A Comprehensive Multi-Part series on the History of Football – Part 1
By Jim James
Football. The most popular sport on the planet. A game that can bring so many together and tear so many apart. One that every 4 years, bring together the 32 best nations in the world and their fans, in the most viewed sporting competition in the world, the World Cup. Every set of fans have their moments, happy tears and sad tears. As a Barcelona, Toronto FC, and Team Canada fan, you can probably pinpoint those moments for me. How did it come to be this way? How has football evolved in the 150-175 years since it’s creation? Well, I bring you a multi-part series explaining all that, in a level of depth only suited for many parts. I also bring you a comprehensive history of the future, as simulated on Football Manager 2020 Touch. Here. We. Go.
Chapter One – The Preludes
I believe it would be an injustice when explaining the history of the beautiful game to not mention the sports similar to it before it. The football-ish sports, one played with a ball and the feet, that were popular at a national or local level but never gained steam internationally like football did.
The first form of Football that was recorded in history was the sport Cuju, played in China 2200 years ago. There were two styles of Cuju: Zhuqiu and Baida. Zhuqiu was the sophisticated, high class, special version with 12-16 players aside and commonly performed at special events and court feasts such as the emperor’s birthday.
Baida was the less sophisticated but more popular version of Cuju. It also had many chances to gain – or lose – points, as scoring wasn’t the way to win. In today’s football a popular saying is that what the other stats say don’t matter, only goals determine the winner. This wasn’t the case in the Baida form of Cuju. Despite having goals in Cuju, fouls determined the winner. You read this correctly. Fouls. However, “Fouls” weren’t the same in Baida Cuju as today’s football.
Fouls weren’t dirty tackles, offsides, and handballs,not exclusively, they were bad judgement and bad execution too, for example if passes were played too short and didn’t reach the teammate, points were deducted. If the ball was kicked a long way out of bounds, many points were deducted. These were just a couple of the many offenses that led to fewer points in Baida Cuju. The players ranged from 2 to 10.
Baida was the closest of all the forms to becoming close to what football is now. In the 10th century, Qi Yun She, a Cuju league, was fomed in major Chinese cities. The teams consisted of non-pro and pro players, and the non-pro players needed a pro teacher so that all pros made an income. However, in the Ming Dynasty of 1368 to 1644, the sport started to fade, and by the end of that dynasty, Cuju leagues were no longer a thing, and the sport died out.
Around the same time as Cuju was forming, Episkyros came to be. Formed 2300 years ago, the teams consisted of 12-14 players. Men usually played but Women did as well. Use of hands were allowed and it was a violent game, with players usually trying to throw the ball over the head of their opponent. There was a white line called the Skuros, where the ball had to cross.
There was also Marngrook, played around the 15th-19th centuries, and died out when the Europeans invaded. There were over 100 players participating but no real rules or scoring, and it could only end if one side agreed that the other had played better. The most skilled players were praised but given no raise in their status with the tribe, sort of like an aboriginal Sky Sports. It also had a role in the formation of Aussie Rules football in 1858. Marngrook is also occasionally played by some Australian people.
The last one that we are to go to in depth is *deep breath* Pasuckuakohowog. This was a sport that seems right out of a Monty Python sketch, but was real. This game usually had a whopping 500 players but occasionally had 1000. Broken bones and serious injuries were common, and the game lasted for hours. The game was played similar to a war, and after the games there would be a celebratory feast for the winners but both teams showed up.
There was also findings of a ball game played with the feet in Ancient Egypt, and one played in Ancient South America, played on a stone court with the losers punishable by death. Good thing Jack Rodwell wasn’t playing back then.
With all those preludes done, let’s move to actuall association football.
Chapter 2: Humble Beginnings
Unlike James Naismith with Basketball and Abner Doubleday with Baseball, there is no definitive inventor of Football, not really even a definitive country of origin for the modern form of the game. The most popular theory is that it was invented by England, but some people credit China and the aforementioned Cuju also get occasionally credited with it too. However, English football is the one with the most known about the early days of football.
Many different versions of football were played in English schools in the early 19th century, but there wasn’t a definitive set of rules until 1848’s Cambridge rules. The rules are as follows:
- This club shall be called the University Foot Ball Club.
- At the commencement of the play, the ball shall be kicked off from the middle of the ground: after every goal there shall be a kick-off in the same way.
- After a goal, the losing side shall kick off; the sides changing goals, unless a previous arrangement be made to the contrary.
- The ball is out when it has passed the line of the flag-posts on either side of the ground, in which case it shall be thrown in straight.
- The ball is behind when it has passed the goal on either side of it.
- When the ball is behind it shall be brought forward at the place where it left the ground, not more than ten paces, and kicked off.
- Goal is when the ball is kicked through the flag-posts and under the string.
- When a player catches the ball directly from the foot, he may kick it as he can without running with it. In no other case may the ball be touched with the hands, except to stop it.
- If the ball has passed a player, and has come from the direction of his own goal, he may not touch it till the other side have kicked it, unless there are more than three of the other side before him. No player is allowed to loiter between the ball and the adversaries’ goal.
- In no case is holding a player, pushing with the hands, or tripping up allowed. Any player may prevent another from getting to the ball by any means consistent with the above rules.
11.Every match shall be decided by a majority of goals.
In these rules we see many rules that define the game today, like the kick-off, pushing, holding, and tripping fouls, and the no handball rule. However, there are a few rules that are very different than today, like switching sides after each goal rather than each half, no forward passes, and arrangements to change the rules. These rules were agreed to by 10 footballers and a few Cambridge professors. That’s it. As I said, humble beginnings.
These rules changed slightly over the decade or so that they existed, with the last moderations taking place in 1856, and the next year a new set of rules coming in 1857. The Sheffield rules.
We’ll continue this soon, but that’s all for part one. This is Jim James, and until next time.