A look at the present day football and how it came to be will take us back to thousands of years. The modern day football is an offshoot of the events of 1863 in England. This came through the branching off of The Association Football and Rugby Football into different courses. This gave rise to the English Football Association that brought the modern game to what it looks like at the moment.
A look at where football is coming from reveals that the concept of kicking of balls has been a popular practice in different parts of the world thousands of years ago. It is always very easy to control, handle and enjoy the ball with hands. But the act of controlling the ball with the feet was seen as a very difficult one. So, it was seen as something that needed special skills and effort to achieve. That was why one of the military manual of trainings had the kicking of balls with the leg as one of its exercises in China thousands of years ago.
At the moment, the type of football that happened in the Han Dynasty then was named Tsu' Chu. Here, leather balls that are full of feathers and hair were kicked through an opening of only 30-40 cm in width, into long bamboo canes that have nets in-between them. The chest, back, and feet were used for this attack, and the hand was prohibited.
In Japan, about 500 years after the Chinese game started, the Japanese Kemari was on. Here, they do not struggle for possession, so it does not have that competitive angle that characterized the Chinese Tsu Chu. Here, the players just stand in a circle of small space and pass the ball to one another. This is still in existence in Japan till today.
While this was on, there was a similar thing in Greece called Episkyros, and another in Roma called Harpastum.
The game was recorded as a team affair firstly in the old Mesoamerican cultures. This was around 3000 years back. One significant thing about this game is that the ball was seen as the sun at that moment. After the game, the losing team will have to suffer. This includes sacrificing their captain to the gods.
| Season | Premier League | League One | League Two |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004–2005 | Chelsea | Sheffield Wednesday | Southend United |
| 2005–2006 | Chelsea | Barnsley | Cheltenham Town |
| 2006–2007 | Manchester United | Blackpool | Bristol Rovers |
| 2007-2008 | Manchester United | Doncaster Rovers | Stockport County |
| 2008-2009 | Chelsea | Scunthorpe United | Gillingham |
| 2009-2010 | Manchester United | Millwall | Dagenham & Redbridge |
| 2010–2011 | Manchester United | Peterborough United | Stevenage |
| 2011–2012 | Manchester City | Huddersfield Town | Crewe Alexandra |
| 2012–2013 | Manchester United | Yeovil Town | Bradford City |
| 2013–2014 | Manchester City | Rotherham United | Fleetwood Town |
| 2014–2015 | Chelsea | Preston North End | Southend United |
| 2015–2016 | Leicester City | Barnsley | AFC Wimbledon |
| 2016–2017 | Chelsea | Millwall | Blackpool |
Ian James Rush was born in 1961 and he was a brilliant Welsh football player that shined in the shirt of Liverpool FC, as well as the Welsh national team, for 14 years. Playing as a forward, he managed to become and stay even up to this day the leading scorer in Liverpool’s history with 346 goals for the Cormorants.
The time he spent with Liverpool is the most prolific period of Kevin’s career since he won a European Cup, two UEFA Cups, an FA Cup and also got the First Division title three times with the English team. During his stay at Liverpool, he scored 68 goals and is considered to be the first English superstar player to gain a lot of media attention.
When talking about clubs where he played, the name of Bobby Charlton is associated with Manchester United since he spent almost his entire career there. Playing for the Red Devils between 1956 and 1973 with a total of 606 appearances and 199 goals, Sir Charlton was renowned for his strong passing abilities, attacking instincts, and his long-range shots that often surprised the goalkeepers.
One thing to take away from the ancient football is that it came very spontaneous, violent, and lacked organization. Then there was no exact number of football players, and the contest at the time was so heated that lives were even lost. They played in streets, hedges, streams, and squares. There were no football rules, and everything, including kicking and fighting, was allowed.
However, it was in 1863 that modern football took its shape in England. But the decision on the size and weight of the match ball was standardized nine years after. It used to be something agreed upon by the two teams whenever the match is being fixed. The duration of the game was also not a general something. It was the football game between Sheffield and London in 1866 that made it 90 minutes.
