History of football (soccer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The history of association football can be traced back into ancient times, but the modern game has its roots firmly in the traditional football games played at the public schools of England. By the mid-19th century, the enthusiasm that some former public school pupils still had for the games of their youth led to them forming amateur football clubs, each playing to the rules of a particular school. When teams from different traditions played each other there were often disputes about exactly how the game should be played. In 1863 some of the English clubs met at the Freemason's Tavern, London to form the The Football Association (FA) with the aim of creating a universal set of rules that would allow clubs to play each other without dispute. The impact of the FA was not immediate as football was still very much an amateur activity. The first professional clubs were formed once the working classes took up the sport, and businessmen saw an opportunity to make money from spectators coming to see star players. Once professionalism took hold the popularity of the game became immense and was soon spread throughout the world by British expatriates.
Contents |
[edit] Ancient history
See
[edit] The Public Schools of England
The development of the modern game springs directly from the various games of football played in the public schools of England. Football had come to be adopted by a number of public schools as a way of encouraging competitiveness and keeping youths fit. Each school drafted their own rules to suit the dimensions of their playing field. Richard Mulcaster who attended Eton College and became headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School and St Paul's School has been described as “the greatest sixteenth Century advocate of football” [1]. His unique contribution is not only naming "footeball" by its correct English name but also providing the earliest evidence of organised team football. He tells us that towards the end of the sixteenth century football in England had grown to "greatnes... [and was] much used ... in all places". The universally popular game was mob football, but he describes a very different "footeball" for schoolboys. Mulcaster confirms it is proper foot ball as he differentiates his from games involving other parts of the body, namely "the hand ball" and "the armeball". He referred to the many benefits of "footeball" in his personal publication of 1581 in English entitled ‘Positions Wherein Those Primitive Circumstances Be Examined, Which Are Necessarie for the Training up of Children’.[2] He states that football had positive educational value and it promoted health and strength. Mulcaster's discussion on football shows us that his game was much closer to modern football. He was the first to refer to teams ("sides" and "parties"), positions ("standings"), the benefits of a referee ("judge over the parties") and a coach "(trayning maister)". Mulcaster describes a game for small teams that is organised under the auspices of a referee (and is therefore the first evidence that the game had evolved from disordered and violent "mob" football): "Some 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". Along with the referee must come rules, however Mulcaster only tells us about the referee serving to keep the game safe and preventing "complaint" and "inconveniences". As a result of his enthusiasm for football at a time when it was outlawed and his accurate description in English of it as an organised and refereed team sport Richard Mulcaster is considered the father of early modern football.The rules varied widely between different schools and were changed over time with each new intake of pupils. Soon, two schools of thought about how football should be played emerged. Some schools favoured a game in which the ball could be carried (as at Rugby, Marlborough and Cheltenham), whilst others preferred a game where kicking and dribbling the ball was promoted (as at Eton, Harrow, Westminster and Charterhouse). The division into these two camps was partly the result of circumstances in which the games were played. At Charterhouse and Westminster the boys were confined to playing their ball game within the cloisters making the rough and tumble of the handling game difficult.
The boom in rail transport in Britain during the 1840s meant that people were able to travel further and with less inconvenience than they ever had before. Inter-school sporting competitions became possible. While local rules for athletics could be easily understood by visiting schools, it was nearly impossible for schools to play each other at football, as each school played by its own rules.
[edit] The Cambridge Rules
In 1848 at Cambridge University, Mr. H. de Winton and Mr. J.C. Thring, who were both formerly at Shrewsbury School, called a meeting at Trinity College, Cambridge with 12 other representatives from Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury. An eight-hour meeting produced what amounted to the first set of modern rules, known as the Cambridge Rules. No copy of these rules now exists, but a revised version from circa 1856 is held in the library of Shrewsbury School. The rules clearly favour the kicking game. Handling was only allowed for a player to take a clean catch entitling them to a free kick and there was a primitive offside rule, disallowing players from "loitering" around the opponents' goal. The Cambridge Rules were not widely adopted, but did influence English public schools and universities. As a result they went on to have a significant influence on the development of today's rules of Soccer when these were firstdrawn up by the newly formed Football Association. Football Association committee member J.F.Alcock, for example, described them thus in 1863: "'The Cambridge Rules appear to be the most desirable for the Association to adopt' The 1856 copy of these rules shows that there was already a "University Football Club" at Cambridge in 1856 and it is very likely that it was founded some years prior to this date.
