The Essential History of Soccer

[Luba]

by Bill Hutchison "Your Guide to World Soccer"

There is documentary evidence that a game or skill building exercise, involving kicking a ball into a small net, was used by the Chinese military during the Han Dynasty-around the 2nd and 3rd Centuries BC.

Earlier evidence - of a field marked out to play a ball-kicking game has been found at Kyoto, Japan.

Greeks and ancient Romans played a soccer-type game which resembled modern soccer - although in this early version, teams could consist of up to 27 players. It is impossible to say accurately where and when soccer started, but some type of the ball game was played on the planet for over 3000 years.

Britain is the birthplace of modern soccer/association football; Scotland and England being co-founders of the organised game. Football-as soccer is called in Britain-was a popular sport of the masses from the 8th century.

There is a story which places the first football game in the east of England- where the locals played 'football' with the severed head of a Danish Prince they had defeated in battle! In medieval times, towns and villages played against rival towns and villages-kicking, punching, biting and gouging were allowed. So violent did these matches become that many attempts were made by authorities to ban soccer. Good Queen Bess, Queen Elizabeth 1 of England, had a law passed which provided for soccer players to be "jailed for a week, and obliged to do penance in church."

In 1815, the famous English Schoo, Eton college, established a set of rules which other schools, colleges and Universities began to use. In 1848 most of England's Universities and Colleges used these standardised rules, known as the Cambridge Rules.

The Football Association was created on October 26, 1863 when eleven London clubs and schools sent their representatives to a meeting in the Freemason's Tavern to establish a single set of fundamental rules to goven the matches played against them. In 1869 the Football Association included in their rules a provision which forbade any handling of the ball on which the modern game stands.

"Rugger", was slang for Rugby Football. A student of Oxford University, Charles Wreford Brown, was asked if he liked to play rugger. 'No soccer!' was his witty reply. He had shortened asSOCiation (football) and added "er". The term was coined. He went on to play international soccer for England.