⚽ Football History (Edition #1)

This is the first edition of a freshly made newsletter about football called Today I learned Football (it’s called football, not soccer!).

As for the first edition, I thought it would be nice to learn about the roots of this spectacular game. The post isn’t long as I’m not going deep into the ancient ages when the first clues about the game emerged.

The birth of a professional football

The football we know now has been born in England, in the middle of the 19th century. However, some sources mention the appearance of this game in medieval times when it was played in towns and villages with almost no rules. Or even earlier ages where the forms of a game with foot and ball were discovered in Greece, 400-375 BC or 1130-1160 in China. But we are not going to analyze it as there is no consensus on what exactly were these games played in such times.

Despite that, the birthplace of modern football is England, where the Football Association laid down the first professional rules in 1863. There were a lot of different rule codes before, but Ebenezer Morley, the founder of Barnes Football Club, published a letter in the newspaper Bell's Life and gathered a meeting, which took place on October 26, 1863, at the Freemasons' Tavern on Great Queen Street in London. It involved representatives from 12 football clubs and the game was codified after the meeting.

Important to mention that football clubs have a history of times before the Football Association was established. For example, Crystal Palace is considered to be created in 1861 (even though there are some opposing opinions among many different resources) and is one of the oldest clubs still playing professional football.

On the other hand, Sheffield F.C. is recognized by FIFA as the oldest existing club still playing football in the world. It was created in 1957. Even though Sheffield played games under the Sheffield Rules and did not officially adopt the new FA rules until 1878.

Many England football clubs were created before some countries started to play this game at all and most national football organizations like French Football Federation are much younger than clubs like Aston Villa, Manchester United, Watford, or Burnley. Eg. Leeds United, the youngest club playing in today’s Premier League, was established in 1919.

Nowadays the game of football is presided over globally by FIFA, which was established in 1904, 41 years after the Football Association in England started its activity.

National football associations and federations

If you are willing to compare when some other countries established national football organizations, here is the list of the years when they were established:

• Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) - 1889

• Argentine Football Association (AFA) - 1893

• Italian Football Federation (FIGC) - 1898

• The German Football Association (DFB) - 1900

• Swedish Football Association (SvFF) - 1904

• Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) - 1913

• Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) - 1913

• United States Soccer Federation (USSF) - 1913

• Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) - 1914

• French Football Federation (FFF) - 1919

• Polish Football Association (PZPN) - 1919

Looks like England was quite ahead of other countries.

Since then, billions of people felt in love with this game and it’s considered that now around 4,000 professional football clubs exist, and millions of people watch this game every day. The game that conquered the world!

If this topic sparked an interest, these resources are helpful for deeper research:

1. “Football” - Britannica

2. “Football history” - Footballhistory.org

3. “How Football Was Born” - History Today

If you liked this post, share it with your friends and family to keep my work ongoing. It doesn’t cost you anything and you will learn something new about football daily.