[edit] The Football Association
Main article: History of The Football Association
During the early 1860s, there were increasing attempts in England to unify and reconcile the various football games that were played in the public school of England. 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). In early October 1863 another new revised version of the Cambridge Rules was drawn up by a seven member committee representing former pupils from Harrow, Shrewsbury, Eton, Rugby, Marlborough and Westminster.
Ebenezer Cobb Morley, a solicitor from Hull, wrote to Bell's Life newspaper in 1863 proposing a governing body for the soccer that led to the first meeting at the Freemason's Tavern that created the FA. Ebenezer Cobb Morley was to become the FA's first secretary (1863-6) and its second president (1867-74), but is particularly remembered as it was he who drafted the first Laws of the Game at his home in Barnes, London, that are today played the world over. For this, he is considered not just the father of the Football Association, but of Association Football (soccer) itself.
On the evening of October 26, 1863, representatives of several football clubs in the Greater London area met at the Freemason's Tavern in Great Queen Street. This was the first meeting of The Football Association (FA). It was the world's first official football body and for this reason is not preceded with the word English. Charterhouse was the only school which accepted invitations to attend. The first meeting resulted in the issuing of a request for representatives of the public schools to join the association. With the exception of Thring at Uppingham, most schools declined. In total, six meetings of the FA were held between October and December 1863. After the third meeting, a draft set of rules were published by the FA. However, at the beginning of the fourth meeting, attention was drawn to the recently-published Cambridge Rules of 1863. The Cambridge rules differed from the draft FA rules in two significant areas; namely running with (carrying) the ball and hacking (kicking opposing players in the shins). The two contentious FA rules were as follows:
- IX. A player shall be entitled to run with the ball towards his adversaries' goal if he makes a fair catch, or catches the ball on the first bound; but in case of a fair catch, if he makes his mark he shall not run.
- 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.
At the fifth meeting a motion was proposed that these two rules be removed from the FA rules. Most of the delegates supported this suggestion but F. W. Campbell, the representative from Blackheath and the first FA treasurer, objected strongly. He said, "hacking is the true football". The motion was carried nonetheless and — at the final meeting — Campbell withdrew his club from the FA. After the final meeting on 8 December the FA published the "Laws of Football", the first comprehensive set of rules for the game later known as Association football. The game also came to be called "soccer" as a shortening of "Association" around the same time as Rugby football, colloquially referred to as "rugger", was developing as the main carrying of the ball version of English football, and "soccer" remains a common descriptor in countries with other prominent football codes today.
These first FA rules still contained elements that are no longer part of Association football, but which are still recognisable in other games (Rugby Union, Australian rules 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 in front of the goal line.
The laws of the game agreed on by the FA members stipulated a maximum length and breadth for the pitch, the procedure for kicking off, and definition of terms, including goal, throw in, offside. Passing the ball by hand was still permitted provided the ball was caught "fairly or on the first bounce". Despite the specifications of footwear having no "tough nails, iron plates and gutta percha" there were no specific rule on number of players, penalties, foul play or the shape of the ball, captains of the participating teams were expected to agree on these things prior to the match.
[edit] Foundations of a competition
The laws laid down by the FA had an immediate effect, with Sheffield and Nottingham (now Notts County) joining playing an annual fixture on the FA code among others. In 1865 Nottingham Forest was founded, and the first derby game took place. Over the next two years Chesterfield and Stoke joined the code. This finally meant that football was no longer an exclusive sport of public schools. However, it was by no means a working class pass time. By this time teams had settled into 11 players each, and the game was played with round balls.
In 1867 the offside law was altered, it previously stated that all players in front of the ball were offside, eliminating passing of the ball forwards, much like in rugby today. The rule was relaxed. A Sheffield against London game in 1866 had allowed the FA to observe how the rules were affecting the game, subsequently handling of the ball was also abolished except for one player on each team, the goalkeeper. And a red tape between the two goalposts to indicate the top of the goal. Also a national competition was proposed.
