The History of Football

  By Billy Adams, WiS Scotland Correspondent

The first notable point when considering the history of football is that various forms have been played for thousands of years and due to this there could be an ever-lasting argument as to who created the first form due to poor record keeping and depreciation of documents.

However, rather then get dragged down in to who did what first, the focus should be on how we have the versions of football and in this instance soccer that we have today.  Next we must consider what elements our predecessors games had that could relate to our versions of football based games, which mainly are British football aka soccer, American football and rugby while there are also other noteworthy versions such as Gallic football.

Episkyros (Greece) 2000BC

Around 2000 BC, The Greeks developed a kicking/throwing game, called Episkyros.

It could be said that in this marble we can see many resemblances to the modern games of football.

We can see the man with the ball balancingit in much the same way modern player do.  This shows technical ability, a vital skill within soccer.

Also, consider that the younger male is looking up to the player. This shows one of two things - it could be that the player is teaching the younger male in the sport. It may also be that the boy is looking up to they player as an idol in a similar way to many males who hero worship footballers in modern times.


Cuju (China) 500BC

Cuju means "kick the ball with foot. It was a popular sport played by ancient Chinese

This game was played by both the public and the military. It was used in the military to help leg numbness from horse riding.

This game is based on kicking a small ball into a hole in a net.

This practise is still maintained to this day.  We see it often in the western world as a soccer training practise. We have both small sized footballs and goals with solid fronts with just a few small holes to aim at (much like a cuju goal) are sold most high streets in the UK. It could be said that this is the closest old sport to football.

It would seem that FIFA would agree with that statement as on July 15, 2004, Mr. Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA declared to the world at the Third China International Football Exposition that football originated from China.  Thus Linzi in Zibo of Shandong Province was officially recognized as the birthplace of football.

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