Welcome to the Soccer Tavern, where we’re discussing the history, culture, and philosophy of the beautiful game. My name is Dave and this is our very first episode where we’re discussing the origins of the sport we know as soccer today. Welcome to the Soccer Tavern, pull up a seat and lets start the discussion.
Before we get into things, I’m going to address this right up front. I’m an American, in case you can’t tell by my accent. I call the sport soccer, so I sincerely apologize if that offends or upsets you, but you’re going to be hearing a lot of the word soccer on this channel. Additionally, we’ll be making a video in the future about where the name soccer comes from and it actually may surprise you.
Now, back to the topic of this video. Where did the sport that we know as soccer today come from? Lots of different cultures around the world claim they laid the foundations of soccer. The Chinese, Japanese, Greeks, Romans, and even Native Americans all played some form of sport that involved a ball and kicking.
The reality is none of them can really trace their sport’s lineage to the sport we know as soccer today. That honor belongs to the Celtic-speaking people on the western edge of Europe and in the British Isles from the Medieval Era.
As far back as the 8th century, these Celtic-speaking people played various forms of a ball game involving two large teams trying to get a ball to a specific location.
It was incredibly destructive with no rules and was basically was a giant riot. I’m only slightly exaggerating when I say the one rule was: ‘no murder.’
It was utter chaos.
The upper classes and business owners looked down on it because it was barbaric and destructive to property. For this reason, it was forbidden many times over the course of hundreds of years by those in control, but the game persisted.
Versions of this chaotic game went on for centuries up until the middle of the 1700s.
By the mid-1700s, most of the aristocracy & upper classes in Britain preferred horse racing, rowing, boxing, & cricket. Also, lower classes were being pressured by church and other Puritan culture that frowned upon entertainment, like theater & soccer.
The only thing preserving soccer around this time was a version of the sport being played in English public schools (basically boarding high schools for male teenagers) where upper class children were being educated.
Games and athleticism were a critical part of education at the time in Britain.
The sport existed in silos with rules varying by school and the sport often combined different elements of the sports we know as rugby & soccer today.
The dribbling (with feet) schools were:
– Charterhouse
– Winchester
The hands & feet running schools were:
– Rugby
– Marlborough
And the kicking & running schools were:
– Eton
– Harrow
Finally, in 1845, the first try at writing a set of was attempted in the English town of Rugby with the rules, unsurprisingly, closely resembling the game we know as rugby today.
In 1848, at Cambridge University, teachers representing Shrewsbury, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Marlborough and Westminster, produced what became known as the Cambridge Rules. These were closer to the rules of soccer including:
– Establishing the goal as two posts and a crossbar (at the time, it was a string)
– Offside as being beyond the last 3 defenders of the opposition
– When the ball was out of bounds and how it should re-enter the field of play
The Cambridge rules still allowed players to catch the ball and also stop it with their hands, but they could not run with the ball unless they were the goalkeeper.
As the schools played other schools and local towns, the Cambridge rules spread.
There was still a resistance to the Cambridge rules from some schools though. These other schools insisted on using differing sets of rules.
In 1862, John Charles Thring, who was involved in the meeting at Cambridge in 1848 but was now headmaster at Uppingham Grammar School, published a set of rules that he called, the “simplest game.”
It was 12 rules and closely resembled the Cambridge rules with some minor tweaks. His game also emphasized the non-violent aspects of the game.
The simplest game rules helped the game grow at Uppingham and some surrounding schools but, again, failed to generate widespread acceptance.
Finally in late 1863, at the Freemasons’ Tavern at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in central London, 11 representatives from old boys clubs gathered with the intent to establish a unified set of rules.
Quick aside: an old boys club is basically the alumni from an English public school. They’re high school graduates who still kinda hang out together.
Over a couple months, the representatives met and used the Cambridge Rules, as well as Thring’s simplest game rules, as a starting point to discuss a unified set of rules.
It wasn’t an easy process though.
Two biggest issues for the group to resolved were:
– The practice of running with the ball in a players hands
– And the process of hacking to stop players, which was kicking an opponent in the shins to halt their progress.
Eventually, the representative from Blackheath Club who couldn’t get over removing hacking from the game and left the group.
The remaining representatives eventually agreed on a set of 14 laws in December 1863. By that point, the group was referring to themselves as the Football Association.
These rules still allowed for the practice of catching the ball, but it resulted in a free kick and players could not run with the ball. The rule for offside with 3 players needing to be behind the player still remained. And a goalkeeper could use his hands anywhere in his own half.
The Football Association printed the set of rules and began distributing them throughout London and the country.
This is widely considered the founding of soccer, but you can see that there is plenty of history and efforts done before this founding.
Also, plenty of clubs & teams still disagreed on the FA rules, with most disputes involving Sheffield clubs who had their own set of rules written in 1857. This persisted into the 1870s, but the creation of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in the 1880s, finally established a uniform set of rules for everyone.
The IFAB had their first meeting on June 2, 1886 and included 2 representatives from each of:
– England
– Scotland
– Wales
– Ireland
Any IFAB rule changes required 75% majority to pass.
In 1913, FIFA joined the IFAB council and the weighting was changed to England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland each getting 1 vote and all of FIFA getting 4 votes. This is still the system used today to set rules for the game of soccer.
Going back to the FA rules from 1863, there have been many tweaks and rule changes to those laws to get us to the modern version of soccer that we know today.
Hope you enjoyed this first ever episode of The Soccer Tavern. I hope you learned something. And we’ll be back with another video soon. See ya!
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