[edit] The first FA Cup
On July 20, 1871, C. W. Alcock, a gentleman from Sunderland and a former pupil of Harrow School proposed that "a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the [Football] Association",[1] the idea that gave birth to the competition .The First FA Cup was played in 1872, Wanderers and Royal Engineers met in the final in front of 2,000 paying spectators. Despite the Royal Engineers being the heavy favourites, one of their players sustained a broken collar bone early on and since substitutions had not yet been introduced, the Engineers played a man down for the rest of the match which they eventually lost 1-0.
The FA Cup was a success and within a few years all of the clubs in England wanted to take part, to do so they had to accept the FA code, this led to the quick spread of a universal set of rules. These rules are the basis of which all association football rules today stem from.
Later competitions saw the 'Gentleman' or Southerners dominate with Old Etonians, Wanderers, Royal Engineers and Oxford University who amongst them took 19 titles. Queens Park withdrew in the semi-finals of the 1873 cup (which due to the format being played that year meant that all the challengers to Wanderers' trophy played a competition for the right to throw down the gauntlet and play the holders, hence the full name FA Challenge Cup) because they had trouble raising travel expenses to pay for the constant trips to England, this directly led to the formation of the Scottish FA. However despite this, Queens Park continued to participate in the FA Cup, reaching the final twice, before the Scottish FA banned Scottish clubs from entering in 1887.
In 1872, Alcock purchased the Football Association Cup for £20, fifteen clubs entered the competition that year. Queen's Park reached the semi finals without playing due to withdrawals, but then after a goalless draw with Wanderers, were forced to withdraw as before the advent of penalties and extra time, they could not afford to come back to London for the replay. Wanderers won the cup outright in 1878 after what remains to this day one of only two hat tricks of wins ever. However they returned the cup to the FA in order for the competition to continue, on the condition that no other club could win the cup outright ever again.
[edit] The first league
- Main article Football League: History
In 1888, William McGregor a gentleman from Perthshire and a director of Aston Villa F.C was the main force between meetings held in London and Manchester involving 12 football clubs, with an eye to a league competition. These 12 clubs would later become the Football League's 12 founder members. The meetings were held in London on 22 March 1888, the main concern was that an early exit in the knockout format of the FA cup could leave clubs with no matches for almost a year, not only could they suffer heavy financial losses, but fans didn't often stick around for that long without a game, when others teams were playing. Matters were finalised on the 17 April in Manchester.
McGregor had voted against the name The Football League, as he was concerned that it would be associated with the Irish Land League[2]. But this name still won by a majority vote and was selected. The competition guaranteed fixtures and members for all of its member clubs. The clubs were split equally among North and Midlands teams and Southern teams, who were still strictly amateur.
A rival English league called the Football Alliance operated from 1889 to 1892. In 1892 it was decided to formally merge the two leagues, and so the Football League Second Division was formed, consisting mostly of Football Alliance clubs. The existing League clubs, plus three of the strongest Alliance clubs, comprised the Football League First Division.
[edit] The first International
Charles Alcock, who was elected to secretary of the FA at the age of 28, devised the Idea of an international competition, inaugurating an annual England-Scotland. His put advertisements in papers in Glasgow, informing people of an international between the two countries at Kennington Oval, then the home of Surrey Cricket Club. After the appeal, a team of Scottish players was put together and captained by Robert Smith, one of the three brothers who helped found Queens Park FC. His team which lost the match 1-0 was composed entirely of Scots, living in England"[3]. Other the next three annual fixtures at Kennington, the best the Scots could manage was a 1-1 draw, the fourth fixture was played at the home of the West of Scotland Cricket Club in Partick. It was a goalless draw, and so one of the most bitterly disputed fixtures in footballing history was born. The first non-European international was contested on the 28 November 1885, at Newark, New Jersey, between the USA and Canada, the Canadians winning 1-0.
[edit] From amateurism to professionalism
- see also British Football Association (1884–1885) and the Amateur Football Association founded in 1907.
