Football

 Football 

It is a family of team sports that involve, to a varying degree, kicking a ball to score in a goal. The word football, unqualified, normally means the form of football that is the most popular wherever the word is used. The sports commonly known as football include association football, commonly known as soccer in Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United States and sometimes in Ireland and New Zealand, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, gridiron football, rugby league football, and rugby union football. These different variations of football are known as 'codes'.

There are a number of reports on traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games played in several parts of the world. The modern codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools during the 19th century. The modern game, its rules, has been an outgrowth of the medieval football. The growth and the cultural power of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British influence outside of the directly controlled empire. At the end of the 19th century, distinct regional codes were already developing: for example, in 1888, in order to preserve national heritage, Gaelic football incorporated the rules of local traditional football games. In 1888 the Football League was formed in England as the first of many professional football associations. Over the course of the 20th century, several of the different forms of football became some of the most popular team sports in the world.

The many different codes of football do share some common elements and can be grouped into two main classes of football: carrying codes including American football, Canadian football, Australian football, rugby league and rugby union, 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.

Common rules among the sports include:[11]

Two teams usually comprising between 11 and 18 players - some variations that have less — five or more players per team are popular, too.[12]

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.

Any of the points, or goals, achieved by players hitting the ball through two goalposts.

The goal or line that one team is defending.

Players direct the ball with their body only – no equipment, such as bats or sticks, is allowed.

In all codes, common skills include passing, tackling, evasion of tackles, catching and kicking.[10] 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.

Etymology

Main article: Football (word)

There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games played by indigenous peoples in many different parts of the world. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools during the 19th century.

See also: Episkyros and Cuju

Ancient China

Emperor Taizu of Song playing cuju (Chinese football) with his prime minister Zhao Pu and other ministers, by Yuan dynasty artist Qian Xuan (1235–1305) Ball games can be traced back to ancient times. End. It was probably played during the Han and early Qin dynasties, attested by a military manuscript from the second to third centuries BC. Another version consisted of players kicking a ball into each other in a manner not dissimilar from keepie uppie. In its competitive form, two teams would pass the ball between them before kicking the ball through a circular hole positioned midway along the playing pitch. In this competitive form, the two teams would not come into direct contact with each other, instead of remaining on their respective sides of the playfield. Cuju has been recognized by FIFA as the first form of football.

The Japanese put a little twist on it and called their version of Cuju kemari (蹴鞠), played during the Asuka period.[19] It is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court at Kyoto from about 600 AD. In kemari, several people line up, stand in a circle, and kick a ball to each other while ensuring the ball does not drop to the ground. The Silk Road facilitated the transmission of cuju, especially the game popular in the Tang dynasty, the period when the inflatable ball was invented and replaced the stuffed ball.[20]

An ancient Roman tombstone of a boy with a Harpastum ball from Tilurium (modern Sinj, Croatia)

Ancient Greece and Rome

The Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games, some of which involved the use of the feet. The Romans also adopted the Greek team game harpastum, which can be referred to as either ἐπίσκυρος (episkyros) or φαινίνδα (phaininda). First described by a Greek playwright, Antiphanes (388–311 BC), the game arised from a quote in Greek literature by the Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 –. These games appear to have resembled rugby football.[24][25][26][27][28] 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.[29][30] Episkyros is described as an ancient Greek game having similarities with football by FIFA.

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 in Greenland.[32] There are later accounts of an Inuit game played on ice, called Aqsaqtuk. They contest a game in exactly two parallel lines before they attempt throwing the ball over the team that stands between them—other team and which is in line then throws at the goal. In 1610, William Strachey, a colonist in Jamestown, Virginia records a game played by Native Americans, called Pahsaheman.[citation needed] Pasuckuakohowog, a game similar to the modern day association football played amongst Amerindians was also reported as early as the 17th century.

Games played in Mesoamerica with rubber balls by indigenous groups are also well-documented as existing since before this time, but they had more similarities to basketball or volleyball than the modern variation of the football sports.  No links have been found between such games and modern football sports. Northeastern American Indians, particularly the Iroquois Confederation had a game using a net racquet to throw and catch a small ball but although it is a ball-goal foot game its is not usually classed as a form of "football".[citation needed]

 Oceania

On the Australian continent, several tribes of indigenous people used to play kicking and catching games with stuffed balls, and these have been generalized 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 Kī-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]

The best evidence available at present indicates that the most ancient games, Köngrökh, may have grown out of a simple pastime of hitting a leather ball with the palm of the hand along the ground and of gradually increasing the distance it was propelled by lowering the targeted 'foutball' sticks to the ground.

