When was football started

But have you ever wondered about when and where football started in the world, and how it came to be such a popular phenomenon? The first known examples of a team game involving a ball stems from old North American cultures more than 3, years ago.

The earliest form of a ball game involving kicking is from a military manual in the second and third centuries BC in China. It was called Cuju, and involved of kicking a leather ball filled with feathers and hair through an opening only 30 — 40cm wide into a small goal fixed on long bamboo canes. Another early form of the game is the Japanese Kemari, which began between and years later and is still played today.

Whereas Cuju is a more competitive sport, here, players stand in a circle and pass to each other, in a relatively small space, trying not to let the ball touch the ground. This was a popular game for as much as years, but, though the Romans took it to Britain with them, the use of feet was extremely rare that it could hardly be described as a form of football.

Despite all of these wide-ranging differences in origin, it is generally accepted that England established football into the game it is recognised as today. After the first regulations had been implemented by the English , the sport only continued to develop, and the number of rules added and enhancements made to football only grew. They were officially formed in and were played by the newly created Sheffield Football Club.

These rules were a lot closer to what we know of today as rugby, hence why there was so much confusion between the different ways that people played the game.

Despite the formation of the Football Association in different areas of the country continued to employ different sets of rules for the game. It became clear that something needed to be done when the Football Association Challenge Cup began to be played in Over the previous eight years there had been at least sixteen inter-association games between teams and played under the rules of Cambridge, Sheffield or a mixture of the two.

A regular cup competition involving all association teams meant firm and clear rules needed to be established. As a side note, was also the year that the Rugby Football Union was formed. It was in April of that a cohesive set of rules for football were finally drawn up and agreed upon.

Together they became known as The Laws Of The Game and have been in place in a similar format ever since. Generally there have been few changes to the laws of football as we know it since Inevitably, though, some things needed to be brought in either as a clarification or in order to move with the times.

The first such amendment came about in when the penalty kick became part of the rules. Not much happened until when a change was made to the offside rule. Before then there had to be three opposition players between the attacker and the goal, but this was reduced to two.

Thousands of people who had patronisingly explained the offside law to non-football fans suddenly had to investigate what on earth was going on. In came the introduction of substitutes. Whether or not managers immediately started making changes when there were only two minutes left on the clock just to waste time has never been confirmed. In yellow and red cards were introduced. Players who broke the laws of the game could be punished for doing so. The formation of the Premier League in gave the FA the opportunity to have a little look at the rules.

Liverpool apparently used the ability to pass back to the goalkeeper as a way to waste time. Accordingly it took their goalkeeper, Bruce Grobelaar, months to get used to the new way of playing.

The biggest change to football in modern times came in when goal-line technology was introduced. This system alerts the referee to whether or not the entirety of the ball has crossed the line, meaning Manchester United goalkeepers can no longer claw the ball out from the back of the net and pretend it never went in. Whether that will pave the way for technology to be used at other times remains to be seen, though it really should. We have the ability to watch every incident in minute detail at home, so referees should be given some help where possible.

Behind it was Germany and Uruguay in The next decade would see Hungary and Finland form associations, too. They were re-drafted in Facebook Twitter Instagram Linkedin. Football History: Everything you need to know. Share on facebook. Share on twitter. Share on linkedin.

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