|
The Invention of Football
Football is a game of antiquity, known to many peoples. The ancient Greeks played a form of football
known as harpaston, and the Romans played a similar game, harpastum. In medieval times a form of football
known as calcio flourished in Italy. Natives of Polynesia are known to have played a variety of the game
with a football made of bamboo fibers, and the Inuit (Eskimo) played a form of football with a leather ball
filled with moss.
In 1863 a number of clubs devoted to the kicking game met in London, organized the London Football
rules; this type of game was henceforth known as association football, and later soccer, a word
derived from association.
In the U.S., a form of football using a blown-up bladder was played in the colony of Virginia
in 1609. In 1820 students at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) participated
in soccer like game, called ballown, in which they advanced the ball by punching it with their
fists. Intercollegiate competition began on November 6, 1869, with a game between Rutgers and Princeton.
The Intercollegiate Football Association was dissolved in 1894, and in the same year the
influential eastern schools formed a rules committee, dominated by the Yale graduate and football
pioneer Walter Chauncey Camp. In 1905 an independent association of colleges also formed a rules
committee; the two committees soon merged, and since that they have governed time American
collegiate football. The first professional football game in the United States was played in 1895.
|