Tepuk has been also described by Mahmud al-Kashgari in his Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk of a game played by Turks in Central Asia in which people try to get to the other side of a line of neighbors in order to attack a castle by kicking a ball made from sheep leather called a tepuk.[33]

Ancient Greek athlete balancing a ball on his thigh, Piraeus, 400–375 BC

Ancient Greek athlete balancing a ball on his thigh, Piraeus, 400–

A Song dynasty painting by Su Hanchen (c. 1130–1160), depicting Chinese children playing cuju

A Song dynasty painting by Su Hanchen (c. 1130–1160), depicting Chinese children playing cuju

 

Paint of a Mesoamerican ballgame player of the Tepantitla murals in Teotihuacan

Paint of a Mesoamerican ballgame player of the Tepantitla murals in Teotihuacan

 

A group of indigenous people playing a ball game in French Guiana

A group of indigenous people playing a ball game in French Guiana

 

An illustration from the 1850s of indigenous Australians playing marn grook

An illustration from the 1850s of indigenous Australians playing marn grook

 

A revived version of kemari being played at the Tanzan Shrine, Japan, 2006

A revived version of kemari being played at the Tanzan Shrine, Japan, 2006

Medieval and early modern Europe

Further information: Medieval football

Annual Shrovetide football matches were enormously popular in England and became more frequent during the Middle Ages across Europe. An early reference to a ball game played in Britain comes from the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, attributed to Nennius, which describes "a party of boys. playing at ball".[34] 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, date from the 12th century.[36]

Illustration of so-called "mob football"

The early forms of football, sometimes referred to as "mob football", would be played in towns or between neighbouring villages, involving an unlimited number of players on opposing teams who would clash en masse,[37] struggling to move an item, such as inflated animal's bladder[38] to particular geographical points, such as their opponents' church, with play taking place in the open space between neighbouring parishes.[39] The game was played primarily during significant religious festivals, such as Shrovetide, Christmas, or Easter,[38] 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 is given by William FitzStephen in about 1174–1183, and 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 children from every school come with their own ball; the men from every craft in the city also are bearing their balls. The fathers, the eminents, and older citizens all come riding out to watch their youngsters at play and to relive earlier times through their activities: you can sense their old competitive juices rising once more as they watch the games and join in the reigns with young exuberance.

Most of the very early references to the game speak simply of "ball play" or "playing at ball". Little detail of the game was provided, but the latter term in particular made it clear that the games played did not necessarily have to 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".[41] By the 14th century, 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.[42] Another reference to a football game comes upon 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, the Lord Mayor of the City of London, issued a decree banning football in the French used by the English upper classes. 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][43] 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 banned ".handball, football, or hockey; coursing and cock-fighting, or other such idle games"[44], which indicates that in this instance at least, "football" of some description was being distinguished from games involving others body parts such as handball.

A game by the name "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. This latest translation uses the term "pass" in place of the original Latin "huc percute" (strike it here) and ".repercute pilam" (strike the ball again). There is no indication that these games relied on hitting the ball between players of the same team. The original term used for "goal" is "metum", which can literally be translated as the "pillar at each end of the circus course" for the Roman chariot race. There is an indication of "get hold of the ball before [another player] does" suggesting that handling of the ball was allowed. One sentence is said in the original 1930 translation to read "Throw yourself against him".

King Henry IV of England also presented one of the earliest recorded 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 Caunton, 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.[41]

Oldest known painting of foot-ball in Scotland, by Alexander Carse, c. 1810

"Football" in Scotland, c. 1830

Other firsts in the medieval and early modern eras:

"A football", in the sense of a ball rather than a game, was first described in 1486.[45] This is the first description of a "kicking game" and the first description of a ball game that used the feet. According to the Glossary of Provincialisms published by Thomas Wright in 1857, it was "generally made of leather, round, and hollow, filled with wind".[46]

 A pair of football boots was issued to then King Henry VIII of England in 1526.

