Like later forms of the game in England, cuju outlawed the use of the hands.
In ancient Greece, too, a game similar to football existed which was called ‘episkyros’.
The name of the game means ‘common ball’ and it involved two teams of players (with numbers comparable to football) with one ball. Notably, though, players were allowed to use their hands.
‘Episkyros’ was frequently violent in nature and it is believed to be related somewhat to the later ancient Roman game ‘harpastum‘, which means ‘carried away’.
So we can see that a lot of different football games spawned across the world and changed over time.
Luckily for fans today, though, the FA and FIFA decided to establish a new standard, one that could be enjoyed by everyone the world over. The rest is history.
The first football clubs
Football clubs have existed since the 15th century, but unorganized and without official status. It is therefore hard to decide which the first football club was. Some historians suggest that it was the Foot-Ball Club formed 1824 in Edinburgh.
Early clubs were often formed by former school students and the first of this kind was formed in Sheffield in 1855. The oldest among professional football clubs is the English club Notts County that was formed in 1862 and still exists today.
An important step for the emergence of teams was the industrialization that led to larger groups of people meeting at places such as factories, pubs and churches. Football teams were established in the larger cities and the new railroads could bring them to other cities.
In the beginning, football was dominated by public school teams, but later, teams consisting by workers would make up the majority.
Another change was successively taking place when some clubs became willing to pay the best players to join their team. This would be the start of a long period of transition, not without friction, in which the game would develop to a professional level.
The motivation behind paying players was not only to win more matches. In the 1880s the interest in the game has moved ahead to a level that tickets were sold to the matches.
And finally, in 1885 professional football was legalized and three years later the Football League was established.
During the first season, 12 clubs joined the league, but soon more clubs became interested and the competition would consequently expand into more divisions.
The name of the game: football or soccer ?
In most parts of the world, football is used as the name for the “chess of the green pitch”, the biggest sport in the world.
In the United States and Canada, however, soccer is used instead as a distinction from American football. A more formal name sometimes used is association football, but in popular speech, it is either football or soccer.