The Origin of the Word “Soccer”
Today I found out the origin of the word “soccer”. For all you out there who love to complain when Americans, and certain others, call “Football”, “Soccer”, you should know that it was the British that invented the word and it was also one of the first names of what we now primarily know of as “Football”.
In fact, in the early days of the sport among the upper echelons of British society, the proper term for the sport was “Soccer”. Not only that, but the sport being referred to as “Soccer” preceded the first recorded instance of it being called by the singular word “Football” by about 18 years, with the latter happening when it became more popular with the middle and lower class. When that happened, the term “Football” gradually began dominating over “Soccer” and the then official name “Association Football”.
In the 1860s, as in most of history- with records as far back as 1004 B.C.- there were quite a lot of “football” sports in existence being played popularly throughout the world and of course, England. Many of these sports had similar rules and eventually, on October 26th, 1863, a group of teams in England decided to get together and create a standard set of rules which would be used at all their matches. They formed the rules for “Association Football”, with the “Association” distinguishing it from the many other types of football sports in existence in England, such as “Rugby Football”.
Now British school boys of the day liked to nickname everything, which is still somewhat common. They also liked to add the ending “er” to these nicknames. Thus Rugby was, at that time, popularly called “Rugger”. Association Football was then much better known as “Assoccer”, which quickly just became “Soccer” and sometimes “Soccer Football”.
The inventor of the nickname is said to be Charles Wredford Brown, who was an Oxford student around the time of Association Football’s inception. Legend has it, in 1863 shortly after the creation of Association Football, Wredford-Brown had some friends who asked him if he’d come play a game of “Rugger”, to which he replied he preferred “Soccer”. Whether that story’s true or not, the name caught on from around that point on.
In the beginning, the newly standardized Rugby and Soccer were football sports for “gentlemen”, primarily being played by the upper echelons of society. However, these two forms of football gradually spread to the masses, particularly Soccer as Rugby didn’t really catch on too well with the lower classes. This resulted in the name switching from “Soccer” and “Association Football”, to just “Football”; with the first documented case of the sport being called by the singular term “Football” coming in 1881, 18 years after it was first called “Soccer” or, officially, “Association Football”.
The game gradually spread throughout the world under the lower class name of “Football”, rather than “Soccer” as the “gentlemen” called it. The problem was, though, that a lot of other countries of the world already had popular sports of their own they called “Football”, such as the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, to name a few. In these countries, the name “Soccer” was and, in some, still is preferred for this reason.
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Bonus Facts:
- Just as intriguing, for those who like to lambaste American Football being called such when the ball interacts primarily with hands, most of the earliest forms of Football were named thus, not because you kicked a ball with your foot, but because they were played on foot. Peasants played most of their sports on foot; aristocrats played most of theirs on horseback. Thus, games played on foot were called “football”, whether they had anything to do with kicking a ball or not. Indeed, many of the earliest forms of football involved carrying balls in an attempt to get across goal lines passed some opposing team or individual players.
- Soccer balls were originally painted with the now classic black and white checkered look in order to make them more visible on black and white TV during the 1970 FIFA World Cup. Naturally, people wanted to buy balls that looked like those that the professionals used on TV and thus everybody bought the black and white checkered soccer ball instead of the previous traditional solid color ball.
- In the United States, early on the word “Football” was incorporated in the name for Soccer. The first name of the league was the “United States Soccer Football Association”. This lasted about 30 years before it was shortened to simply the “United States Soccer Federation” in 1975.
- “Rugby” was also once known as “Football” and originally had almost the same set of rules as Soccer, though over time increasingly diverged. The name “Rugby” comes from Rugby School in England. Legend has it, during a Football match at that school, William Webb Ellis picked up the ball in his hands and ran with it over the goal line. It didn’t count as an official goal, as you weren’t supposed to use your hands; but the referee remarked, it was a “jolly good ‘try'”, which, according to legend, is where that particular Rugby scoring term comes from. The official Rugby Union was then formed in 1871 with a split in 1893 forming the Rugby League.
- Rugby never caught on with the lower class as Soccer did. Thus, the famous British saying, “Soccer is a gentleman’s game played by ruffians and Rugby is a ruffian’s game played by gentlemen.”
- The earliest known record of a Soccer-like sport was in 1004 B.C. in Japan. There are also many references to Soccer-like sports in 50 B.C. China, even being played between teams from China and Japan.
- The Romans also played several types of Football games, including some that resembled Soccer. One of which was also included in the Roman Olympic Games. This particular version, in the Olympic Games, featured 27 men a side. The game was so rough that 2/3 of the players had to be hospitalized after the game.
- The last genuine leather soccer ball used in the World Cup was the Adidas Tango Espana, used in the 1982 World Cup. Shortly thereafter, in 1986, the first fully synthetic World Cup soccer ball was used.
- The designers of the Adidas Teamgeist, used in the 2006 World Cup, claim that ball was the roundest ever made for a sport.
- During King Edward’s reign (1307-1327), he had laws passed against the playing of football sports. Anyone caught playing any form of football would be imprisoned, “For as much as there is a great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls, from which many evils may arise…”
- He wasn’t the only British monarch that hated football. Queen Elizabeth the First “had football players jailed for a week, with follow-up church penance”. King Henry IV and Henry VIII also passed laws against football sports.
- American Football was originally known in England as “Start-Stop Rugby with Padding”… Catchy. 🙂
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You should think about renaming the Bonus facts section of your post from “factoids” to something else. A factoid from dictionary.com: “Something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised esp. to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition.”
Unless that is what you are going for.
Check out my link on the “Factoids” part of the “Bonus Factoids”. I’ve written an article concerning this. Honestly though, mostly at this point, my keeping it “factoids” instead of “facts” is out of stubbornness. 😉
It’s was called association football and there was also rugby football and the word soccer came from the boys who played it to shorten the word that would be slang then same with rugby football rugger. So get your facts right
Didn’t read
its football
k thx
Amen to that!
yes thats the spirit
“American Football” is still known as ‘start-stop rugby with padding’, although these days we sometimes leave out the ‘start-stop’ bit.
No it’s not.
Yes it is.
yes they did invent that
Where did you find this information out? Seeing as you forgot that crucial part… I hesitate to believe.
Interesting though.
See the sources. I got all the information from those links. I also tend to not put something unless I can find multiple reputable sources for some bit of information. I’ll rarely put all those sources, which would really just be duplicate sources for the same information; thus, I usually will just put the most convenient one for people to look at (generally links). But rest assured, I take the quality of information extremely seriously on my site. If you ever find inaccuracies, don’t hesitate to point them out. My goal here, albeit probably slightly unrealistic, is to be 100% accurate on everything I say in my articles. I personally get a little tired of all the “fact” websites out there that have 1000s of “facts” of which half of them or so are completely not true.
You’re having a laugh, right?
Let’s have a look at your article, a summary of some of your ‘facts’:-
Soccer is a British term – Correct
Name of game in 1863 was Association Football – Wrong
Soccer was coined in 1863 – Wrong
The first documented case of the sport being called by the singular term
“Football” coming in 1881 – Wrong
Primarily being played by the upper echelons of society – Myth
Horseback theory – Myth
Rugby League formed in 1893 – Wrong
Details of the U.S governing body – Wrong
Ancient ‘soccer-type’ games – Incorrect
For more details refer to my other posts.
You say that ‘I take the quality of information extremely seriously on my site.’ Really? From the details above, I would say not seriously enough. You go on to say ‘slightly unrealistic, is to be 100% accurate’. I would say very unrealistic. You then finish with ‘I personally get a little tired of all the “fact” websites out there that have 1000s of “facts” of which half of them or so are completely not true.’ Well in that case you must get very tired of your own website!!!
If his information is false, please correct it, instead of listing the facts you don’t agree with.
I’ve read about the “Assoccer” thing before, so I’m interested to know why you’d say it’s incorrect.