Women playing some form of football was first described in 1580 by Sir Philip Sidney in one of his poems: "[a] tyme there is for all, my mother often sayes, when she, with skirts tuckt very hy, with girles at football playes".[47]

The first references to goals are in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The terms for "goals" were used as early as 1584 by John Norden and in 1602 by Richard Carew in Cornish hurling. Carew outlined 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".[48] 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

Main article: 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 today known as "calcio storico" ("historic kickball") in the Piazza Santa Croce.[49] Dressed up in fine silk costumes, young aristocrats of the city would embroil themselves in a violent form of football. Examples of violence during the playing of calcio included punching, shoulder charging, and kicking opponents. Blows under the belt were allowed. The game is reputed to have started as a military training exercise. In 1580, Count Giovanni de' Bardi di Vernio wrote Discorso sopra 'l giuoco del Calcio Fiorentino. This has sometimes been described as the earliest code of rules for any football game. The game was not played after January 1739 (until it was revived in May 1930).

Official disapproval and attempts to ban football

Main article: Attempts to ban football games

There have been many attempts to ban football, from the Middle Ages through to the modern day. The first such law was passed in England in 1314; it was followed by more than 30 in England alone between 1314 and 1667.[32]: 6  Women were banned from playing at English and Scottish Football League grounds in 1921, a ban that was only lifted in the 1970s. Female footballers still face similar problems in some parts of the world.

American football also faced pressures to ban the sport. The game played at this time in the 19th century had a similar structure to the mob football that developed in medieval Europe, including a variety that was popular at university campuses, known as old division football. Old division football had many varieties as well, and many UK municipalities outlawed its play in the mid-19th century. By the time of the 20th century, all this had developed into a more rugby style game. In 1905, there were calls to ban American football in the U.S. due to its violence; a meeting that year hosted by American president Theodore Roosevelt led to sweeping rules changes that caused the sport to diverge significantly from its rugby roots to become more like the sport as it is played today.

Although football continued to be played in various forms throughout Britain, its public schools (equivalent to 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 organized team sport. Second, many of the 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 drew up codified versions of 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".[54]

Richard Mulcaster, a student at Eton College in the early 16th century and later headmaster at other English schools, has been called "the greatest sixteenth Century advocate of football".[55] 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.[56]

In 1633, David Wedderburn, a teacher from Aberdeen, mentioned elements of modern football games in a short Latin textbook called Vocabula. Wedderburn alludes to what has been rendered in modern English, as "keeping goal", and he refers 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 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.[58] 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".[59][60]

English public schools were the first to standardise football games. Specifically they developed the first offside rules, in the late 18th century.[61] In the earliest forms of these rules, players were considered "off their side" if they merely stood between the ball and the goal which was their objective. Players were not permitted to run with the ball, nor to pass it forward either by foot or by hand. They were only allowed to dribble with their feet, or advance the ball in a scrum or similar formation. However, the offside laws began to diverge and develop differently at these schools, as is shown by the rules for Winchester, Rugby, Harrow, and Cheltenham football, dating from the period between 1810 and 1850. [61] The first known Codes, in the sense of a set of laws, were the Eton rules, in 1815 recorded being written down, [62] and the Aldenham rules in 1825 recorded being written down. [62].

During this early period in the 19th century, most people in the British working class were compelled to work for six days in a week, with wide over twelve-hour daily engagements. They neither had time nor needed sport for any recreation and, at this time, many children were under the full force of labour. The game slowly started to dwindle in meaning, as feast day football played on the streets was on the plunge. It was basically the invention of public schoolboys allowed some freedom from work—organized football matches with formal codes of rules.

A number of public schools used football as a way of promoting competitiveness and keeping youngsters fit. Each school developed and created its own rules, of which there was an infinite variety from maximum to minimum, and changed with every fresh intake of pupils. Two schools of thought emerged about the rules. Certain schools favoured a game where the ball could be carried such that at Rugby, Marlborough, and Cheltenham, now a trio, the ball was carried over the goal line and touched down. The others favoured a game where the ball was promoted by kicking and dribbling it as per Eton, Harrow, Westminster, and Charterhouse. The division into these two camps was partly the result of circumstances in which the games were played. Thus, for instance, Charterhouse and Westminster at the time possessed only small areas for playing; the boys were hemmed in by the confines of the school into playing their ball game, so it is unlikely that they could take up running games that involved much forward running and thereby rough and tumble.[citation needed]

Although Rugby School (pictured) helped establish versions of rugby football, most sports historians dispute the folk tale that it was invented there in 1823.