However, history has it that some of the rules of the game were made in a meeting in 1848 in Cambridge. That was before the break in The Association Football and Rugby Football. As time went on, the game kept developing and the rules started being very flexible. There were no uniforms, no particular number of players on the pitch, and since the players were mostly wearing caps, header was not part of the game then. At this moment, the English teams preferred running forward with the ball in their legs, while Scottish players will rather pass the ball between them.
This game started off with the working class in Britain, as one of their ways of getting entertained. Towards the late 19th century, the number of spectators coming to see the game grew to up to 30,000. Later on, interested British men that travelled to other parts of the world took this with them and spread it across as they went. The first countries to join in the football game were South America and India.
It would be surprising to note that even before football took shape and became organized, teams had already existed. Even when the number of players was not fixed, there were no headers, and there was no fixed duration for the game, clubs existed. Clubs were in existence even in the 15th century, though they were not official at the time. However, when things became official, the football club in Edinburgh was the first of its kind. In 1855, former school students formed a football club in Sheffield. However, Notts County is known in history as the earliest football club that is still in existence up till today. It was formed in 1862.
The football teams were made up of public school students, and later workers. This is because the meeting grounds during the period of industrialization were in schools, factories, pubs and churches. However, it was around the 1880s that clubs started offering the best players some money to join their teams. This was occasioned by the fact that they are now starting to sell tickets for people to come and watch the teams play.
It was later in 1985 that the legalization of professional football happened, and this was followed by the First League. This was contested by 12 clubs at the initial time, before more divisions were established due to more clubs getting interested. The dominant teams at the moment were from Britain. But teams from Budapest, Prague and Sienna took over.
While football was still evolving, and even before its legalization, some tournaments were already taking place. In fact, the breaking away of Rugby Football and Association Football in 1863 signaled the first competitions. The first to happen was the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup) in 1871.
The first two national football teams to get involved in football was England and Scotland in the same year, and the game saw 4000 spectators. But in 1883 a more elaborate and wilder international tournament happened - this time, it involved, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
In 1867, foreign British workers in Argentina played their first football game in the country in 1867 and that was how the game spread to South America. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded in 1904. But England was not among the founding fathers. In 1908, football became part of the Olympic Games, and the first FIFA World Cup came in 1930.
The preamble to the rules of football is that it was the reason why football was separated from rugby. A previous attempt has been made by the students at Cambridge to make the game more organized through the rules. But at the end of everything, they still allowed the ball to be caught. But in 1863, there was a meeting where the football rules being deliberated included discarding hacking, which means kicking below the knee. 11 of the teams involved accepted that, while one team known as Blackheath refused, and formed rugby football. The 11 that accepted went ahead to draw the first 14 laws for the contemporary football game.
The offside football rule was among the ones that has evolved the most. Initially, it used to be any attacking player before the ball. But it was later changed to the three player rule. Here, offside meant when an attacking player is stationed in front of the last defender.
In 1869, goal kick was added to the football rules. It was in 1872 that the present day corner kick came, while the use of whistle by a referee happened for the first time in 1878. The other rules that came later included the penalty rule, which was an 1891 invention, and it was named the ‘kick of death’ then.
With the rules in place, a second look was given to the football pitches. The need for a center spot from where the kick off will take place and where players will not be available, brought about the center circle. The penalty of 1891 was not taken from the center spot at. Rather, it was taken from any position within a 12 yard line radius until in 1902. That was when the penalty box and spot came to be. The semi-circle that used to be in the mouth of goal was later replaced by the six yard box, which evolved into a D shape in 1937.
In 1912, keepers were prevented from touching the ball outside the goal area, and offside was removed from throwing in 1920. The offside rule was also updated in 1925, and the 1930s saw the game acquiring 17 rules instead of the original 14.