When football was gaining popularity during the 1870s and 1880s professionalism was banned in England and Scotland. Then in the 1880s, soon after Wanderers disbanded, in the north of England, teams started hiring players known as 'professors of football', who were professionals from Scotland. This was the first time professionalism got into football. The clubs in working class areas, especially in Northern England and Scotland wanted professional football in order to afford playing football besides working. Several clubs were accused of employing professionals. In 1885 the FA legalized professional football, but with a national wage limit. The northern clubs made of lower class paid players started to gain momentum over the amateur 'Gentleman Southerners'. The first northern club to reach the FA Cup final was Blackburn Rovers in 1882, where they lost to Old Etonians, who were the last amateur team to win the trophy.
Early English women's teams, such as the Dick, Kerr's Ladies from Preston, were so popular that their matches raised money for charities. The first recorded women's football match, on 23 March 1895, was held in England between a northern and southern team. The fundraising matches continued, in spite of objections. A maximum wage was placed on players, players challenged this and came close to strike action in 1909, but it was not to be for another fifty years before the maximum wage was abolished. In 1921, women were banned from playing on FA league grounds. FA history states that this ban "effectively destroyed the game" in England for the next 40 years.[4] Hakoah Vienna was probably the first non-English club to pay their players during the 1920s. They were also the first non-English club to beat an English club in England when they beat West Ham United 5-1 in 1923.
In 1934 the Swedish club Malmö FF was relegated from the top division after it had been discovered that they paid their players, something that was not allowed in Swedish football at the time.
[edit] Football spreads around the world
[edit] Continental Europe
The oldest club in continental Europe could be the Swiss club Lausanne Football and Cricket Club, founded 1860.
Football was introduced in the Danish club Kjøbenhavns Boldklub (KB) by English residents[5] and in the Swiss club FC St. Gallen in 1879. This makes KB and St. Gallen the oldest still existing football clubs on Continental Europe. The Danish Football Association was founded in 1889. Italian football was played in regional groups from its foundation in 1898 until 1929 when the Serie A was organized into a national league by the Italian Football Federation. La Liga, Spain's national league, had its first season in 1928, with its participants based off of the previous winners of the Copa del Rey, which began in 1902. The German national league, the Bundesliga was late in foundation, especially for European countries, given it wasn't founded until 1963. Prior to the formation of the Bundesliga, German football was played at an amateur level in a large number of regional leagues.
[edit] South America
The first recorded football match in Argentina was played already in 1867 by English railway workers. The Argentine professional leagues (previously, football was an amateur sport) were founded in 1931 by the Argentine Football Association, which itself was founded by a Scottish schoolteacher Alexander Watson Hutton in 1893.
In the 1870s an expatriate named John Miller who worked on the railway construction project in Sao Paulo together with some 3000 other immigrant families from the British Isles in the last decades of the 19th century. Mr. Miller decided to send his young boy Charles William Miller to England for his education. In 1884 Charles aged 10 was sent to Bannisters school in Southampton. Charles was a natural footballer who quickly picked up the arts the game. The football association was being formed at the time. Eton, Rugby, Charterhouse and other colleges all had developed their own rules to the game. As an accomplished winger and striker Charles held school honours that were to gain him entry first into the Southampton Club team and then into the County team of Hampshire.
In 1892 a couple of years before his return to Brazil, Charles was invited to play a game for the Corinthians, a team formed of players invited from public schools and universities.
On his return Charles brought some football equipment and a rules book with him. He then went on to develop the new rules of the game amongst the community in São Paulo. In 1888, six years before his return, the first sports club was founded in the city, São Paulo Athletic Club. São Paulo Athletic Club won the first three years championships. Miller's skills were far and above his colleagues at this stage. He was given the honour of contributing his name to a move involving a deft flick of the ball with the heel "Chaleira".
Charles Miller kept a strong bond with English football throughout his life. Teams from Southampton and Corinthians Club came over to Brazil and played against São Paulo Athletic Club and other teams in São Paulo. One on occasion in 1910 a new local team was about to be formed after a tour of the Corinthians team to Brazil and Charles was asked to suggest a name for the team. He suggested they should call themselves after Corinthians.
