Today I found out the origin of the word “soccer”. For
all you out there who love to complain when Americans, and certain others, call
“Football”, “Soccer”, you should know that it was the British that invented the
word and it was also one of the first names of what we now primarily know of as
“Football”.
In fact, in the early days of the sport among the upper
echelons of British society, the proper term for the sport was “Soccer”. Not only that, but the sport being referred to as “Soccer” preceded the first
recorded instance of it being called by the singular word “Football” by about
18 years. This happening when it became more popular with the middle and
lower class. When that happened, the term “Football” gradually began dominating
over “Soccer” and the then official name “Association Football”.
In the 1860s, as in most of history with records as far back
as 1004 B.C., there were quite a lot of “football” sports in existence being
played popularly throughout the world and of course, England . Many of these
sports had similar rules and eventually, on October 26th, 1863, a group of
teams in England
decided to get together and create a standard set of rules which would be used
at all their matches. They formed the rules for “Association Football”,
with the “Association” distinguishing it from the many other types of football
sports in existence in England ,
such as “Rugby Football”. Now British school boys of the day liked to nickname
everything, which is still somewhat common. They also liked to add the
ending “er” to these nicknames. Thus Rugby
was, at that time, popularly called “Rugger”. Association Football was
then much better known as “Assoccer”, which quickly just became “Soccer” and
sometimes “Soccer Football”.
The inventor of the nickname is said to be Charles Wredford
Brown, who was an Oxford
student around the time of Association Football’s inception. Legend has
it, in 1863 shortly after the creation of Association Football, Wredford-Brown
had some friends who asked him if he’d come play a game of “Rugger”, to which
he replied he preferred “Soccer”. The name caught on from there.
In the beginning, the newly standardized Rugby
and Soccer were football sports for “gentlemen”, primarily being played by the
upper echelons of society. However, these two forms of football gradually
spread to the masses, particularly Soccer as Rugby
didn’t really catch on too well with the lower classes. This resulted in
the name switching from “Soccer” and “Association Football”, to just
“Football”; with the first documented case of the sport being called by the singular
term “Football” coming in 1881, 18 years after it was first called simply
“Soccer” or officially “Association Football”.
Bonus Facts:
Just as intriguing, for those who like to lambaste American
Football being called such when the ball interacts primarily with hands, most
of the earliest forms of Football were named thus, not because you kicked a
ball with your foot, but because they were played on foot. Peasants
played most of their sports on foot; aristocrats played most of theirs on
horseback. Thus, games played on foot were called “football”, whether
they had anything to do with kicking a ball or not. Indeed, many of the
earliest forms of football involved carrying balls in an attempt to get across
goal lines passed some opposing team or individual players.
Soccer balls were originally painted with the now classic
black and white checkered look in order to make them more visible on black and
white TV during the 1970 FIFA World Cup. Naturally, people wanted to buy
balls that looked like those that the professionals used on TV and thus
everybody bought the black and white checkered soccer ball instead of the
previous traditional solid color ball.
In the United
States , early on the word “Football” was
incorporated in the name for Soccer. The first name of the
league was the “United States Soccer Football Association”. This lasted
about 30 years before it was shortened to simply the “United States Soccer
Federation” in 1975.
“Rugby ” was also once known
as “Football” and originally had almost the same set of rules as Soccer, though
over time increasingly diverged. The name “Rugby” comes from Rugby School
in England . Legend has it, during a Football match at that school, William Webb Ellis
picked up the ball in his hands and ran with it over the goal line. It
didn’t count as an official goal, as you weren’t supposed to use your hands;
but the referee remarked, it was a “jolly good ‘try’”, which, according to
legend, is where that particular Rugby scoring term comes from. The
official Rugby Union was then formed in 1871 with a split in 1893 forming the
Rugby League.
The earliest known record of a Soccer-like sport was in 1004
B.C. in Japan . There are also many references to Soccer-like sports in 50 B.C. China , even being played between teams from China and Japan .
The Romans also played several types of Football games,
including some that resembled Soccer. One of which was also included in
the Roman Olympic Games. This particular version, in the Olympic Games,
featured 27 men a side. The game was so rough that 2/3 of the players had
to be hospitalized after the game.
The last genuine leather soccer ball used in the World Cup
was the Adidas Tango Espana, used in the 1982 World Cup. Shortly
thereafter, in 1986, the first fully synthetic World Cup soccer ball was used.
The designers of the Adidas Teamgeist, used in the 2006
World Cup, claim that ball was the roundest ever made for a sport.
During King Edward’s reign (1307-1327), he had laws passed
against the playing of football sports. Anyone caught playing any form of
football would be imprisoned, “For as much as there is a great noise in the
city caused by hustling over large balls, from which many evils may arise…”
He wasn’t the only British monarch that hated
football. Queen Elizabeth the First “had football players jailed for a
week, with follow-up church penance”. King Henry IV and Henry VIII also
passed laws against football sports.
American Football was originally known in England as
“Start-Stop Rugby with Padding”… Catchy.
Source : www.todayifoundout.com
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