|
|
Where soccer started
The roots of the world game This is a continuation of a great article, click here to read the first part Shrovetide football, as it was called,
belonged in the "mob football" category, where the number of players was
unlimited and the rules were fairly vague
This game is reputedly English in origin and there are many legends concerning its first appearance. For example, in both Kingston-on-Thames and Chester, the story goes that the game was played for the very first time with the severed head of a vanquished Danish prince. In Derby, it is said to have originated far earlier, in the 3rd century, during the victory celebrations that followed a battle against the Romans. Despite the legends of Kingston and Chester, certain facts appear to contradict this theory. Namely that there is no evidence of it having been played at this time in Saxon areas or on the continent, nor is the game mentioned in early literature. Prior to the Norman Conquest, the only trace found of any such ball game comes from a Celtic source. One other possible theory regarding its origin is that when the aforementioned "mob football" was being played in the British Isles in the early centuries A.D., a very similar game was thriving in France, particularly in Normandy and Brittany. So it is quite feasible that the Normans brought this form of the game to England with them. All these theories produce a picture quite bewildering in its complexity - far more complex than the simple rules that governed this form of the game, if we dare even to call them rules. Quite apart from man's natural impulse to demonstrate his strength and skill, even in this chaotic and turbulent fashion, it is certain that in many cases, pagan customs, especially fertility rites, played a major role. |
The ball symbolized the sun, which had to be conquered in order to secure a bountiful harvest. The ball had to be propelled around, or across, a field so that the crops would flourish and the attacks of the opponents had to be warded off.
A similar significance was attached to the
games between married men and bachelors that prevailed for centuries in some
parts of England, and, likewise, to the famous game between married and
unmarried women in the Scottish town of Inveresk at the end of the 17th
century which, perhaps by design, was regularly won by the married women.
Women's football is obviously not so new as some people think.
Scholars might have conflicting views on
the origins of the game and the influences that certain cults may have had
on its evolution, but one thing is incontestable: football has flourished
for over a thousand years in diverse rudimentary forms, in the very region
which we describe as its home, England and the British Isles. The chain of
prohibitions and censures, sometimes harsh, sometimes mild, proves beyond a
shadow of a doubt what tremendous enthusiasm there was for football, even
though it was so often frowned upon by the authorities. The repeated
unsuccessful intervention of the authorities and high offices of the land
shows how powerless they were to restrict it, in spite of their condemnation
and threats of severe punishment. As long ago as 1314 the Lord Mayor of
London saw fit to issue a proclamation forbidding football within the city
due to the rumpus it usually caused. Infringement of this law meant
imprisonment. King Edward III passed extremely harsh measures in 1331 to
suppress football, which was regarded as a public nuisance. At the same
time, similar measures were also introduced in France. During the 100 years' war between England and France from
1338 to 1453 the court was also unfavorably disposed towards football,
albeit for different reasons. Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V
made football punishable by law because the well-loved recreation prevented
their subjects from practicing more useful military disciplines,
particularly archery, which played an important and valuable role in the
English army at that time.
All the Scottish kings of the 15th Century
also deemed it necessary to censure and prohibit football. Particularly
famous amongst these was the decree proclaimed by the Parliament convened by
James I in 1424: "That na man play at the Fute-ball". None of these efforts
had much effect. The popularity of the game amongst the people and their
obvious delight in the rough and tumble for the ball went far too deep to be
uprooted. The passion for football was particularly exuberant in
Elizabethan times. An influence that most likely played a part in
intensifying the native popularity for the game came from Renaissance Italy,
particularly from Florence, but also from Venice and other cities that had
produced their own brand of football known as "Calcio". lt was
certainly more organized than the English equivalent and was played by teams
dressed in colored livery at the important gala events held on certain
holidays in Florence. It was a truly splendid spectacle. In England the game
was still as rough and ungracious and lacking in refinement as ever, but it
did at this time find a prominent supporter who commended if for other
reasons when he saw the simple joy of the players romping after the ball.
This supporter was Richard Mulcaster,
the great pedagogue, head of the famous schools of Merchant Taylor's and
St. Paul's. He pointed out that the game had positive educational value
and it promoted health and strength. He claimed that all that was needed
was to refine it a little and give it better manners. His notion was
that the game would benefit most if the number of participants in each
team were limited and, more importantly, there were a stricter referee.