Euouae, I can not change an article that appears on this website, as I am not an administrator of this site. What I can do is point out information that is incorrect which I have done so in many of my posts with the correct information (read them for full details).
I’m not quite sure what you mean in the second line, because as far as I’m aware I have never mentioned “Assoccer” in any of my posts, so I’m not quite what you are referring to when you say that I have said it is incorrect. Please explain what you are referring to so I might be able to help you.
I don’t know who to believe I’m Soo confused right I have no idea whats going but hey I put it in my Google machine and this what I got….anyoje wanna know where the term joshing you came from?
Just saying something is wrong, doesn’t make it so. You cite NOTHING in support of your claims.
AlienDave,
Maybe you should read all my posts before you comment. I posted 59 times and if you read them all you will see that you are incorrect by saying I have cited nothing. I have indeed cited books and newspapers that are more reliable than the dodgy websites that Daven uses.
If you had bothered to read my reply to Euouae, just above your comment you would have seen that I pointed out in the post that he needs to read my other posts for full details.
When listing facts, citing ‘wrong’ when something is simply fictitious is completely acceptable.
If you write there were dragons attacking Denmark which lead to the start of WW1, I need do no more than tell you this isn’t true…
This article for the larger part is fictitious smh
Well said I was about to write them all but you beat me to it . If the check the Oxford dictionary they will find out all this stuff he write is garbage
Hey FootballFan1894 if you’re still around in 2020 will you come to my next party? You sound like you’re such a fun guy to be with. Oh and be sure to bring *all* your friends.
weird, not one citation in the whole list…
Piss off! Bloody ignorant yanks! lol!
First off, aside from the relatively modern aberrance of the “Recieved Pronounciation”/”King’s English” developed in English “Public” schools (that are actually rather private as only the upper echelon of the English socio/econo/politico hierarchy, dominated by the Royal Family, could afford to gain addmittance to them), the “correct” or “accepted” form and usage of of a word depended upon the universality of it’s useage accross the myriad regional sub-dialects found throughout the English shires: the more people accross the more regions that used a common word to describe an abstract concept the greater the accepted correctness of the word in the “English” vocabulary- I doubt not that the functionality and efficiancy of the word greatly influenced the larger acceptance and percieved correctness of the word. Basically, the more people that use it over a larger area the more it’s legitamacy as a definition of an English word.
Second, up until the various modern “codifications” of the ball game played “on foot” by the above mentioned social elite schools (the graduates of which would go on to run the government and rule the country) , the original game played in England (undoubtedly there were simular games played around the world over the centuries that named it something in the local language but we’re talking about the conjunction of the English words “foot” and “ball” to name a game) since time immemorable was a competition “on foot “between the teams of different villages, towns, or cities that involved simply one team moving the ball (typically a pig’s bladder) from a midpoint between said village/town/city into their own village/town/city centre to score by whatever means possible using the relatively unarmored human body alone (carrying, throwing, kicking, elbowing, kneeing, heading, etc.) while doing one’s best to prevent the opposing team from interfereing in a relatively “no-holds barred” fashion (punching, kicking, tackling, elbowing, biting, headbutting, kneeing, gouging, scratching, throttleing, etc.). In essence a combination of the basic aspects of all the various later modern codifications of limiting rulesets of ball games played on foot in England of which the dominant ones were the primarialy no hands ball control only ruleset of the “Football Associations” (from which the slang word soccer was derived) and the primarily hand ball control of the Rugby Leagues (modern American grid football apparently evolved from a game called Stop-Start Rugby with Padding!) that splintered from this common root that probably goes back to the days of the Danelaw where, one could conjecture, the common born (who couldn’t afford to use a horse for sport) of neighboring Saxon and Norse/Danish villages/towns/cities could compete against each other in a less lethal manner to vent off the primal pressure of mutual antagonism between two or more disseperate socio-geno population groups.
So, in summation, as it’s quite likely that more people accross a greater regional and cultureal spectrum of the world call the Football Association style ruleset for the ball game played on foot using primarilly the foot “football” than call it by the slang term “soccer”, then that is the “accepted” “correct” name for it. By the same reasoning, as it’s quite likely that more people accross a greater regional and cultureal spectrum of the world call the USA’s NFL style ruleset for the ball game played on foot using primarilly the carry “American football” than call it just “Football”, then that is the “accepted” “correct” name for it.
At this point I will also point out that the overwhelming majority ( I would estimate more than 90+%) of yanks don’t speak English… because they haven’t been English for over two and a half centuries, they speak American.. generally at an eighth grade (academic year) level at best. They have unwittingly mangled the English language from which it descends with a profound and pervasive ignorance of the “accepted” “correct” gramatical useage of the syntax, spelling, and vocabulary of the the language spoken by Englishmen.
Such a ridiculous and contradictory post. By your own argument Soccer is the correct term in American English. And you display a great misunderstanding of England’s place in the world. There is no longer an empire and you certainly cannot control the language in the same way that Spanish or French does, because you don’t have an academy. Go read a few books, educate yourself and then post something worthwhile.
Andrew you need to learn your place . Silly boy . No one listens to arrogance yanks
They most certainly do, especially all those Brits wearing baseball caps, running Windows OS, eating at Pizza Hut, watching American television programming and so forth. Andrew is very correct in stating that Britain no longer has an empire. I would expand that to say that not only does Britain not have an empire, it has surrendered to a foreign empire, know as the EU. Farther, regardless if it manages to remove itself from the EU technocracy, it is being slowly converted to a caliphate. After living more than a decade in the UK I can honestly say that it was more of an experience and education of living in the middle east and eastern Asia than a British experience. Especially with curry and Chinese food dominating British meals, most of the women wearing head gear and English being a rarity of most large city centers (centers). The UK is so overly multicultural that it has practically ceased to be Great Britain except for a few old English and Scottish people still in government whom are busy selling out whatever native whites are left in the country. Hell, even a Prince married a non-white divorced American to join the aristocracy of the UK. Nope, the majority of arrogance oozing from the those Brits who attempt to romantically relive the past as if it were a current affair, yet haven’t two complete testicles left to actually regain control over their own territory. In twenty more years the Brits will wish they were a 51st state as their last aircraft carrier becomes a coral reef.
What do you think the commonwealth is? Dork another clueless yank, the British empire is still the largest in the world, we just allow the majority of it to govern itself…
(Couldn’t be bothered to read past that, it was unlikely to become anymore intelligent lmao)
Tldr
Your quite lengthy post pretty much sums up my experience with some (certainly not all) Brits, in that they are irrationally sensetive to the differences between English spoken/spelled in the UK and spoken/spelled in the United States. From a linguisitc standpoint, the differences are so minor as to be trivial, especially considering the geographical distance seperating the two countries and the length of time both have had to diverge, as well as the heavier “fresh” influences of German and to an extent French and Spanish on how Americans speak.
Also considering Australians and Kiwis have their own quirks, and non-French Canadians sound more like “Yanks” in their speech than British, it is rather telling that these over-sensetive Brits target their linguistic angst at Americans specifically.
In other words, I don’t think it has anything to do with language differences at all.
one simple point:
while Britain speaks a very interesting version of english, I’ve always noticed they seem to have trouble pronouncing the H
i.e: ”bloody ‘ell”
the H is there for a reason; you should try pronouncing it
Some people do. Not most.
Interestingm Randall. So I guess for you there are 24 hhours in a day? And when you address a judge you of course do so as “Your Hhonor”…
How many hherbs and spices in KFC’s recipe again? I hhonestly forget.
I’m American, I’ve lived in England for closing in on 20 years now. Even I say “bloody ‘ell”. It’s ironic usage. Like if you live in Bristol, you might ironically ask “Where’s that to?” instead of “Where is it/that?”
Well, best be off, got to go pick up my friend Sarahhh.
So you pronounce hue … ue and human … uman? If you said uman to me I would reply, what, me man?
It is nice you picked words with a silence h. Since you lived in England now for 25 years since your post is 5 years old is not honor the American spelling? You meant Honour?
