History of The World's Most Favorite Game, FOOTBALL

The Game.

 

The contemporary history of the world's favorite game spans more than 100 years. It all began in 1863 in England, when rugby football and association football branched off on their different courses and the Football Association in England was formed - becoming the sport's first governing body. Both codes stemmed from a common root and both have a long and intricately branched ancestral tree. A search down the centuries reveals at least half a dozen different games, varying to different degrees, and to which the historical development of football has been traced back. Whether this can be justified in some instances is disputable. Nevertheless, the fact remains that people have enjoyed kicking a ball about for thousands of years and there is absolutely no reason to consider it an aberration of the more 'natural' form of playing a ball with the hands. On the contrary, apart from the need to employ the legs and feet in tough tussles for the ball, often without any laws for protection, it was recognised right at the outset that the art of controlling the ball with the feet was not easy and, as such, required no small measure of skill. The very earliest form of the game for which there is scientific evidence was an exercise from a military manual dating back to the second and third centuries BC in China.

This Han Dynasty forebear of football was called Tsu' Chu and it consisted of kicking a leather ball filled with feathers and hair through an opening, measuring only 30-40cm in width, into a small net fixed onto long bamboo canes. According to one variation of this exercise, the player was not permitted to aim at his target unimpeded, but had to use his feet, chest, back and shoulders while trying to withstand the attacks of his opponents. Use of the hands was not permitted. 

Another form of the game, also originating from the Far East, was the Japanese Kemari, which began some 500-600 years later and is still played today. This is a sport lacking the competitive element of Tsu' Chu with no struggle for possession involved. Standing in a circle, the players had to pass the ball to each other, in a relatively small space, trying not to let it touch the ground. The Greek 'Episkyros' - of which few concrete details survive - was much livelier, as was the Roman 'Harpastum'. The latter was played out with a smaller ball by two teams on a rectangular field marked by boundary lines and a centre line. The objective was to get the ball over the opposition's boundary lines and as players passed it between themselves, trickery was the order of the day. The game remained popular for 700-800 years, but, although the Romans took it to Britain with them, the use of feet was so small as to scarcely be of consequence.

The Laws.

Football has come a long way since its first laws were drawn up in London in 1863. That historic meeting at the Freemasons' Tavern led not only to the foundation of the Football Association but, moreover, to the game's inaugural set of common rules.

Although undergraduates at Cambridge had made an earlier attempt to achieve a uniform standard in the late 1840s - albeit still allowing the ball to be caught - it was not until 1863 that football, a sport played down the centuries in often-violent village contests and then embraced in the early 1800s by the English public schools, had a fixed rulebook.

One club represented at the Freemasons' Tavern, Blackheath, refused to accept the non-inclusion of hacking (kicking below the knee) and subsequently became a founder of the Rugby Football Union. However, the 11 others reached an agreement and, under the charge of one Ebenezer Cobb Morley, 14 laws were soon penned for a game that would, in the following century, become the most played, watched and talked about activity on the planet.

1. Original offside rule The offside rule formed part of the original rules in 1863 but it was a far remove from the law as we know it today. Any attacking player ahead of the ball was deemed to be offside  meaning early tactical systems featured as many as eight forwards, as the only means of advancing the ball was by dribbling or scrimmaging as in rugby. In the late 1860s, the FA made the momentous decision to adopt the three-player rule, where an attacker would be called offside if positioned in front of the third-last defender. Now the passing game could develop.
Despite the unification of the rules and the creation of the FA in 1863, disputes, largely involving Sheffield clubs who had announced their own set of ideas in 1857, persisted into the late 1870s. However, the creation of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) finally put an end to all arguments. Made up of two representatives from each of the four associations of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland), the IFAB met for the first time on 2 June 1886 to guard the Laws of the Game. Then, as today, a three-quarters majority was needed for a proposal to be passed.