It is said that William Webb Ellis, with a fine disregard for the regulations of football as played at his time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it. Although the evidence has long since been lost in 1823, this is generally agreed to be the origin of Rugby football. Nevertheless, most sports historians concur that the story is an apocryphal. The act of 'taking the ball in his arms' is often misunderstood as 'picking the ball up' as it is widely believed that Webb Ellis' 'crime' was handling the ball, as in modern association football, however handling the ball at the time was often allowed and in some cases compulsory,[63] 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 rail boom in Britain during the 1840s meant that people could travel further and with less inconvenience than ever 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 usual solution to this problem was to split the match into two parts: one half played according to the rules of the host "home" school and the other according to the visiting "away" school.

Many football codes were modernized in the mid- or late- 19th century. Other major sport reforms included lawn bowls, lawn tennis, etc. The major impetus was the patenting of the world's first lawnmower in 1830, which allowed for the preparation of modern ovals, playing fields, pitches, grass courts, etc.

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 § British schools).

A Football Game (1839) by British painter Thomas Webster

Public schools' dominance of sports in the UK began to wane after the Factory Act 1850, which considerably increased the amount of free time working-class children had available to spend playing games. 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 pm. These changes meant that working class children had more time for games, including several forms of football.

The earliest matches between public schools are as follows:

1846 Shrove Tuesday: Football match in Kingston upon Thames, England

9 December 1834: Eton School v. Harrow School.[65]

1840s: Old Rugbeians v. Old Salopians (played at Cambridge University).[66]

1840s: Old Rugbeians v. Old Salopians (played at Cambridge University the following year).[66]

1852: Harrow School v. Westminster School.[66]

1857: Haileybury School v. Westminster School.[66]

24 February 1858: Forest School v. Chigwell School.[67]

1858: Westminster School v. Winchester College.[66]

1859: Harrow School v. Westminster School.[66]

19 November 185

19 December 1859: Old Harrovians v. Old Wykehamists (played at Christ Church, Oxford).[66]

Firsts

Clubs

Main article: Oldest football clubs

Sheffield F.C. (here pictured in 1857, the year of its foundation) is the oldest surviving association football club in the world.

Notes about a Sheffield v. Hallam match, dated 29 December 1862

Football-only clubs were a brand-new development of the 18th century, such as London's Gymnastic Society which was founded in the mid-18th century and stopped playing matches in 1796.

The first documented club to bear 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. The club forbade tripping, but allowed pushing and holding as well as picking up of the ball.

In 1845, three boys at Rugby school codified the rules then being used at the school. These were the first set of written rules (or code) for any form of football.[71] This further assisted the spread of the Rugby game.

 The earliest known matches involving non-public school clubs or institutions are as follows:

 13 February 1856: Charterhouse School v. St Bartholemew's Hospital.[72]

7 November 1856: Bedford Grammar School v. Bedford Town Gentlemen.[73]

13 December 1856: Sunbury Military College v. Littleton Gentlemen.[74]

December 1857: Edinburgh University v. Edinburgh Academical Club.[75]

24 November 1858: Westminster School v. Dingley Dell Club.[76]

12 May 1859: Tavistock School v. Princetown School.[77]

5 November 1859: Eton School v. Oxford University.[78]

22 February 1860

26 December 1860: Sheffield v. Hallam.[82]

Competitions

Main article: Oldest football competitions

One of the oldest football fixture is the Cordner-Eggleston Cup, played for 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 oldest football trophy is the Caledonian Challenge Cup, donated by the Royal Caledonian Society of Melbourne, played for in 1861 under the Melbourne Rules. The oldest football league is a rugby football competition, the United Hospitals Challenge Cup, from 1874, and the oldest rugby trophy is the Yorkshire Cup, contested since 1878. The South Australian Football Association, 30 April 1877, is the oldest structurally significantly body surviving within Australian rules football. The oldest surviving soccer trophy is the Youdan Cup (1867) and the oldest national football competition is the English FA Cup (1871). The Football League (1888) is considered to be the longest running association football league. The first international Rugby football match was played between Scotland and England at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh, on 27 March 1871. The first international Association football match officially took place between sides representing England and Scotland on 30 November 1872 at Hamilton Crescent, the West of Scotland Cricket Club's ground in Partick, Glasgow under the authority of the FA.