Since H is silent in hours note how it is pronounced owers not ours. The same for on nor. Where did that u go off to?
Bloody ‘ell is not ironic. Just some idgit who cannot pronounce an H in a word to where the H is actually pronounced.
And if my grandfather were to say hello would you call him erb or erbert? Because we pronounced the H.
Shedule but not shool?
Like in the word “herb’?
This is the most british answer you could ask for
I’m a proofreader. Gissa job.
Whilst I agree with your article, I would suggest that, before you belittle the average American’s English, you put your own house in order. Perhaps you could find an App. which tells you how to spell.
The word ‘soccer’ is commonly used in England.
Dave Evans, no. It is normally called football.
I grew up 70 years ago in the north of England and all the kids called what we now call football, soccer in those days.
No we didn’t my dad always cold at football so don’t chat pure garbage
so what’s the Bobby Charlton Soccer Academy then?
Not in my part of the North of England 70years ago, they didn’t. Mind you, none of us knew where this odd word “soccer” came from. Some of us thought it might be from a hymn that began with the word “Succour” !
But, here’s something a lot of folk might not know: in the British public schools (yes, I know they’re not public but rather expensive and private) pupils played Rugby which they called “football” rather than football which they called “soccer”. Confused? Yes, I thought so. And the reason that Rugby never caught on with the working classes (except oddly in South Wales) is that like American football it’s a falling down game: not too many patches of soft grass in working class districts.
. and football (ie Rugby mE
Great post! Thanks for that… I’m not sure I can believe we (English) came up with soccer… all those years I have been calling everyone that calls it soccer a fool, when in fact they are just wana be toffs 🙂 Maybe I need to change my blog title now!
Actually, forget everything that I just said as I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about.
Indeed. And you can’t spell English, either.
Daven
Your information is wrong on at least one count. the word “try” in rugby comes from the original way to score points in rugby, which was by crossing the line with the ball in hand allowed you a “try” to kick for goals.
@Joel: Yep, that is why I called that story a legend. Seemed like one of those nice stories that is popularly believed and paraded about as fact, but has nothing to do with the way it actually happened. Another similar one like this is that Abner Doubleday sat down one day and invented baseball; note: he didn’t invent it and probably didn’t even have anything whatsoever to do with the sport. The actual history and eventual establishment of the sport was much more complicated and, frankly, much more interesting. hmmm. I should write and article on that one. As an avid baseball fan and a fact nazi, that one has always bothered me. 🙂
One of my close friends is a descendant of Abner Doubleday but doesn’t like baseball and plays rugby. He and I played rugby together for years in Asia.
In rugby, a “try” is so called because originally a try did not score any points, it allowed you to “try” for a kick between the posts.
Rugby Football -> Rugby
Charterhouse Football -> Football
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charterhouse_School#Origins_of_Football
Did you know, the first FA cup final was between two school?
Sorry, but you are wrong. The first FA Cup Final was played between two clubs, The Wanderers beat Royal Engineers 1-0 on the 16th March 1872. Of course the Royal Engineers was (and still is) an army side, while The Wanderers were formed mainly by former pupils of public schools. Every FA Cup Final has been contested by clubs.
Seems like someone has a stick up their arse
We call it Football now, so I still don’t care.
You can only use your feet, most of the world calls it football with this in mind. Nobody outside of america calls American Football “football” so “soccer” should be called football. Rename your boring sport if it’s such an issue.
Lots of countries still call it Soccer, like Australia and New Zealand, so piss off.
that’s because they play australian football in australia, which is what we call rugby, so they did the same as americans with the name.
@Flickdbean – Australian Football is NOT the same as Rugby. They are similar sports, but nobody calls Australian Football…Rugby. Different rules, different field layout, different scoring, different style.
Just sayin’
Wow, so many countries in the world: 3!!!
lol, since when did Australia or New Zealand play any role in football?
Uh, no. Much, much more countries call it “football” in their own languages – US, Australia and New Zealand only make three countries…
Germany: Fussball
Sweden: Fotboll
Spain: Fútbol
Finland: Jalkapallo
Poland: Piłka nożna (literally “ball-leg”)
Greece: Podosphero (“podo/podi” refers to feet or legs and “sphero” to sphere or ball)
And so on.
Soccer is virtually unknown term in most parts of the world. It has no translation. A translation would also be totally unnecessary, because football is football.
And then we have
FIFA: The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA /ˈfiːfə/; English: International Federation of Association Football)
And its member bodies
AFC – Asian Football Confederation
CAF – Confederation of African Football
CONCACAF – Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football
CONMEBOL – Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol
OFC – Oceania Football Confederation
UEFA – Union of European Football Associations
With no a “soccer” in sight.
It also has the advantage of not being played in homo-erotic Kit designed by Tom of Finland on a frisky day.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=tom+of+finland&FORM=HDRSC2
I once looked up the Buenos Aires Herald (english version) and the result of the Germany – Argentine match was under the headline of Soccer Results.
On the same page was a history of the game under the banner of History of Soccer. Interested, I checked a newspaper in Mexico (can’t remember which one) and they also referred to the game as Soccer.
In all the major countries the British emigrated to, New Zealand, Canada, USA, Australia, South Africa, and even India the game is called Soccer, and its not the main game in those countries.
In Australia in the late 1800’s it was called British Association Football to distinguish the game from Australian Football. Even the main body governing the game up to 10 years ago was called the National Soccer League, now its the A League. (Australian, Association, Amateur League? who knows what it stands for).
The Australian team is called the Socceroos.
As a Mexican this story is Bullshit.
No single newspapers called Football “soccer”. At least not from the 80’s onwards.
everywhere is called “Futbol”. They only mention Soccer if there is a section in the same area with American handegg articles (aka American Football) to differentiate them.
Example: Futbol Americano, Futbol Soccer.
And the ones that use “soccer” constantly, are American companies that started to offer Mexican webpages or newspapers. (See ESPN)
I don’t know which India you’re talking about. I’m from India and here we call it football. People who call it soccer( almost nonexistent) are treated indifferently. We even try to encourage Americans to call it football and not soccer. So unless you’re from India don’t assume stuff and if you are from here then there is something wrong with your understanding of the game and the fans here.
Yes, Melan Choly, for some reason there is a myth that Commonwealth and ex-Commonwealth nations all call the game soccer, where you and me know this is not true. Here in New Zealand, the term ‘soccer’ is used mostly by die hard rugby fans, but most football fans call the game football.
People outside India often don’t realise, that Football has a long and proud history in India. The Indian Football Association (West Bengal) being founded as long ago as 1893. The IFA Shield was also established in 1893, while the Calcutta Football League dates back to 1898.
The official attendance for the Federation Cup Semi-Final between Mohun Bagan v East Bengal at Salt Lake Stadium on 13 July 1997 was 131,781, and some people still believe that you are only interested in cricket and hockey in India!
Well… the italians still call it Calcio, that is the name of their ancient sport… And noone complains about that.
@James YOU and PEOPLE LIKE YOU are the only ones who have an issue with it. We are perfectly fine calling it soccer. YOU are making it an issue.
Dell, that’s because Americans changed the meaning of football, when they came up with their variant of rugby with safety gear added. It’s more accurate to call their game hand egg.
Yeah, the thing is that ‘him’ and ‘people like him’ are the majority of people in the world. Soccer = sucker!
you are a goose, there is only one Football – the one played predominantly by the foot. The rest are codes of “Eggball”
actually you dont just use your feet you use every part of your body except your hands so its not just foot ball, fckin morons and the goalie uses his hands so there goes the only use there feet theory use your brain before spewing out bs comments
Notice that english people are the only ones that care about the name ‘soccer’ or ‘football’. I NEVER see anyone from any other country except for England fuss about the name. Heck, i have heard lots of people in germany call it soccer but no one cares..except for the british…
That’s not surprising Les, considering that football is an English thing that was invented in England, which is part of the UK. It does not come from anywhere else in the world.
wrong… here in Brazil everyone says “it’s football, not soccer”…
Really? You can only use your feet? I’ve played soccer for 31 years, and I can assure you that in a given match, I use every part of my body to strike the ball. I also use my hands to throw it, and a goalkeeper uses his hands to both catch and throw. So on what logical basis should we single out one body part and name the entire sport around it? By that logic, every sport in which you use your hands to catch or throw a ball would be called “hand ball”. Hockey would be called “stickpuck”.