2. Gradual changes
In those early years, the game gradually assumed the features we take for granted today. Goal-kicks were introduced in 1869 and corner-kicks in 1872. In 1878 a referee used a whistle for the first time. Yet there was no such thing as a penalty up until 1891. In the public schools where modern football originated, there was an assumption that a gentleman would never deliberately commit a foul. Amid the increased competitiveness, however, the penalty, or as it was originally called 'the kick of death', was introduced as one of a number of dramatic changes to the Laws of the Game in 1891.

Penalties, of course, had to be awarded by someone and following a proposal from the Irish Association, the referee was allowed on to the field of play. True to its gentlemanly beginnings, disputes were originally settled by the two team captains, but, as the stakes grew, so did the number of complaints. By the time the first FA Cup and international fixture took place, two umpires, one per team, were being employed to whom each side could appeal. But it was not the ideal solution as decisions were often only reached following lengthy delays. The referee, at first, stood on the touchline keeping time and was 'referred' to if the umpires could not agree but that all changed in 1891.

2. Referees introduced From that date a single person with powers to send players off as well as give penalties and free-kicks without listening to appeals became a permanent fixture in the game. The two umpires became linesmen, or 'assistant referees' as they are called today. Also during that meeting in Scotland, the goal net was accepted into the laws, completing the make-up of the goal after the introduction of the crossbar to replace tape 16 years previously.

With the introduction of rules, the features of the football pitch as we know it slowly began to appear. The kick-off required a centre spot; keeping players ten yards from the ball at kick-off, brought the centre circle. It is interesting to note that when the penalty came in 1891, it was not taken from a spot but anywhere along a 12-yard line before 1902.

The 1902 decision to award penalties for fouls committed in an area 18 yards from the goal line and 44 yards wide, created both the penalty box and penalty spot. Another box 'goal area', commonly called the 'six-yard-box', six yards long and 20 wide, replaced a semi circle in the goalmouth. However it was not for another 35 years that the final piece of the jigsaw, the 'D' shape at the edge of the penalty area.

3. Back-pass rule changed Despite these changes, tactics during the 1990 FIFA World Cup™ suggested something more needed to be done. The IFAB responded in 1992 by banning goalkeepers from handling deliberate back-passes. Although the new rule was greeted with scepticism by some at first, in the fullness of time it would become widely appreciated. The game's Law-makers then struck another blow against cynicism in 1998 when the fierce tackle from behind became a red-card offence. With a new century approaching, the commitment to forward-thinking football could not have been clearer.

FIFA joins IFAB

 Football fast became as popular elsewhere as it had been in Britain and in May 1904, FIFA was founded in Paris with seven original members: France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain (represented by Madrid FC), Sweden and Switzerland. There was some initial disquiet in the United Kingdom to the idea of a world body governing the sport it had created rules for, but this uncertainty was soon brushed aside. Former FA board member Daniel Burley Woolfall replaced Frenchman Robert Guérin as FIFA President in 1906 - the year the FA joined - and in 1913 FIFA became a member of the IFAB.

In the restructured decision-making body, FIFA was given the same voting powers as the four British associations put together. There remained eight votes and the same 75 per cent majority needed for a proposal to be passed, but instead of two each, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland now had one, while FIFA was given four. On the field of play, the number of goals increased aided by the 1912 rule preventing goalkeepers from handling the ball outside the penalty area and another in 1920 banning offsides from throw-ins. In 1925, the three-player offside rule became a two-player one, representing another radical change that propelled the game further forward.

Rous rewrites the Laws

 By the late 1930s it was felt that the Laws of the Game, now totalling 17, required a makeover. The original Laws had been penned in the language of Victorian England and since then, there had been more than half a century of changes and amendments. Hence the task given to Stanley Rous, a member of the IFAB and the official who first employed the diagonal system of refereeing, to clean the cobwebs and draft the Laws in a rational order. The Englishman, who would become FIFA President in 1961, did such a good job that not until 1997 were the Laws revised for as second time. Despite football's phenomenal popularity, there was a general agreement in the late 1980s that the Laws of the Game should be fine-tuned in the face of defensive tactics. If fan violence was a serious off-the-pitch problem during that period, then on it the increasingly high stakes meant a real risk of defensive tactics gaining the upper hand.

