The History Of Soccer

By Author: Mark Heffernan
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Played by more than 3 billion people and loved today by billions more, soccer's history is clouded with the mists of time, checkered with official bans, and spans across the continents and centuries. It's hard to tell where, exactly, soccer comes from, but we do know where it has been, and what has transpired in its travels from game of warriors to game of the world.
Ancient Soccer
The first recorded reference to a soccer-like game involving a ball and kicking comes to us from Ancient Asia. In 1004 BC, the game was played in Japan by groups of warriors as part of their training. A military manuscript from 50 BC describes games similar to soccer being played between teams from Japan and China. The game was called Cuju and involved kicking a primitive leather ball through a hole in a piece of silk cloth hung between two high poles. It was believed that the game helped keep warriors fit and ready for battle. It certainly seems it would help improve their aiming abilities - kicking a rough ball through a small hole. And today's players worry about hitting that huge goal at the end of the field!

Ancient Greeks ...
... and Romans also had their kicking games, either original or imported by Oriental traders. Here too, the game carried a warrior-like quality to it. A game that was very much like soccer-meets-rugby was popular among the army camps of Rome's Imperial forces. I wonder what sort of a striker Caesar turned out to be?

Soccer may have had its first recorded references in Asia, but in Central and South America, games involving kicking balls into goals were alive and well. Inca, Aztec and Mayan warriors played games in walled arenas dug below ground level. They played with a rubber ball, and had to score by getting the ball into baskets hung along the arena walls. The goals weren't made by kicking, though, but in more of a basketball dunking fashion. The ball, though, had to be kicked to the scorer as he neared the goal. The tribes took their game so seriously that the entire losing team was often executed. Talk about an incentive to win!
Soccer and the Middle Ages

Soccer arrived in Europe sometime before the Middle Ages, possibly with the advance of the Roman legions. The Vikings, however, had their own version of a kicking ball game that could have traveled south and west with their raiders turned invaders. During the Middle Ages, though, soccer took on certain European aspects that it still holds today. Entire villages would form teams and play a chaotic, mob version that often resulted in more than 2/3 of the players injured in some way. In medieval France, a game known as Choule was played during village gatherings, such as special occasions and after church on Sundays. The game was violent - a mix of soccer, baseball, hockey, and boxing - as players tried to get the ball past their opponent's goal using sticks and any body part necessary.

During the reign of King Edward I, soccer was banned in the city of London. It was cited that "there is much noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls, from which many evils may arise" and "on behalf of King and on pain of imprisonment, we forbid such game to be used in the city." (And today's fans are considered rowdy?)

Soccer was apparently thought to be vulgar, indecent, "a useless practice" and led to no end of social ills. Kings Henry IV and Henry VIII both placed bans on the playing of the game. Queen Elizabeth I went so far as to imprison for a week anyone caught playing the game and sentence them to "church penance" after their release. It seems that the King of Sports was not considered to be the sport of Kings!

By 1681, however, soccer had become officially sanctioned in England. The game was introduced into English schools as a way to keep the young men fit and occupied. Soccer gained its first organization, too, under the English school system, with well-defined teams, referees, positions, and "training masters" coaching those early strikers.
Soccer Come Into Its Own

By the 1800's, soccer was such a mainstay of the English public school system that an organized tournament was thought appropriate. There was only one problem - there were no set rules governing the game. Each school or school district would play by its own guidelines, rendering larger tournaments nearly impossible. As the Industrial Revolution took hold, factories, institutions and social organizations began organizing their own teams, as well. It was high time the game developed some standards for everyone to follow!

Leave it to a lawyer to rectify the situation! Cobb Morley, practicing in Barnes, decided to form a semi-professional soccer club in 1862. In a newspaper piece, he suggested that the game needed a governing body to oversee tournaments and create rules for everyone to follow. The idea caught everyone's fancy and the next year in 1863, formed the Football Association with several other soccer club founders in a tavern in London. On the 8th of December 1863, the members of the Football Association accepted Cobb's "Laws of the Game" as the game's first official constitution. With the exception of minor changes, they still stand as the standards for play for soccer today. (I wonder if all Cobb's legal pursuits were as successful?)

The British took the game and its new rules to the four corners of the earth as their Empire expanded. Near the end of the 19th century, national teams were being formed, and international matches organized. By the 1930's, the need for an international governing body was apparent, and FIFA, or the Federation of International Football Associations was born. Teams from all over Europe and the Americas were its first members. FIFA's World Cup is the premiere international sporting event, drawing even more television viewers from around the world than the Olympic Games.

Soccer has come a long way from its days as a sport of warriors. Some would debate, though, whether the game has ever truly been civilized. Just ask the fans of tonight's losing team.
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