In other words, your logic is crap.
You say that in any given match, that you use every part of your body to strike the ball. If you
have been playing Football for 31 years then you will know that an outfield player is not
permitted to strike the ball with his or her hand or arm, this is clearly set out under Law 12 of
the game. You should also know that the foot is the main part of the body for an outfield
player to strike the ball with, hence the name ‘Football’. Just as in the game ‘Handball’, a
field player is permitted to use any part of the body from the knee upwards to touch the ball,
the hand is the main part of the body to touch the ball with, hence the name, ‘Handball’.
We know that game is called ‘Football’ because it is mostly played with the foot, because we have
clear recorded historical evidence of this.
The oldest known use of the word ‘Football’ in English was in 1409, when Henry IV issued a
proclamation forbidding the leving of money for ‘Foteball’.
Then we come to a book written circa 1660 by Francis Willughby called ‘Book of Plaies’, which describes ‘Football’ as a kicking game.
In 1780 ‘A General Dictionary of the English Language’ by Thomas Sheridan defines ‘Football’ as “a ball driven by the foot”.
If that is not enough, in 1801 ‘Sports and Pastimes of the People of England’ by Joseph Strutt,
tells us that ‘Football’ “is so called because the ball is driven about with the feet instead of the
hands.”
Forget Daven Hiskey’s article, it is one of many poorly researched articles on the subject.
Forget the horseback theory, there is no historical evidence to back up this fairly modern
theory.
I hope this makes things clearer for you to understand.
I, the author of the longer post by this screen name, did not write the post as follows:
John Savage Tomakin says:
June 24, 2010 at 5:33 am
Actually, forget everything that I just said as I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about.
Some other clever monkey stole my screen name to do that.
BTW, all the “facts” presented in my post are commonly availible from sources ranging from the encyclopeadias such as Britanica and Wikipeadia to the numerous books on football and history I read as a boy in England over 42 years ago to the acclaimed book and BBCTV series, The Story of English. All conjecture is mine based on a logical extrapolation of the “facts” provided.
It sounds like there’s a fundamental misunderstanding in why English football fans object to football being called soccer. It isn’t because the term isn’t used in England, it’s because it’s an upper class term. That’s why the average fan doesn’t like it.
By the way it isn’t really true to say rugby didn’t take off well with the lower classes. At an early stage rugby split into two games, Rugby Union and Rugby League. The point of disagreement was wether players with jobs could be compensated for taking unpaid time off work to play. Rugby Union was strictly amateur (until very recently) and upper class, Rugby League had professionals and, particularly in some parts of Northern England, is a major working class game.
Today I found out that “factoid” used to mean: “Something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised esp. to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition.”
Call it whatever you like, its still a boring game played by sissies. (If you disagree with me, Ill fall on the ground and grab my knee and cry like a little girl until you get a yellow card)
The term “soccer” was most certainly used by the north american ignorants having no inspiration due to the lack of circumvolutions on their grey matter!
To be able to play this newly emerged sport with no name north americans are swallowing anabolizants to call themselve tougher than any other nation!
It looks that the same anabolizants are necesary to boost your ignorant consciousness, you could rename the european kind of football with the original latin name from 1004 BC if it crossed your retarded mind.
Who is the sissy when you take drugs to pump your muscles in the mirror?!
Ever tried to be kicked on your legs with the crampons?!
Ups you wont feel it due to the same drugs!!!
Unlike the game played by the American nancies mincing along with a ball like a Gucci clutch purse where there’s 19 minutes of actual movement in a 17 hour long game, of whatever it is.
Lol good joke.
You guys know next to nothing and practically sound butt hurt
Someone please send this article to John Cleese. He just made a short video ranting about American football, and postulating where we came up with the word.
Actually it couldn’t have been known at first as start stop rugby with padding as there was no padding. Padding was gradually added because so many young men were being killed playing American Football.
Rugby features no pads because it features few hard hits. Players can’t get up to full speed and with no forward pass there are very few blind-side hits like in American Football.
Few hard hits in rugby? Ha fucking ha…
I second this.
Theres people bleeding in almost every darn game of Rugby.
See the sources. I did. The online etymology one for football, at the end is talking about the first usage in 1881 of Football for the “American start-stop rugby with padding” game and not Association Football. Just look at the context and it’s clear.
“The U.S. style (known to some in England as “stop-start rugby with padding”) evolved gradually 19c.; the first true collegiate game is considered to have been played Nov. 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers, at Rutgers, but the rules there were more like soccer. A rematch at Princeton Nov. 13, with the home team’s rules, was true U.S. football. The earliest recorded application of the word football to this is from 1881.”
So if soccer is a shortening from “Association Football”, why don’t we pronounce it “sosh-er”?
Because it’s not “assoshiation”.
Doesn’t matter what you say, Brits will find something to QQ about. It’s in their nature to be complainers.
Sorry Nichole, but it sounds to me that you are complaining about the Brits complaining!
John Savage,
Let me guess…hmm you never played the sport,never have been popular and therefore turned to looking up ‘big’ words in the dictionary and belittle anyone who doesn’t speak the ‘King’s English’. You have so many sentences that do not make sense. Do you know what a run on sentence is? You cut up the yanks, but you are so proud of your English language. Did you invent the language? A rose by any other rose is still a rose. Still upset that the yanks beat you in the World Cup? You stated that <"Basically, the more people that use it over a larger area the more it’s legitamacy as a definition of an English word." Therefore in your words the word 'soccer' would be ther proper term used by yanks. The article about the word soccer was not meant to get your knickers in a knot, just to show that perhaps, the term came from an Englishmen. Your writing is beyond boring. Ever here of a comma or short stop or pause, or what every your pompous dictionary says? I am English and your comments embarrass me. My grandfather faught with 'yanks's in WWII and as the old joke goes, if it wasn't for the yanks and Canadians you would be speaking German. Americans are descendents of England(not all but many) so in essence you are cutting up your hereitage. Language changes over time. I am so sure that Portsmouth is pronounced 'Portsmiff' and in London 'three' is 'free'. I travel to America a lto and other countries and blokes like you are the reason people can be anti 'English'. I bet your dictionary is spelled' DICK-tionary!
Biff – it’s nothing to do with the americans that we are ‘not speaking german’ – it’s down to Hitler’s overreaching and misguided attempt to direct the attacks on 2 fronts. Had he focussed on france and britain instead of aiming for Russia, we would have been up shit creek, and nothing the americans did would have stopped it. After all, let’s face it, with the isolationism they would never have lifted a finger either, were it not for Pearl Harbour. For exactly that reason I fail to believe you are english – or at the very worst you must be english but ill-educated in history!
WWII was not a two-front war until America landed in Africa and then at Normandy. Germany went into Poland, then turned around and marched through France, one front at a time. Hitler was then free to attack Russia through Poland because for the time being he had won his war and was no longer fighting on any real front.
Unless you count the English Channel as a “front”, over which the British provided about zero resistance. Keep Calm and Carry On while the Germans bomb the shit out of England.
Without American involvement in WWII, England would have continued to be bombed into oblivion and Hitler would have been able to fight Russia unopposed. He had already conquered Western Europe.
Invade Russia unopposed?
you’re funny!
That was one of the turning points of the World War II.
Where the backbone of the German army was pretty much ruined trying to reach the oil in Russian soil.
Umm What, reading your comments, I think you have a very appropriate name, as you don’t
know what you are talking about!
First of all I’m not quite sure what the war has got to do with the name of football. Secondly,
it seems you have learnt your history of the war through watching too many Hollywood
movies!