Resentment of football up to this time had
been mainly for practical reasons. The game had been regarded as a public
disturbance that resulted in damage to property, for example, in Manchester
in 1608, football was banned again because so many windows had been smashed.
In the course of the 16th century a quite new type of
attack was launched against football. With the spread of Puritanism, the cry
went up against "frivolous" amusements, and sport happened to be classified
as such, football in particular. The main objection was that it supposedly
constituted a violation of peace on the Sabbath. Similar attacks were made
against the theatre, which strait-laced Puritans regarded as a source of
idleness and iniquity. This laid the foundations for the entertainment ban
on English Sundays, which would later become a permanent feature during the
Commonwealth and Puritanical eras (even though it is said that Oliver
Cromwell himself was a keen footballer in his youth). From then on football
on Sundays was taboo. It remained so for some 30 years, until the ban was
lifted once again, at first unofficially and ultimately with the formal
consent of The Football Association, albeit on a rather small scale. However, none of these obstacles could
eradicate football. Take Derby as an example. Between 1731 and 1841, the
town's authorities made continual attempts to ban football from the streets.
In the end, they had to resort to riot laws before there was any effect at
all. All told there was scarcely any progress at
all in the development of football for hundreds of years. But, although the
game was persistently forbidden for 500 years, it was never completely
suppressed. As a consequence, it remained essentially rough, violent and
disorganized. A change did not come about until the beginning of the 19th
century when school football became the custom, particularly in the famous
public schools. This was the turning point. In this new environment, it was
possible to make innovations and refinements to the game. The rules were still relatively free and
easy as there was still no standard, organized form of the game. Each school
in fact developed its own adaptation and, at times, these varied
considerably. The traditional aspects of the game remained but innovations
depended for the most part on the playing ground available. If use had to be
made of a paved school playground, surrounded by a brick wall, then there
was simply not enough space for the old hurly-burly mob football.
Circumstances such as these made schools like Charterhouse, Westminster,
Eton and Harrow give birth to the type of game in which more depended on the
players' dribbling virtuosity than the robust energy required in a scrum. On
the other hand, schools such as Cheltenham and Rugby were more inclined
towards the more rugged game in which the ball could be touched with the
hands or even carried. All these early styles were given a great boost when
it was recognized in educational circles that football was not merely an
excuse to indulge in a childish romp, but could actually be beneficial
educationally. What is more it was accepted that it also constituted a
useful distraction from less desirable occupations, such as heavy drinking
and gambling. A new attitude began to permeate the game, eventually leading
to a "games cult" in public schools. This materialized when it was observed
how well the team game served to encourage such fine qualities as loyalty,
selflessness, cooperation, subordination and deference to the team spirit.
Games became an integral part of the school curriculum and participation in
football became compulsory. Dr. Thomas Arnold, the head of Rugby school,
made further advances in this direction, when in 1846 in Rugby the first
truly standardized rules for an organized game were laid down. These were in
any event quite rough enough, for example, they permitted kicking an
opponent's legs below the knees, with the reserve that he should not be held
still whilst his shins were being worked on. Handling the ball was also
allowed and ever since the memorable occasion in 1823 when William Webb
Ellis, to the amazement of his own team and his opponents, made a run with
the ball tucked under his arm, carrying the ball has been permitted. Many
schools followed suit and adopted the rules laid down in Rugby, others, such
as Eton, Harrow and Winchester, rejected this form of football, and gave
preference to kicking the ball and carrying it was forbidden. Charterhouse
and Westminster were also against handling the ball. However, they did not
isolate their style as some schools did, instead they formed a nucleus from
which this style of game began to spread. Finally, in 1863, developments reached a climax. At
Cambridge University, where in 1848 attempts had already been made by former
pupils from the various schools to find a common denominator for all the
different adaptations of the game, a fresh initiative began to establish
some uniform standards and rules that would be accepted by everyone. It was
at this point that the majority spoke out against such rough customs as
tripping, shin-kicking and so on. As it happened, the majority also
expressed disapproval at carrying the ball. It was this that caused the
Rugby group to withdraw. They would probably have agreed to refrain from
shin-kicking, which was in fact later banned in the Rugby regulations, but
they were reluctant to relinquish carrying the ball.