Modern balls

Main article: Football (ball)

Richard Lindon (seen in 1880) is believed to have invented the first footballs with rubber bladders.

In Europe, early footballs were made out of animal bladders, more specifically pig's bladders, which were inflated. Later leather coverings were introduced to allow the balls to keep their shape.[84] 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. Blowing of pig bladders brought about a lung disease that Richard Lindon was said to have been caused of. There were other medals which Lindon won for the invention of the "Rubber inflatable Bladder" and the "Brass Hand Pump".

In 1855, the U.S. inventor Charles Goodyear – who had patented vulcanised rubber – exhibited a spherical football, with an exterior of vulcanised rubber panels, at the Paris Exhibition Universelle. The ball was to prove popular in early forms of football in the U.S.

Iconic ball with the hendecahedron

The iconic ball with a regular pattern of hexagons and pentagons (see truncated icosahedron) did not become popular until the 1960s, and was first used in the World Cup in 1970.

 Modern ball passing tactics

Main article: Passing (association football)

Although there is an earlier reference to a game of football in 1633 made by David Wedderburn—written for a poet and teacher in Aberdeen, Scotland—it doesn't say 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.

"Scientific" football is first recorded in 1839 from Lancashire[88] and in the modern game in rugby football from 1862[89] and from Sheffield FC as early as 1865.[90][91] The first side to play a passing combination game was the Royal Engineers AFC in 1869/70.[92][93] By 1869 they were "work[ing] well together", "backing up" and benefiting from "cooperation".[94] 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".[95] Passing was a regular feature of their style.[96] By early 1872 the Engineers were the first football team renowned for "play[ing] beautifully together".[97] 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".[98] The first side to have perfected the modern formation was Cambridge University AFC;[99][100][101] they also introduced the 2–3–5 "pyramid" formation.[102][103]

Rugby football

Main articles: Rugby football and History of rugby union

The Last Scrimmage by Edwin Buckman, depicting a rugby maul in 1871

Rugby football was born in 1845 when William Webb Ellis at Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, England – purportedly with a fine disregard for the rules of football – took the ball in his hands and ran towards the opposition's goal. By 1870 in Britain, there were 49 clubs playing various forms of the Rugby school game. There were also "rugby" clubs in Ireland, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Yet, no generally accepted rules for rugby existed until 1871, when 21 clubs formed the Rugby Football Union in London. The first official RFU rules were adopted in June 1871. Among these rules was the allowance of passing the ball. The rules included the try, where touching the ball over the line allowed a try at goal, although drop-goals from marks and general play, and penalty conversions were still the primary form of contest. Irrespective of any differences over the game, the first international match in the whole world was a football match involving the national team of England and Scotland, at Raeburn Place on 27 March 1871.

Rugby football

Further information: Rugby union, Rugby league, American football, and Canadian football§History. Tom Wills, one of the founders of Australian rules football, took part in Rugby football in England before codifying Australian rules.

Cambridge rules

Main article: Cambridge rules

A number of codifications of these rules were made at the University of Cambridge in the 19th century to allow students from different public schools to play each other. The Cambridge Rules of 1863 influenced the decision of the Football Association to ban Rugby-style carrying of the ball in its own first set of laws.[106]

Sheffield rules

Main article: Sheffield rules

By the late 1850s, many football clubs had been formed throughout the English-speaking world, to play various codes of football. Sheffield Football Club, the world's oldest football club, is believed to have been founded in 1857. The club originally played its own code of football: the Sheffield rules. It differed in that it made little concession to public school rules and, notably, it had no rule about offside.

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. They were the dominant code in the north and midlands of England by the 1870s. At this time a series of rule changes by both the London and Sheffield FAs gradually eroded the differences between the two codes. Would adopt a common code in 1877.