You say that ‘the British provided about zero resistance’, I take it you have never heard of the Battle of Britain, one of the most significant turning points of the war, which was fought and won long before the United States entered the war.
You then go onto say ‘Without American involvement in WWII, England would have continued to be bombed into oblivion’, I assume you are referring to The Blitz, which took place between 7 Sept 1940 and 21 May 1941 (again long before the U.S entered the war) which Hitler hoped would force Britain to surrender, which of course, didn’t happen. Hitler then turned his attention to Operation Barbarossa, this was another important turning point of the war. Of course, bombings continued throughout the war by both the Luftwaffe and the RAF.
Of course none of this has anything to with the subject of the name of football, people like you and Biff should leave the fantasties to Hollywood and leave your comments to the subject of the article.
Sorry that should be fantasies in the last line, one too many t’s!
Umm What, you say that ‘WWII was not a two-front war until America landed in Africa and then at Normandy.’ Actually the North African Campaign started on the 10 Jun 1940, the United States didn’t join in until the 11 May 1942. And the Normandy landings involved British, American, Canadian, French and Polish Allied divisions all under British command . The way you put it is that the U.S won the battles on their own!
Oh yeah in America they don’t call it ‘American football’ just like here in England we do not call them ,’ English muffins’. Savage, your name is quite fitting, you ever been outside of a library mate? Get a life man. Go on.
In the 1950s, 1960s and even the 1970s the term ‘soccer’ was regularly used throughout England. The term was often used in annual publications such as
http://www.footballheaven.net/acatalog/George_Bests_Soccer_Annual_No4.html
or
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0304928941/unitedmanchester
which advertises Bobby Charlton’s “This Game of Soccer”.
Its only the recent, ‘johnny-come-lately’s’ to the game who haven’t got a clue who criticise the yanks about their use of the term soccer.
Yes JohnF, the term ‘soccer’ was regularly used by some of the media in Britain. It was also used by University and ex-Public School boys, but never by the majority of the people. The term became a bit more wide spread from 1945 until the 1980’s, but still most called it football. The reason why the media used it was probably because the guy in charge of the sports at a tv company or at a newspaper or a publishing company had been to University or was an ex-Public School boy.
Even today, we have tv programmes such as ‘Soccer AM’, but most people in Britain, still use the word ‘Football’. ‘Soccer’ is a word that has never been very popular with the working classes in Britain, who usually prefer to call it ‘Football’ or ‘footie’, however the real reason why most disliked the word ‘soccer’ is not because the Americans use it, but because it was considered a word used by the ex-Public School boys and the like.
Its pronounced “Football” you bunch of retards.
(Not the same Tim as already in the comments.)
Nice story about a game I love. It’s interesting that I’ve read the same story except that the other article said the same events occurred at an American ivy-league school.
The San Francisco league still uses the soccer football name, the San Francisco Soccer Football league. Now it makes sense, especially since it was formed in 1902. It’s quite the league too. Some teams take a bus over a hundred miles every Sunday to play here.
I find a lot of records that show that “Charles Wreford-Brown (9 October 1866 – 26 November 1951). ”
That would make it hard for him to say “soccer” in 1863, as you mentioned.
Just got linked to this by the Redskins Blog, in connection to the ticket sale for the USMNT vs. Brazil. I applaud you for chronicling the long, rich tradition of the soccer name, but your comments seem contradictory.
You claim that soccer came before football, which cannot be true, if “soccer” is derived from “Association Football”. It might have had some currency before football (without “Association”) was more the more widely accepted name, but even that seems dubious. “Association,” as you say, was adopted to distinguish it from other games referred to as football. So, “football” must have come first.
@fischy: If you read a little closer, you’ll see I said that “soccer” came before the first reference of Association Football being called just “football”.
Daven, but again you are wrong (see my reply below).
I think your all missing something, if soccer was derived from the Association Football – they surely the Football part of Association Football, predates the Soccer.
Hence the game was known as football before soccer. I am sure the word soccer is never used on the terraces in any stadium in the UK, and using the phrase on the terraces will show you for the fool you are.
@Alan: except for the fact that around that time there were a ridiculous number of popular sports that were called XYZ Football, so it isn’t necessarily the case that people would have called it just Football as that wouldn’t have said anything about what sport it was. This is probably why there are no early references of it just being called the singular term “Football”, but there are of it being called Soccer and the full name, Association Football.
Daven, except that your answer, like your article, is wrong! If you had bothered to do proper research instead of just surfing the net, you would have found that there are no references to the game being called ‘soccer’ or ‘Association Football’ in the 1860’s, as these terms did not exist then. On the other hand, you will find many references to the game being called by the singular term ‘Football’ in the same period. If you had bothered to check newspaper reports from the 1860’s and early 1870’s in papers such as The Times, Bell’s Life In London, The Field, The Sportsman, Sporting Gazette, Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, The Sporting Life, Glasgow Herald, Sheffield Daily Telegraph among many others, you will note that the game is always referred to as Football and not soccer or Association Football.
If you watch any football on English TV or know any1 into football who is English you would know that the word ‘soccer’ makes me physically sick!
@Arthur: Unless that English person is over around 50-60-ish years old. Those English people remember that when they were kids, Association Football was called soccer just as much as the singular “football” in the U.K.
Hate to burst your bubble here (love the site) but that’s not true. If a man/woman in their 60’s now were to cast their mind back to their childhood it would put them in roughly the late 1950’s/60’s. That’s over 80 years after the term football became widely accepted according to the article so it would be more likely that when a person now in their 60’s were a child perhaps a person of that era then in their 60’s would be able to remmeber others referring to it as soccer but amost certainly would not have done so themselves.
Good article though, I have always wondered where the term soccer came from
Ever heard of the Bobby Charlton Soccer School?
For me, in my opinion, i would call them all Football but in different set of rules and unique of play. American Football can be called also a Football, even most of the time, they use their hands, but, they can be able to use their feet if necessary. And with their protective outfit in the body and the head. In Football Soccer, most of the time, they use their feet, but, they can be able to use their head and body if necessary. In Australian Football, same as American Football, they use the same Rugby ball. but Australian Foot ball has no protective outfit in the body and in the head. So, to eliminate the dispute, which those the real Football game, we can call it them Football but in different styles of play.
EXCELLENT, SIR!!!
The article simply tells a story why one part of the world is ignorant of the reality. The whole world calls football – football. Period. We have FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), UEFA (Union of European Football Associations), the FA, etc. We have major clubs called FC etc. Why would anyone in his/her right mind invent anything else? The answer is simple: ignorance about the ROW. The boring hand-egg game called football in the States is called American Football elsewhere among regular people. A – it’s not ball, it’s an egg. B-they play with feet only occasionally. Yes, players run on feet but so do players in handball, etc. Anyhow, it Football and deal with it. on a personal note, soccer sounds sick. Nobody calls New York a different name. Nobody gave a right to one country to tell the rest of the world how to call their favorite game. Period.
@acmilanello: Did you even read the article?
You look like a fool when you comment with such a rant, all the while, proving that you didn’t even bother to take time to *READ* the article in question.
Nicole, anyone that believes the article will also look a fool, because it is wrong (see my other posts for details, starting with the ones at the bottom of the page).
The oxford dictionary tells you all you need to know-soccer was the oxford-created term for ‘Association’ and ‘Football’. A team played sport with a spherical ball. So ‘association football’ is the original name-the word soccer was created afterwards by oxford uni a merge of both words for quick and easy short reference. The word soccer was likely used in oxford area public schools in the 1800s as a result and spread due to its addition to the oxford dictionary, but we now know it eventually faded out when the word ‘football’ was more obvious and to-the-point! African and Austalian television sometimes refer to the sport as soccer as well as football, but in the uk most people think of the word soccer as an american only term, as thats where its used the most. You’ll never catch the media using the word ‘soccer’ in any sports section of any newspaper or on television in the uk.
