Origins of Football

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

Until the mid-1800s, there was just "football". Teams played against each under rules (of which there were few) agreed to at the start of the game by the captains. English public schools and universities developed their own variations.

As football spread around the globe, club and "scratch" matches began to be played under their favoured rules and local variations. Some preferred more kicking of the ball than handling, others were against the "off-side" rule, while the idea of a cross-bar seemed unnecessary to many.

Understandably, this led to many disputes over rules before and during matches.

To overcome the problem, local football associations and unions were formed to codify rules between like-minded clubs. The most notable were the Football Association (1863), the Rugby Football Union (1871) and the Victorian [Rules] Football Association (1877).

The frontispiece to the Rugby Football Union's "Laws of the Game of Football" issued in 1872.

Each of these bodies found their own loyalists and advocates across the globe. In the USA and Canada, further variations on "football" were created, and in 1895 Rugby League began after the split from the RFU.

All football codes vary the balance between kicking and handling - from soccer at one end of the spectrum, to American Football at the other.

Throughout the world the locally dominant winter code was simply "football".

In Sydney and Brisbane it is Rugby League, in Melbourne it is Australian Rules, in Auckland it is Rugby Union, in New York it is American Football. Practically everywhere else, it is Soccer that is the preferred code.

English and Australian newspaper sports pages in the late 1800s and early 1900s all listed Football as the column heading, then under it they listed the various forms.

The words 'soccer' and 'rugger' were in common use in England in the early 1890s at Oxford University. The words emanate from where the rules of their version of football originated. In soccer's case, it was the formation of the Football Association. Rugger is a variation of Rugby School football rules, and later the Rugby Football Union.

The argument that soccer - being a game where the ball is only played with the foot - is the only true form of football (and it alone is therefore entitled to use the name) is fanciful.

When F.C. Morely drafted the first version of the F.A.'s football rules (1863) handling of the ball, and indeed, running with the ball in hand, were allowed whenever a player took a "fair catch" or picked the ball up on the first bounce.

Handling in soccer was eventually cut back to only the goal keeper and restarting play from the touchlines, but it was born in 1863 with recognition that handling and running with the ball were part of the game of football.

Such claims by soccer advocates also ignore the common folk origins of football, which were never restricted to just kicking the ball.

Some historians point to evidence from old English texts which refer to football being the game of the lower classes - it being called "foot-ball" simply because the game was played "on foot", as opposed to the sport of the ruling aristocracy, which was played on horse-back.

Over recent years, both rugby codes in Australia have dropped the use of "football" from within their marketing titles. For example, the "NSW Rugby Football League" became the "NSW Rugby League". Similarly, the NSWRFU became the NSWRU.