Australian rules football

Main article: Australian rules football

See also: Origins of Australian rules football

Tom Wills, major figure in the creation of Australian football

There is archival evidence of "foot-ball" games being played right across the first half of the 19th century in every state and major centre in Australia. The origins of an organised game of football that is known today as Australian rules football can be traced back to 1858 in Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria.

In July 1858, Tom Wills, an Australian-born cricketer educated at Rugby School in England, wrote a letter to Bell's Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle, calling for a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during winter.[109] It is considered by historians to have been a defining moment in the code's creation. Through publicity and personal contacts Wills was able to co-ordinate football matches in Melbourne that experimented with various rules,[110] the first of which was played on 31 July 1858. One week later, Wills umpired a schoolboys match between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College. Following these matches, organised football in Melbourne rapidly increased in popularity.

 Wood engraving of an Australian rules football match at the Richmond Paddock, Melbourne, 1866

Wills and his three colleagues in these early matches together formed the Melbourne Football Club (the oldest surviving Australian football club) on 14 May 1859. Club members Wills, William Hammersley, J. B. Thompson and Thomas H. Smith met with the intention of forming a set of rules that would be widely adopted by other clubs:. The committee debated which set of rules used in English public school games; Wills supported various rugby football rules he learned when studying. The initial rules resemble the mentioned games, and they were adopted for the Australian environment. H. C. A. A seminal figure in Australian football, Harrison, recalled that his cousin Wills wanted "a game of our own".[111] The code was distinctive in the prevalence of the mark, free kick, tackling, lack of an offside rule and that players were specifically penalised for throwing the ball.

The Melbourne football rules were widely distributed and gradually adopted by the other Victorian clubs. The rules were altered a number of times in the 1860s to further accommodate the new features of victorian club's football rules that entered simultaneously at the time. A further substantial redraft in 1866 by a committee chaired by H. C. A. Harrison which led the game then being played under laws known as "Victorian Rules" to become progressively unique. It soon adopted cricket fields and an oval ball, used specialised goal and behind posts, and went on to include bouncing the ball while running and spectacular high marking. The game spread quickly to other Australian colonies. Outside its heartland in southern Australia, the code underwent a significant period of decline after World War I but has since grown throughout Australia and in other parts of the world, and the Australian Football League emerged as the dominant professional competition.

The Football Association

Main article: The Football Association

En. The first football international, Scotland versus England. Once held by the Rugby Football Union as an early example of rugby football.

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:. A further new set of the Cambridge Rules were drawn up by the seven member committee representing former pupils from Harrow, Shrewsbury, Eton, Rugby, Marlborough and Westminster early in October 1863.

Representatives of several football clubs in the London Metropolitan area met at the Freemasons' Tavern, Great Queen Street, London on the evening of 26 October 1863 for the inaugural meeting of the Football Association (FA). Specifically, the association's aim was to establish a single unifying code and to regulate the playing of the game among its members. After the first meeting, the first batch of public schools was invited to join the association. All, with the exception of Charterhouse and Uppingham, declined. The FA had six meetings in total between October and December 1863. After the third gathering, a draft set of rules were published. The just-published Cambridge Rules of 1863, on the other hand, were broached at the beginning of the fourth meeting. The Cambridge Rules made themselves distinct from the draft FA rules in a pair of the two sensitive aspects, i.e., running with (or carrying) the ball and hacking (kicking) at hindrance (i.e., kicking opposing players in the shins). The two contentious FA rules were:

IX. A player, having made a fair catch, that is when a player next gets a touch of the ball after a fair catch has been made, may run with it unless he has completed his mark.

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.[112]

At the fifth meeting it was proposed that these two rules should be expunged. Most of the delegates favoured thi. M. Campbell, the Blackheath representative, and the first FA treasurer, objected: "hacking is the true football". However, the motion was carried on running with the ball in hand and hacking. Blackheath FC withdrew from the FA. After the final session of this meeting on 8 December, the FA published the "Laws of the Game", the first comprehensive set of rules for the game later known as association football. The term "soccer" has been in use since the late 19th century; it derives from an Oxford University abbreviation of "association".

But the first FA rules still contain elements that are no longer part of association football, but which are still recognizable 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.