I would probably annoy some americans equally if I constantly referred to american football as Gridiron, its original name. We argue that it borrows heavily from rugby (similar to baseball borrowing from the original rounders sport). The influence cannot be denied. As rugby is still played, this seems to stop gridiron from ever having a chance in being popular worldwide. If rugby decided to use far heavier gear and helmets for safety, and both ended up popular, there would be much confusion!
quote from Tan June 24, 2010 at 9:12 am -“Did you know, the first FA cup final was between two schools?”……..
I think that sums up most of the arguing thats going on in here-schoolboy talk over whos sport is better! LOL. Its no different to rugby fans and football fans arguing over whos sport is the most interesting. You can argue for hours about gridiron, a sport borrowing from rugby which known as a sport focusing mainly on use of the hands, yet calling itself foot-ball in the usa(?), or some gridiron fans calling soccer a less manly sport, despite being padded up to the max with a helmet for safety (compare that to rugby).. or you can argue against association football making little use of the hands and therefore less of the body. That could go on and on for hours.. but thats no reason not to appreciate both! In europe and the uk most mainstream channels will likely never show american football as long as rugby is around, but what would be wrong with enjoying them all?..
The picture of the Jabulani abomination is disgusting. Adidas ruined the last World Cup by introducing this monstrocity. Boycott Adidas. Boycott Jabulani: the worst ball in human history.
Australian Football was codified in 1858. The first game between two private schools played the same year.
The game has always been known as football in Australia whilst soccer, being the 4th most popular sport in the country after Australian Rules, then League, then rugby.
Trying to call the game “football” is simply confusing. Probably explains the dismal state of soccer.
@acmilanello Using New York is a bad example.
New York (City, I’m assuming) has many names, including but not limited to, The Big Apple, Manhatten, The City that Never Sleeps, etc.
Honestly if you think about it, saying to someone they are wrong about calling football “soccer”, is wrong and insulting. Its not like the sport is called something offensive or mean, just a alternate name.
As a French/American living in New York, I have no problem with Americans using the term soccer, especially after reading this article. The author seems to have done research, something that most of the Brits who constantly insult users of the term “soccer” have never done. And to acmilanello, Latin Americans refer to New York as Nueva York, so your metaphor is moot.
As an Englishman living in NY, I have to take issue with you over this…And sadly a lot of the opinions voiced here.
Firstly, regarding differing names for New York. The other names are only nicknames and Manhattan is only one of the five boroughs for New York City (not state).
The issue that seems to missed by most people is one of class. It was sometimes called “soccer” in schools back in the 60s, but even then it was a dying term in England. People used it in an effort to be “correct”, that is to be “posh” as “soccer” was what those at private schools (i.e. the rich – Private schools in the UK are ones where you pay to attend them) called it in the early days. The rest of the people called it “football”, as that was what children from non-fee-paying schools had called it in the early days.
The argument came down to do you want it to be “the people’s game”, or like Rugby, considered to be a game of the rich or upper-class? It was settled in the early 1970s when almost everyone in Britain began to call it only football, even the rich or upper-class. If you liked, Rugby was for the posh, football for the people.
It is right to say that calling it “soccer” is now seen as a slight in Britain by Americans who do not know the use of the word has changed. Britain having invented the modern version of the game that all world associations follow, they reserve the right to call it what they like and calling it “soccer” is now seen as old-fashioned and sadly ignorant. It is used by those who do not know the name effectively changed some forty years ago by popular usage and arguably much earlier by official nomenclature – “Football” being the adopted name in Associations and clubs long before the early 1970s.
American football is American football – Being as they invented this version of the game, they also have the right to call it whatever they like!
Very few countries call it “soccer” anymore, where it is, it is because it is in transition to being called “football”. While it is sometimes useful to be able to distinguish “non-American football” from “American football”, you should know that in most other places in the world, you will be judged for calling it “soccer”, even if it is still a synonym. At best you will be thought of as old-fashioned, at worst, you will be considered ignorant of the subject. The international governing body (FIFA) having chosen even in 1904 to call itself football and not soccer.
This is the first post that is both respectful and gives and actual reason why it should be called football over soccer. But the fact is it’s not a very good reason. You are expecting the average American to know the socio-economic problems in the UK and how that relates to the naming of a sport and then take your common man “side” for no reason other than to not do so is rude? It’s a reason, but I can’t say it’s a very good read.
It’s like the metric system. Brits get SO mad when they see Americans using a system created largely by the British. So because the Brits gave it up, we Americans by default have to give it up too? How does that make sense? If American Football became popular in the UK, and who knows, anything could happen, would you expect Brits to call it Football too? By your own comments then the answer has to be yes. Imagine the TV stations would get when people tuned in for th football game and didn’t get what they were expecting.
So you expect we Americans to change the name to one of our most popular sports to something other than football, to then rename your most popular sport with the same name just so you don’t get your feelings hurt hearing the word you invented in the first place?
Sorry but that logic is messed up. Who cares if Brits look down on your for saying soccer, the type of people to do that would look down on you anyway just for being American so who cares?
Americans can still use their word, “soccer”. They just need to realise that doing so puts them in a minority of people around the world.
Rebecca, you say that ‘It’s like the metric system. Brits get SO mad when they see Americans using a system created largely by the British.’ This may be true with some Brits, but certainly not all. In Britain the road signs are in miles, and as such the speedos in motor vehicles are in m.p.h and not km/h.
British Football fans talk in imperial measurements. For example you have the 6 yard box and the 18 yard box. Goals are 8 feet high and 8 yards wide. Opponents must stand 10 yards away at free kicks. The penalty spot is 12 yards away from the goal line. The centre circle has a 10 yard radius etc etc. Of course, all these measurements have a metric conversion, but it is unusual to hear a British fan talk of the 5.5 metre box or the 16.5 metre box, or opponents standing 9.15 metres from a free kick.
The Football Association issue ‘The FA Guide To Pitch And Goalpost Dimensions’ in imperial measurements. Match of the Day, a Football highlights show on BBC, talk about distances of goals or passes in yards and not metres.
Note: Although the speedos in motor vehicles are in m.p.h, they do have km/h displayed as well (usually in smaller figures underneath the m.p.h).
Rebecca, you should know that American football is pretty popular in Britain these days, where it is known as “American Football”. The name was accepted and not changed.
lebreton, you say that ‘The author seems to have done research…’, sadly this is one of many poorly researched articles on the subject that keeps popping up on the web. It is full or mistakes, and it is a good example of how not to write an article.
To write an article such as this, you should have at least have good knowledge on the subject already, and you should not rely too heavily on the web to do your research. It is clear by reading Daven’s article that he has little or no knowledge on the history of the game and he has just copied dodgy information from dodgy websites, without checking more reliable sources to see if the information was correct. The sad thing is that sooner or later someone else will write another article on the subject (there are already too many on the web), and use Daven’s article as research and again repeating a lot of incorrect information.
Odd. I’ve never heard of football being used in substitution for soccer. Those people are certainly backwards.
Not playing any side here, however, like it or not, I just happened to be reading old news paper articles (specifically, the 1945 May 9 Daily Mail and 1963 Nov 23 Daily Telegraph editions), and, in the ‘Sports Sections’, it clearly refers to ‘Soccer’, and, there is no mention of ‘football’ anywhere. So, for at least 20 years of the 20th century, Soccer was the name of the game. Comments?
CoryB, as far as Britain is concerned soccer has never been in common use. It was used mainly by
University and ex-Public School boys and some of the media, but never by the majority of the
people. In fact up until the mid 1940’s most of the people would not have even heard the word
being used. Then it became a bit more wide spread, but still most called it football. The
reason why the media used it was probably because the guy in charge of the sports at a tv
company or at a newspaper had been to University or was an ex-Public School boy. Having
said this, it would be unusual for a newspaper only to use the word soccer and not football,
maybe they had their minds on other things, like VE Day or JFK.
