3d History - Soccer

Football is a game that has existed in various forms for as long as man has been civilised.

The Roman team was well regarded for its solid defence.

A type of football, called harpaston, was practised by the ancient Greeks, the Romans played a similar game called harpastum. The rules were simple - get the ball across the opposing teams line by kicking it, running across it holding the ball or by throwing it to another player. The opposition had one objective, to stop them by whatever means possible (often applied with extreme prejudice!). The games were typical of many early forms of football - there were few rules, the size of the pitch was unspecified, there were no set number of players and it was very rough and brutal (did someone say civilised?).

Other known forms of football include the medieval game of calcio from Italy and a game favoured by the Polynesians that utilised a ball made of bamboo fibres.

The modern game of Soccer is thought to have originated from England in the twelfth century. The Kings of England at that time, in particular Edward II and Henry VI, banned the playing of the game on the grounds that it stopped the practice of Archery. English archers may have beaten the French at Crecy and Agincourt.....

It was not until the 19th century that the game of football really became accepted as an organised sport. To understand why one must consider what the alternative forms of entertainment were at the time:

Cock fighting, bear baiting and bull baiting were favourite pastimes of the lower classes until they were banned under the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1835.

Cricket was an established sport by the early 19th century, a professional England team toured the country encouraging local clubs to be formed.

Horseracing was a popular sport for the masses, the first grand National was held at Aintree in 1839.

Henry VI

Executions were another great attraction. It wasn't unknown for crowds of 10,000 to gather each week to watch a hanging.

There were also music-halls and the circus, but what the lower classes really went in for in a big way was alcohol!

England, in the 18th century, suffered a huge problem with drink, largely due to cheap and readily available gin. To address the problem, the Beer Act of 1830 was passed allowing more ale houses to be opened and the beer tax was reduced to encourage people to stop drinking gin. The Ale houses were warm and friendly and were the only real place where the working-man could go to relax (frequently very relaxed no doubt).

Football had been played in the public schools for some time. As the ex-public school boys left and entered employment as mangers and mill or factory owners they took the sport with them, introducing it to the masses as an amateur sport. The average working man, though, could not afford to take the time off from work to play so the sport remained the preserve of the well off.

In 1855 a group of cricketers and friends from Collingswood School formed the first club, Sheffield F.C. On October 26th, 1863 the Football Association was formed at the Freemason's Tavern, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn-Fields, London. On November 10th the F.A. met once more to establish a set of common rules for Association Football, or Soccer, for its members to adopt. By 1870 eleven players per side had become established football law and by 1875 crossbars, at a height of 8ft, had replaced tape between the posts.

In 1871 the first FA Cup competition was held, the final being played at Kennington Oval, Wanderers beating the Royal Engineers 1-0.

The football league was formed in 1888 with twelve founding members: Accrington Stanley, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Derby County, Everton, Notts. County, Preston North End, Stoke City, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

As Acts were passed limiting the working week, the mines and factories closed at mid-day on Saturday allowing the workers to attend the 3pm matches to play and watch. The crowds grew, stadiums were built to accommodate them and the club owners started to charge fees and encourage the best players to play for their teams.

Informal payments, referred to as 'broken time' because they were intended to compensate for lost working hours, were paid to players, much to the disgust of the 'gentlemen' of the sport who wished to keep it strictly amateur.

Facilitated by the expansion of the railways, attendances at matches steadily grew and the working classes had finally found a cheap and socially acceptable way of spending a Saturday afternoon. Football was increasingly becoming the pursuit of the working classes and, as payments were already accepted in Soccer, it was not subject to an Amateur / Professional split as Rugby was.

By the 1930's football was a well established sport, being played at many levels on private and municipal grounds all over England. English travellers had exported the sport all over the world, to places like Spain, Italy, Argentina and Brazil and in 1930 the first World Cup was played.

Commercial interest in the game increased in the 1960's mainly due to England's World Cup Win of 1966 and by the late 1970's sponsorship as we know it today was common. Big businesses sponsored not only clubs but also individual players and some of the big competitions like the League Cup. The modern football player is a world away from the player of the 1930's, some even being elevated to the status of superstars with followers from all over the world.

Today Soccer is a sport followed by millions from around the world, earning huge sums of money for the most successful clubs, not only through gate receipts but also from merchandising and advertising. If only old Henry VI had encouraged football - who knows what might have happened! (but that's another story.)