Football History
College Football : History, Spectacle, Controversy
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The book, "College Football : History, Spectacle, Controversy", by John Sayle Watterson (Edition: 00).
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The Football Manager
Football managers are at the center of today`s commercially-driven football world, scrutinized, celebrated and under pressure as never before. This book is the first in-depth history of the role of the manager in British football, tracing a path Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
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NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2005 DVD
You can relive this special occasion in football history with the NFL(r) Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2005 DVD.
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NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2004 DVD
You can relive this special occasion in football history with the NFL(r) Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2004 DVD.
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NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2006 DVD
You can relive this special occasion in football history with the NFL(r) Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2006 DVD.
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The College Football Book (Paperback)
A richly illustrated survey of American college football captures some of the most memorable moments and athletes in the history of the sport in compelling action photographs, biographical profiles, statistics, and essays from the pages of Sports I... Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
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:This article deals with the history and development of the different sports around the world known as "football". For links to articles on each of these codes of football, please see the list in the Football today section of this article. Football is the name given to a number of different, but related, team sports. The most popular of these worldwide is Association football, which is known as soccer'' in some countries. The English language word football is also applied to Rugby football (Rugby union and Rugby league), American football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football and Canadian football.
While it is widely believed that the word football, or "foot ball", originated in reference to the action of a foot kicking a ball, there is a rival explanation, which has it that football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe, which were played on foot.64.233.179.104 (external) These games were usually played by peasants, as opposed to the horse-riding sports often played by aristocrats. While there is no conclusive evidence for this explanation, the word football has always implied a variety of games played on foot, not just those that involved kicking a ball. In some cases, the word football has been applied to games which have specifically outlawed kicking the ball. (See football (word) for more details.)
All football games involve scoring points with a spherical or ellipsoidal ball (itself called a football), by moving the ball into, onto, or over a goal area or line defended by the opposing team. Many of the modern games have their origins in England, but many peoples around the world have played games which involved kicking and/or carrying a ball since ancient times.
The object of all football games is to advance the ball by kicking, running with, or passing and catching, either to the opponent's end of the field where points or goals can be scored by, depending on the game, putting the ball across the goal line between posts and under a crossbar, putting the ball between upright posts (and possibly over a crossbar), or advancing the ball across the opponent's goal line while maintaining possession of the ball.
In all football games, the winning team is the one that has the most points or goals when a specified length of time has elapsed.
History
Throughout the history of mankind the urge to kick at stones and other such objects is thought to have led to many early activities involving kicking and/or running with a ball. Football-like games predate recorded history in all parts of the world, though the earliest forms of football are not known.
Ancient games
Documented evidence of what is possibly the oldest organized activity resembling football can be found in a Chinese military manual written during the Han Dynasty in about 2nd century BC.
It describes a practice known as cuju (Traditional Chinese:蹴鞠 or 蹴踘 ; Pinyin: c jū) which involved kicking a leather ball through a hole in a piece of silk cloth strung between two 30 foot poles. In 2004, FIFA officially acknowledged (external) that the "birthplace" of football is indeed China.
Another Asian ball-kicking game, which may have been influenced by cuju, is kemari. This is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about 600AD.
In kemari several individuals 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 survived through many years but appears to have died out sometime before the mid 19th century.
In 1903 in a bid to restore ancient traditions the game was revived and it can now be seen played for the benefit of tourists at a number of festivals.
The Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games some of which involved the use of the feet.
The Roman writer Cicero describes the case of a man who was killed whilst having a shave when a ball was kicked into a barbers shop.
The Roman game of Harpastu is believed to have been adapted from a team game known as "επισκυρος" (episkyros) or pheninda that is mentioned by Greek playwright, Antiphanes (388-311BC) and later referred to by Clement of Alexandria. The game appears to have vaguely resembled rugby.
There are a number of less well-documented references to prehistoric, ancient or traditional ball games, played by indigenous peoples all around the world. For example, William Strachey of the Jamestown settlement is the first to record a game played by the Native Americans called Pahsaheman, in 1610. In Victoria, Australia, Indigenous Australians played a game called Marn Grook. An 1878 book by Robert Brough-Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, quotes a man called Richard Thomas as saying, in about 1841, 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." It is widely believed that Marn Grook had an influence on the development of Australian Rules Football (see below). In northern Canada and/or Alaska, the Inuit (Eskimos) played a game 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. The ancient Aztec game of ollamalitzli also involved kicking a ball, but it generally had more similarities to basketball.
These games and others may well far back into antiquity and have influenced football over the centuries. However, the route towards the development of modern football games appears to lie in Western Europe and particularly England.
Medival football
The Middle Ages saw a huge rise in popularity of annual Shrovetide football matches throughout Europe, particularly in England. The game played in England at this time may have arrived with the Roman occupation, but there is little evidence to indicate this. Reports of a game played in Brittany, Normandy and Picardy, known as Choule or Soule, suggest that some of these football games could have arrived in England as a result of the Norman Conquest.
These archaic forms of football would be played between neighbouring towns and villages, involving an unlimited number of players on opposing teams, who would clash in a heaving mass of people struggling to drag an inflated pig's bladder by any means possible to markers at each end of a town. A legend that these games in England evolved from a more ancient and bloody ritual of kicking the "Dane's head" is unlikely to be true. Shrovetide games survive in a number of English towns (see below).
The first description of football in England was given by William FitzStephen (c. 1174-1183). He described the activities of London youths during the annual festival of Shrove Tuesday.
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, and after the great loss of life that had occurred during the Black Death, England needed as many archers as possible.
Football featured in similar attempts by monarchs to ban recreational sport across Europe. In France it was banned by Phillippe V in 1319, and again by Charles V in 1369. In England, the outlawing of sport was attempted by Richard II in 1389 and Henry IV in 1401. In Scotland, football was banned by James I in 1424 and by James II in 1457. Despite evidence that Henry VIII of England played the game — in 1526, he ordered the first known pair of football boots — in 1540 Henry also attempted a ban. All of these attempts failed to curb the people's desire to play the game.
By 1608, the local authorities in Manchester were complaining that:
That same year, the modern spelling of the word "football" is first recorded, when it was used disapprovingly by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's play King Lear (which was first published in 1608) 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):
("Spurn" literally means to kick away, thus implying that the game involved kicking a ball between players.)
In the period following the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell had some success in suppressing football games, although they became even more popular following the Restoration, in 1660. Charles II of England gave the game royal approval in 1681 when he attended a fixture between the Royal Household and the Duke of Albemarle's servants.
Even in the early modern era, efforts were made to ban football at a local level, and force it off the streets. In 1827, the annual Alnwick Shrove Tuesday game proceeded only after the Duke of Northumberland provided a field for the game to be played on. (The Duke also presented the ball before the match — a ritual that continues to this day.) In 1835, the British Highways Act banned the playing of football on public highways, with a maximum penalty of forty shillings.