Most major newspapers (both national and regional) in Britain would issue a ‘Football
Annual/Yearbook/Guide’. Certainly in the time frame that we are talking about the Daily
Mail issued their annual ‘Football Guide’ starting from the 1950-51 season, which indicates
that they normally did use the word Football as well. Although the Telegraph didn’t start
issuing their ‘Football Year Book’ until the 1983-84 season.
Even today, we have tv programmes such as ‘Soccer AM’, but most people in Britain, still
use the word ‘Football’, so just because you found two newspaper issues that use the word
‘soccer’, this doesn’t mean that the game was known by this name by the people.
Logic Fail.
If Socer is shortened form of Association Football (says so in the sources themselves) the soccer couldn’t have appeared before Association Football. Unless it’s the first word to have a shortened form used before the actual long form…
Check your own facts before writing the article.
@John: I see your “Logic Fail” and raise you a “Reading Fail”. 😉 Nowhere does it say Soccer came before “Association Football”. What it says is “…referred to as ‘Soccer’ preceded the first recorded instance of it being called by the singular word “Football” by about 18 years.”
Daven, but if you had bothered to do some proper research, you would find that your statement ‘…referred to as ‘Soccer’ preceded the first recorded instance of it being called by the singular word “Football” by about 18 years’ is total rubbish! Not sure where you got this information from but it most certainly is not true, it is in fact laughable that you continue to believe it. See my other posts for details.
First, those “sources” you say, how can i be certain that they are correct.
Second, you only took the parts that were of use to you, but missing important data that was displayed in those websites. for example, “The word “football”, however, was more descriptive of the game (i.e. kicking a ball with the feet!) and was the term more frequently used”, among others.
@manuel: “football” was not more descriptive at that time as there were numerous relatively popular sports called such. Basically, any sport that was played on foot with a ball was called “football”, distinguished from sports played on horseback.
Daven, sorry but again you are wrong. The horseback theory is a modern myth with no historical evidence to back it up. As far as sporting myths go, it is right up there with Baseball’s Abner Doubleday myth, Rugby’s William Webb Ellis myth and Baseball’s World Series name myth. They were all made up years after they were suppose to have happened to try and justify something that wasn’t true. By continuing to believe this myth, it just makes you look gullible at the best and a fool (to put it politely) at the worst.
Nevertheless, American football is not a foot neither a ball. it is handegg. you need use your hands and the ball doesn’t look like a ball. it looks like an egg. this history lesson doesn’t work. Association football preceded soccer. because it was called football before it was called association football. Nice try though. most of the world now calls it football.
@aaa: Nearly all sports played on foot with a ball were once generically called “football”. The fact that a ball was handled mostly with your feet or hand didn’t really matter that much in terms of coming up with the generic name for the game.
Daven, see my reply above (in fact see all my replies!).
@Nick
But the name football stuck from the beginning because it was played on foot. It had nothing to do with HOW it was played but ON WHAT it was played. The name was given to it to differentiate it from Polo. I actually do love the name Tackleball, though.
@shahin hyder
Keep boasting your IGNORANCE. Oh, and see that link that says Expand for references and a small arrow right next to it?? Try clicking it.. see what happens, Idiot.
Hmm.. Not where it was supposed to show up… Sorry Daven… But if we are to comment on aaa’s stupid rant then here it is.
Know that in the begining the ball actually looked more like a sphere than an “egg” (It’s actually called a Prolate spheroid) because forward passing didn’t exist until 1906. The season of 1905 had 19 fatalities. So calling it “start stop rugby with padding” is plain bullshit cause at first there were no paddings at all. But I digress. When forward pass came into the rulebook, the players had a rough time with the ball, so the new version of it – the Prolate spheroid – was introduced. And it did a magnificent job up to this day. Mind you that even with the helmets and paddings there are still alot of life endangering injuries. I recently saw a video of a reciever being tackled and as a result paralyzed for life except some limited motion in his right arm. Daryl something… poor soul.
I don’t really buy the “to differentiate it from polo” argument, for the reason that polo didn’t exist in England when football was named. There was also another sport in the era called handball, and I think it unlikely it was played by people doing handstands.
he used “polo” as a modern describer of the sports that were played horseback in the era… I suggest you to actually read the article.
Yes Lenon Kramer, but the fact remains that the horseback theory is a modern myth with no
historical evidence to back it up. As we know the word ‘Football’ is an English one. So for the horseback theory to be correct then there would have to at least have been a medieval ball game played on horseback as opposed to on foot, played in Britain. Yet the earliest record of such a game played in the British Isles is polo, which was introduced to England in 1834. The word ‘Football’ had already been in the English language for over 400 years by then.
Also if the horseback theory was true then games such as cricket, hockey, stoolball, bandy, golf and loads more would have also been known as football. We know through records kept that these games were not known as football, in fact the only games that were known as football were those that involved kicking the ball with the foot, hence the name Football. For more details refer to my other posts starting with the ones at the bottom of the page.
I suggest not to read the article as most of it is incorrect. That’s what happens when someone with no knowledge on the subject, thinks they can write an article by surfing the net, they end up writing an article that is full of false ‘facts’.
@aaa: A ball is not a geometric shape. Nothing says the ball has to be spherical.
I referred to it as soccer as a kid, we all did in the 70’s, we even have a program called soccer-am, so nothing wrong with using the slang term, as I see the problem is the refusal of the US to ever call it football. Also when some from the US says soccer, it usually takes them 4 times longer to say it than a brit – which also is very annoying.
your completely wrong about the first use of the word football in 1881, look at what the oldest football club in the world is called, no hint to the world association, it was called sheffield FOOTBALL club, not soccer, not association football
@abc: And your sources are?
Daven, the fact that you got to ask for sources for this, just goes to show that writing this article is beyond you. I would say anyone that knows anything about the history of football, would already know that Sheffield FC is the oldest football club in the world. If you didn’t you could easily look it up. In future you should write about something you know. That way at least you might not get so many ‘facts’ wrong.
http://www.sheffieldfc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=13&Itemid=182 does show Sheffield FC founded in 1857. I agree with Imre’s comment about pronunciation. When I told an American I was a director of a local soccer club, I had to repeat it three more times before he shouted, “Oh! Suuuuuckerrrr!”
This blog post is factually incorrect and misleading.
The word “football” was already in widespread use LONG BEFORE the author’s cited source.
From Wikipedia:
“The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) records that the first written use of the word football used to describe a game was in 1424 in an Act forbidding it. The first written use of the word football to describe the ball was 1486, and that the first use as a verb (hence footballing) was in 1599. Although the OED just indicates it is a compound of foot and ball, the 1486 definition indicates that a ball was of the essence of the game.”
So, to clarify: the word football was the name given to the game for hundreds of years. But when the sons of the privileged classes at Rugby “public school” bastardized the game and thus created “rugby football”, they seized on the recent codification of the rules to distinguish between their sport and the widespread game already known as football. Since the rules were codified by a group of teams who called themselves the Football Association, these scions of privilege — who rarely deigned to play a game that was wildly popular with the “lower classes” — began referring to it as Association Football, whence the term “soccer’.
The assertion that soccer was the game’s original name, and that football was an afterthought, is complete BS.
@Sharkey: “The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) records that the first written use of the word football used to describe a game…” I didn’t say anything about the word “football” to describe “a game” not being around before Association Football came around. You should read the article again. We’re arguing two different things here.
Daven, the fact is you got it wrong neither the terms ‘soccer’ or ‘Association Football’ existed in 1863 when the Football Association was formed, both terms came much later. The game was and still is known as Football. Stop surfing the net and do some proper research.
It’s clear we all love the sport. It’s a waste of time to argue with someone that likes the same things you do.