This Cambridge action was an endeavor to
sort out the utter confusion surrounding the rules. The decisive initiative,
however, was taken after to a series of meetings organized at the end of the
same year (1863) in London. On 26 October 1963, eleven London clubs and
schools sent their representatives to the Freemason's Tavern. These
representatives were intent on clarifying the muddle by establishing a set
of fundamental rules, acceptable to all parties, to govern the matches
played amongst them. This meeting marked the birth of The Football
Association. The eternal dispute concerning shin-kicking, tripping and
carrying the ball was discussed thoroughly at this and consecutive meetings
until eventually on 8 December the die-hard exponents of the Rugby style
took their final leave. They were in the minority anyway. They wanted no
part in a game that forbade tripping, shin-kicking and carrying the ball. A
stage had been reached where the ideals were no longer compatible. On 8
December 1863, football and rugby finally split. Their separation became
totally irreconcilable six years hence when a provision was included in the
football rules forbidding any handling of the ball (not only carrying it).
Only eight years after its foundation, The
Football Association already had 50 member clubs. The first football
competition in the world was started in the same year - the FA Cup, which
preceded the League Championship by 17 years. International matches were being staged in
Great Britain before football had hardly been heard of in Europe. The first
was played in 1872 and was contested by England and Scotland. This sudden
boom of organized football accompanied by staggering crowds of spectators
brought with it certain problems with which other countries were not
confronted until much later on. Professionalism was one of them. The first
moves in this direction came in 1879, when Darwin, a small Lancashire club,
twice managed to draw against the supposedly invincible Old Etonians in the
FA Cup, before the famous team of London amateurs finally scraped through to
win at the third attempt. Two Darwin players, the Scots John Love and Fergus
Suter, are reported as being the first players ever to receive remuneration
for their football talent. This practice grew rapidly and the Football
Association found itself obliged to legalize professionalism as early as
1885. This development predated the formation of any national association
outside of Great Britain (namely, in the Netherlands and Denmark) by exactly
four years. After the English Football Association, the
next oldest are the Scottish FA (1873), the FA of Wales (1875) and the Irish
FA (1880). Strictly speaking, at the time of the first international match,
England had no other partner association against which to play. When
Scotland played England in Glasgow on 30 November 1872, the Scottish FA did
not even exist - it was not founded for another three months. The team
England played that day was actually the oldest Scottish club team, Queen's
Park. The spread of football outside of Great
Britain, mainly due to the British influence abroad, started slow, but it
soon gathered momentum and spread rapidly to all parts of the world. The
next countries to form football associations after the Netherlands and
Denmark in 1889 were New Zealand (1891), Argentina (1893), Chile (1895),
Switzerland, Belgium (1895), Italy (1898), Germany, Uruguay (both in 1900),
Hungary (1901) and Finland (1907). When FIFA was founded in Paris in May
1904 it had seven founder members: France, Belgium, Denmark, the
Netherlands, Spain (represented by the Madrid FC), Sweden and Switzerland.
The German Football Federation cabled its intention to join on the same day.
< This international football community grew
steadily, although it sometimes met with obstacles and setbacks. In 1912, 21
national associations were already affiliated to the Fédération
Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). By 1925, the number had
increased to 36, in 1930 - the year of the first World Cup - it was 41, in
1938, 51 and in 1950, after the interval caused by the Second World War, the
number had reached 73. At present, after the 2000 Ordinary FIFA Congress,
FIFA has 204 members in every part of the world.
The Borough of Manhattan Community College was founded in 1963 and opened in 1964 as a small, primarily business-oriented junior college offering programs aimed at the business community.
More sports history and facts
Badminton Baseball Basketball Golf Lacrosse Marathon Soccer Softball Swimming Tennis Track and Field Volleyball Wrestling
GENERAL INFORMATION
Baseball I Basketball I Bowling I Cardio Respiratory Fitness I Fitness Training I Football I Golf I Gym Training I Helmets I Hockey Lacrosse I Lose Weight I NJCAA Colleges I Quit Smoking I Running I Scholarship News I Shoes I Soccer I Sports Clothing Sports Medicine I Sports Training I Steroids I Swimming I Tennis I Volleyball I Weight Training I Wrestling
| Home I About Us I Amateur Status I Articles I Eligibility I Partners I Resources I Services I Sports History I Contact Us |
© Copyright. All rights reserved.