In 1988 when São Paulo Athletic Club celebrated its centenary and the English Corinthians Team came across again to play them at Morumbi Stadium. The end of the tour was against the local professional Corinthians Paulista team with Sócrates and Rivelino amongst its players. This game was played at Paecambu Stadium in São Paulo and true to Corinthian principles of good clean football the score was 1 to 0 in favour of the locals when as agreed Socrates changed shirts to play alongside the English amateurs. This did not affect the score unfortunately although a largely packed stadium was cheering on for a drawn result.
The Brazilian Football Confederation was founded in 1914, and the current format for the Campeonato Brasileiro was established in 1971.
[edit] Globalised football progresses
[edit] Founding of FIFA
The need for a single body to oversee the worldwide game became apparent at the beginning of the 20th century with the increasing popularity of international fixtures. The English Football Association had chaired many discussions on setting up an international body, but was perceived as making no progress. It fell to seven other European countries to band together to form this association. FIFA was founded in Paris on May 21, 1904 - the French name and acronym persist to this day, even outside French-speaking countries. Its first president was Robert Guérin.
FIFA presided over its first international competition in 1906, however it met with little approval or success. This, in combination with economic factors, led to the swift replacement of Guérin with Daniel Burley Woolfall from England, by now a member association. The next tournament staged the football competition for the 1908 Olympics in London was more successful, despite the presence of professional footballers, contrary to the founding principles of FIFA.
Membership of FIFA expanded beyond Europe with the application of South Africa in 1909, Argentina in 1912 and the United States in 1913.
FIFA however floundered during World War I with many players sent off to war and the possibility of travel for international fixtures severely limited. Post-war, following the death of Woolfall, the organisation fell into the hands of Dutchman Carl Hirschmann. It was saved from extinction, but at the cost of the withdrawal of the Home Nations, who cited an unwillingness to participate in international competitions with their recent World War enemies.
In 1946 the four British nations returned. On 10 May 1947 a 'Match of the Century' between Great Britain and 'Rest of Europe XI' was played at Hampden Park in Glasgow before 135,000 spectators - Britain won 6-1. The proceeds from the match, coming to £35 000, were given to FIFA, to help re-launch it after World War Two. This was followed by FIFA's first post-war World Cup in 1950, held in Brazil. FIFA, meanwhile, continued to expand so that by the time of its fiftieth anniversary it had 84 members.
[edit] FIFA Men's World Cup
The first football world cup was played in Uruguay in 1930. Many countries did not enter, with most of them coming from the Americas. By 1950 however, European teams took interest, and the competition blossomed into the worlds biggest footballing event. Brazil have won the championship a record 5 times. From this, other championships emerged - The European Championship, South America's Copa América, Oceania's OFC Nations Cup, Asian Cup, African Cup Of Nations and North America's Gold Cup are the main competitions of each continent.
[edit] FIFA Women's World Cup
The FIFA Women's World Cup was inaugurated with the FIFA Women's World Cup 1991, hosted in China, with 12 teams sent to represent their countries. Over 650,000 spectators attended the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup and nearly 1 billion viewers from 70 countries tuned in. By the FIFA Women's World Cup 2003, 16 teams competed in the championship finals. Of the four tournaments held to date (2006), the USA has won the championship twice, Norway once and Germany most recently. Women's confederations are the same as men's: Oceania (OFC), European (UEFA), North, Central America and Caribbean (CONCACAF), South American (CONMEBOL), Asian (AFC) and African (CAF).
[edit] See also
- English football on television
- European Cup and Champions League history
- Football
- History of football in Poland
- National Football Museum (UK)
[edit] Literature
- Heatley, Michael, "A History of Football", Green Umbrella Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-7509-3953-2
[edit] References
- ^ History of The FA Cup. The Football Association. Retrieved on May 1, 2006.
- ^ "A History of Football", p.22
- ^ The first international football match. BBC. Retrieved on May 1, 2006.
- ^ Background and Brief History. thefa. Retrieved on May 22, 2006.
- ^ (Danish) Fodboldens Danmarks-historie. Danish Football Association. Retrieved on May 1, 2006.