North American football codes

Main articles: Gridiron football, History of American football, and Canadian football § History

As was the case in Britain, by the early 19th century, North American schools and universities played their own local games, between sides made up of students. For instance, students from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire played a certain game in the 1820s known as 'Old division football', another variant of the association codes. Most of them remained largely mob-football-style games, with huge numbers of players attempting to advance the ball into a goal area, often by any means necessary. It was very violent. Rules were simple, violence and injury were common. The violence of these mob-style games led to widespread protests and a decision to abandon them. Yale University, upon pressure from the city of New Haven, banned the play of all forms of football in 1860, while reform-minded Harvard University followed suit in 1861. Out of the "kicking" games, two general types of football evolved: heel-and-toe games and dribbling games. A hybrid of the two, known as the "Boston game", was played by a group known as the Oneida Football Club. The club, considered by some historians as the first formal football club in America, was formed in 1862 by schoolboys who played the Boston game on Boston Common.[51][114] The game began to return to American college campuses by the late 1860s. They all adapted "kicking" games when the universities of Yale, Princeton (at that time, the College of New Jersey), Rutgers, and Brown started playing such games in 1867.

The Tigers of Hamilton, Ontario, about 1906. Founded 1869 as the Hamilton Foot Ball Club they eventually merged with the Hamilton Flying Wildcats to form the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, a team still active in the Canadian Football League.[115]

In Canada, the first documented football match was a practice game played on 9 November 1861, at University College, University of Toronto (approximately 400 yards west of Queen's Park). One of the early games played in the intercollegiate game of football that would become Canadian football was between the University of Toronto students and the game's umpire was (Sir) William Mulock, later Chancellor of the school.[116] In 1864, at Trinity College, Toronto F. Barlow Cumberland, Frederick A. Bethune and Christopher Gwynn, one of the founders of Milton, Massachusetts, devised rules based on rugby football.[116] In 1868, at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal, the first recorded rugby football game in Canadian history was played; a "running game," resembling rugby football, was then taken up by the Montreal Football Club

It's said Rutgers University (pictured by the slides and lanterns of 1882) played the first inter-collegiate football game v Princeton in that same year, 1869.

On November 6, 1869, Rutgers and Princeton played a college football soccer game, using a round ball and, like all early games, involving each team taking turns kicking the ball at the other team in an effort to get it to the other's goal. It is generally considered the first game of intercollegiate American football.

The Harvard v McGill game in 1874, considered the first rugby football game ever played in the United States.

Modern North American football has its origins in a match played in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1874: McGill University versus Harvard University. The two teams playing alternated five iterations of kicking and carrying  versions of rugby-based rules of the time and, from Montreal, Boston Game rules. A version of the game assigned to Harvard was used. Within a few years, Harvard had both adopted McGill's rules and persuaded other U.S. university teams to do the same. On 23 November 1876, representatives from Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia met at the Massasoit Convention in Springfield, Massachusetts agreeing to adopt most of the Rugby Football Union rules with some variations.[122]

In 1880 at the Massasoit House the rules were tweaked with 306, 312, 314 and 315 approved which added controlling centre, centre three-quarter kick,[122] and restricted the number of players per team to fifteen among other changes and Camp's rule innovations were accepted as follows:. Camp's two most definitive rule changes which differentiated the American game from rugby were replacing the scrummage with the line of scrimmage and the establishment of the down-and-distance rules.[122] American football still however remained a violent sport where collisions often led to serious injuries and sometimes even death.[123] This led U.S. The executive branch's involvement came in the form of a personal threat by President Theodore Roosevelt to call in the leadership of the involved universities and require them to make changes or the government would take action to regulate the sport. Roosevelt convened a meeting on October 9 with football representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton and issued a call for them to make drastic changes.[124] One rule change in 1906, devised to open up the game and reduce injury, was the legal forward. That would turn out to be one of the most important rule changes in the establishment of the modern game, though it was underutilised for years.[125]

Canada did eventually adopt a few of the rule innovations of American football over the years, in an effort to distinguish it from a more rugby-oriented game. In 1903, the Ontario Rugby Football Union adopted the Burnside rules, which implemented the line of scrimmage and down-and-distance system from American football, among others.[126] Canadian football would later adopt the legal forward pass in 1929.[127] The two forms of the game use different field sizes and different ball markings. End zone scoring was also a major change. Though the bands differ in the two forms, rugby football persisted as a more physical game with little vestige of its soccer-style past.