The History Behind the Real "Football"

While I was watching a game today, I heard a debate between an American and an Englishman as to which country's national sport, "football", is the true football.

It got quite heated at one stage, and it was clear both men were fighting for their national pride, as if the ownership of this one word actually meant something.

Of course, I stood nearby smiling to myself. I just couldn't bring myself to step in and tell them that in fact, they were both wrong.

I knew that neither American football or English Association football (called soccer in the US), are truer, because neither are, in fact, football.

At least in the original meaning. The word "football" can be traced back to medieval England, but it didn't become a recognised sport until the rise of public schools rules which began to be established in the 1600s onwards. 

By the 19th Century, two schools of thought had developed regarding the way the game should be taught to youngsters in public schools.  Some schools, such as Eton, believed that the "football" should be kept away from the hands, while others, like the school at Rugby, thought that it should be mainly carried.

At the time, it was perfectly fine for someone to pick up a ball and run with it, even among the schools that thought it was best to kick instead. The "handball" rule in modern soccer didn't develop until 1857—with the introduction of the Sheffield Rules, developed by the earliest professional soccer club, Sheffield FC, to set the game aside from the public school game.

The Sheffield Rules set the standard for an early form of soccer-type football, while the public schools continued to teach the rules that would eventually become modern rugby football.

While this was all going on in England, American schools were also developing their own rules of the same game played across the Atlantic, which the British and European migrants had brought with them. By the 19th Century in North America, schools were playing variants of the early rugby game, alongside the early kicking game of English schools.

Modern American football was established in 1874, during a game between Harvard and the McGill University of Montreal. The story goes that McGill played a rugby form of football, while Harvard played the Boston Game, similar to Sheffield Rules but without the rule against handling the ball. 

They adapted the rules so that both teams could play a fair system during the game, and created the earliest form of American football rules, which Harvard then passed on to other American colleges, leading to the rise of college football.

So in reality, there's no such thing as a definitive "football". American football is no less football than soccer. They all have the same roots and grew out of the same process like sports evolution.

If only those two idiots had known that.