Hence a series of amendments, often referred to as for the 'Good of the Game', which were designed to help promote attacking football. They began with the offside law in 1990. The advantage was now given to the attacking team. If the attacker was in line with the penultimate defender, he was now onside. In the same year, the 'professional foul' - denying an opponent a clear goal-scoring opportunity - became a sending-off offence.

Swansea (2) vs (2) Liverpool

Hi everyone...as a Liverpool fan, i just want to highlight about last night's BPL game between Swansea vs Liverpool. Jonjo Shelvey went from hero to villain and back again against his former club as Swansea ended Liverpool's 100% start to the Premier League season in a frenetic 2-2 draw at the Liberty Stadium. Shelvey, who left the Reds for south Wales in the summer, fired the Swans into the lead after just 87 seconds.

However, two terrible errors from the midfielder allowed the in-form Daniel Sturridge and Liverpool debutant Victor Moses to put the visitors ahead. However, Shelvey redeemed himself as he laid on an equaliser for Michu. Brendan Rodgers has brought the Merseysiders to his former club with three wins from three on the board, but they were given a rude awakening when Shelvey rounded £18million signing Mamadou Sakho with ease before curling left-footed into the net. 

The England international initially celebrated with gusto but reined himself in in front of the away end. But he had few reasons to smile just 99 seconds later as a horrible backpass ended with Sturridge scoring his 12th goal in 10 games. He then compounded the mistake by hitting a pass straight to Moses, who raced away to steer beyond Michel Vorm. But, with his temper beginning to fray, Shelvey's clever header set Michu up for his first league goal of the season to cap a remarkable night for the former Charlton man.

So much of the build-up had centred on Shelvey's first meeting with his former employers, and he made a dream start. The midfielder initially scuffed an attempted volley from Jordan Henderson's poor header, but regained control to ghost pass Sakho and produce a lovely left-footed finish at the second attempt.

But his joy was brief as, still full of adrenaline, he played a blind backpass and failed to spot Sturridge lurking; the striker needed no second invitation. Shelvey, perhaps understandably, took a few minutes to regain his composure but was guilty of being too eager to make amends, as he scythed down Philippe Coutinho before blazing well over the bar.

Liverpool took a stranglehold on possession and the pace of Moses was proving a real problem for the Swansea defence. Ben Davies had to block from Henderson after one rangy run from the Nigerian, before he gave Sturridge a simple finish after outfoxing Angel Rangel and Nathan Dyer, but the striker headed straight at Vorm, who deflected the ball wide. 

Swansea responded with a lovely exchange of passes between Michu and Wilfried Bony, but the Ivory Coast striker's shot did not have enough power to trouble Simon Mignolet. Shelvey then took centre stage again, his risky pass went straight to Moses, who drove at a retreating Swans' rearguard to beat Vorm.  Swansea could have levelled inside a minute, but Martin Skrtel pulled off a magnificent last-gasp challenge to deny Bony a tap-in after Mignolet had parried a Dyer shot he should have held.

Liverpool almost extended their lead seven minutes into the second half. Swansea were caught sleeping at a free-kick as Henderson crept in at the back post, but Vorm saved from Andre Wisdom after the midfielder had pushed the ball across goal. Shelvey's night almost plumbed new depths moments later as he squared up to Lucas after Swansea refused to return the ball after Coutinho limped off with an injury. But referee Michael Oliver opted to book the pair rather than take more severe action.

And Shelvey's topsy-turvy evening soon turned on its head once more as he surged forward to cushion a header into the path of Michu, who finished low to Mignolet's right. Swansea had renewed vigour and took the game to their visitors during a frantic final quarter, with Jonathan de Guzman forcing a fingertip save from Mignolet, but an engrossing contest ended level.