Categories: Do You Know?
The football fever is once again raging with FIFA World Cup Football final tournament starting on 9 June. Lets look back to see how it all started and enjoy some of the lighter moments.
The very earliest form of the game for which there is scientific evidence dates as far back as 2500 B.C. in China. According to records, the goal of the game, named Tsu Chu, was to kick a ball through an opening into a small net fixed onto erected bamboo canes.
The Greeks developed a kicking/throwing game, called Episkyros around 2000 BC. This was later adopted by the Romans, who renamed and transformed it into Harpastum. It was played by 5-12 players on a rectangular field marked by boundary lines and split by a center line with the aim of trying to keep the ball as long as possible while the opponent try to steal the ball. In the Americas various ball games played with the legs were variously known as Pok A Tok, Pasuckuakohowog, Asqaqtuk and Tlatchi.
However the present day football probably originated from a version called Mob football from Britain. According to Expert Football.com, "It was explicitly violent and played between villages, at the time of celebration and festivity. In fact, it was so violent that people living nearby would barricade their windows during matches. Both "teams" tried to force a ball into the center square of the enemy village or they might have played across different parts of town, again centered at a market place or a town square."
But it was in England that football as we know it really begin to take shape. It all started on 8 December 1863 with the formation of the first Football Association in England, a result of a split of two football association - that of football and rugby football. From here football spread to the European continent.
France, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, Spain and Switzerland wanted to create an umbrella football body to govern the game of football. England, where football started was not part of the founding members because they were not convinced of the benefits of such an organisation. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded in the rear of the headquarters of the Union Française de Sports Athlétiques at the rue Saint Honoré 229 in Paris on 21 May 1904. The English only joined FIFA in 1905.
The first football competition in the world, the English FA Cup was played in 1871
The first international football match was played in 1872 between England and Scotland
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The English Football Association legalised professionalism in 1885
Belgium faced France at the first official international match in Brussels on 1 May 1904.
Football was introduced to the Olympic Games in 1908. It was won by England.
FIFA was all-European until 1909. South Africa joined in 1909/1910, Argentina and Chile in 1912, USA in 1913.
The first World Cup was opened at the Centenary Stadium in Montevideo on 18 July 1930
World Cup Final was first transmitted on the radio in 1934
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Most goals in a single World Cup finals match:
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Fastest player sent off in a World cup finals tournament game:
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The current trophy will be retired when the name plaque has been entirely filled but this will not be until 2038
Reference:
Soccer History and Information
History of FIFA
History of the Game
World Cup Football
Expert Football
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