USA should spend less time with NFL bs and get their REAL football team in shape for the next world cup. maybe if we ever won, everyone would forget about NFL and revert the name back to what the rest of the world calls it
that will NEVER happen. the US loves its football as in NFL football at both the college and professional level. i love both football (feet) and football (american) but nobody will ever forget about the NFL its part of our countries pastime. and no, the consideration of the Americans ever winning the world cup is a joke and we all know it
OK so The US winning a World cup is a long shot but lets not forget that the US finished above England in their group and Both the US and England were knocked out in the next round. SO the US has just about the same chance as England the country that invented the sport. We may call it Soccer as not to confuse it with NFL type football but the sport is fast becoming the number one youth sport played by more Kids then baseball or football (as girls play soccer also not as many play Baseball or football)
The US women HAVE won a World cup Twice in fact.
NO the US does not have a the TOP top players in out national team player pool or even a single player that is going to win the FIFA player of the year anytime soon but ether does England only David Beckham and Frank Lampard made it to Second place. But if you in the modern football era if you are to pick one country that produces the MOST top top rated players you have to go with Brazil with 8 FIFA players of the year winners. Other countries have had many great players but at the moment England’s national team is NOT as good as the English press likes to hype it to be. The EPL the top devision of English football is only 30-35% english players. And English players playing in top divisions outside of England is even lower. SO the English may have invented the sport but it is NOT the dominate force at developing top players. Which is pretty sad really. And if you do not want to believe a Yank take the word of Roy Hodgson the nation team manager’s word for it http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2310368/Roy-Hodgson-bemoans-lack-English-players-Premier-League.html
Compared to other top football nations in Europe and around the world England is falling behind at their own game.
I think the problem is your 2nd paragraph is poorly constructed and it’s therefore difficult for readers to understand your intent. I think you meant it to be an introductory paragraph (perhaps with your science background you are used to writing an abstract, which would be unnecessary in an article?) The language choice of “not only that” is strange considering you haven’t proven your first claim yet with research/proof. Also, I believe you have misused a verb tense with “this happening” otherwise it is an incomplete sentence. And then you start then next sentence in similar fashion “When that happened” but your use of “that” as a pronoun is confusing because your previous sentence was such a mess. I found I had to reread this second paragraph a few times to understand what you were trying to convey. I think you could have done away with the entire paragraph, since you never did explain which “upper echelons properly” called it soccer, you merely explained the nickname’s origin at Oxford by way of legend. And then you wouldn’t have repeated such vocabulary twice in a short article.
@susie regarding your post, this is why no one likes you
I LOVE Suzie – this world would be a better place with more like her.
* the, not *then. apologies
@Daven For some people, it wouldn’t matter if it was written in stone, a thousand years ago, on display for everyone to see, if people don’t like the idea, there’re not going to accept it. There is nothing you can say or write to change that.
@nmkvn Why spend less time with a real team that brings in a revenue of over 11 billion and more time with a wanna-be team that brings in a tenth of that? Just because you think the NFL is bs doesn’t mean the rest of the country should. The NFL is the #1 sport where Soccer ranks #5 in this country (or somewhere around there in revenue) It may be #1 in the world. Its just not #1 here. No big deal.
And Susie, please, this isnt English 111. go critique somewhere else.
Jamie, the reason a lot of people won’t accept this, is because most of the article is incorrect. The horseback theory is a modern myth with no historical evidence to back it up. To write an article such as this, you should at least have good knowledge on the history of the game. It is quite obvious reading Daven Hiskey’s article he has little or no knowledge on the history of the game, as his article is full of mistakes and assumptions he has made on the original name of the game. To the people who have pointed out his mistakes, Daven has usually just made a snide remark in replying to them. It is also obvious from your remarks that you have no knowledge on the history of the game.
When writing an article such as this, it is also important to do some proper research. It is no good just finding a story on a website, seeing other websites have repeated the story, then thinking it must be true. Most of these type of sites just copy and paste and then change a few words around to make it look like that they wrote it. You need to actually check to see if these stories are true. Go to libraries, check books, newspapers, documents and other records kept. Daven hasn’t done this, because if he had, he would not have wrote this article.
the dude who speaks of the sport it to bius cause american football didnt come until 1895 so america didnt have a sport called foot ball they copied rugby and football and made ruthb
Fun article. One thing about your facts at the end though. 1307-1327 was the reign of King Edward II, not King Edward I as the wording intimates. The first Edward was focused more on making laws that would draw revenue than laws that would limit people’s leisure activities.
An early reference to a ball game that was probably football comes from 1280 at Ulgham, Northumberland, England: “Henry… while playing at ball.. ran against David”.[3] Football was played in Ireland in 1308, with a documented reference to John McCrocan, a spectator at a “football game”
I just imagine that American Football, Soccer and Rugby are like 3 brothers, son of the same sport, “Mister Football” (that’s actually true, they are variations of the same sport). Some people may call Association Football by it’s nickname, “Soccer”, and some people call it by his family name, “Football”. Just like we do with people.
So I suggest the people start calling American Football as “Mericcer”.
This is a lot of misinformation. Did you actually even read your sources? If anyone actually looked at the link in your sources for the etymology of soccer, they will see that the word was originally socca, a university slang for assoc. as in association… as in FOOTBALL association. The word became soccer in 1895.
@Addie: Did you even read my article? From your comment, I’d guess not.
Daven, did you even do any proper research? From reading your article, I’d guess not!
@imre, Americans do call the sport “football.” As the article itself describes football is the genus of sport, and soccer is the slang for the specific type of football. Even here in America we have different types of football, such as Arena Football, etc. American gridiron football just happens to be the dominant form of football in the States, thus it gets the generic term applied to it. In most of the rest of the world, football describes the dominant type of football played there, which happens to be association football in most places, but in some places it could be gridiron football, or even Gaelic football. Whatever the dominant sport of the area is, it gets called football generically.
But in the states in Major League Soccer, the teams have names such as Seattle Sounders Football Club, Football Club of Dallas, Toronto Football Club, etc. But because it’s not the dominant football here, people use the slang soccer to distinguish the sport.
@Steven: Well said.
The term football does predate soccer. Before the rules of the game were codified, “mob games” use to be played involving whole towns sometimes, while the rules were not the same as football, this game evolved into the football we know today.
I could really care less about Americans winning or not winning the world cup. Soccer isn’t even the most watched sport in the USA…the NFL is. If Soccer were, THEN I might care about us winning a world cup. But since it’s not, I could care less.
Besides, when you are going to talk about worldwide sports, all that really matters are the Olympics…and we have, what, over 2500 medals total? That’s over 2 times as many medals as the 2nd place country (Russia) has won. If we really wanted to put together a good soccer team, we obviously have the athletes to do so if more Americans watched the sport.
– You care only about sport that you dominate
– You reinvent your own language when you say without shame that Worlwide just means the US of A.
– You talk about the number of medals without putting in context the size of your 48 states put together
– You think that the number of medals does prove something
– But only when that arrange you because you suck at soccer
– You’re sure that you can, but don’t bother to put on a good man soccer team (you can’t actually, only retired players are interested in US leagues – Just like Qatar lol)
– You think that US athletes have somewhat a particular gene that allow them to be good at anything they put their heart into
You are a cliche.
An absolutely fantastic cliche.
Are you also fat ?
The United States has over 300 million people. If Soccer was the main sport of this country and attracted the best American athletes, by mere numbers and accidents of statistics the United States could field one of the most talented teams in the world instantaneously. It is not our preferred sport. Any argument of “the rest of the world likes it, you should too” is so asinine it is silly. You have your thing, and we have ours, go enjoy yours.
Actually, if America wanted to make a football team, they’d still not be any good at it. It takes talent and skill to be able to play football, what you common American morons don’t understand is that just because you may have a bunch of very fit people, doesn’t make them instantaneously good at something.
Why does it seem British people have an attitude towards Americans? …Is it because we whipped your butts in two major wars? lol. Jk. Oh boy… No really? Why?
bruh have yous seen some of the kids here play? alot of them are better than some on the national team easily…
This is a simple case of jealousy with uninformed statements thrown in as fact. Most likely posted by a teenager jealous of the United States. Sad, quite sad.
It is all biased as if you consider ALL the Nations in the world only a very few Have a realistic chance outside of a long shot and really good luck have much more then a long shot at winning a world cup. Including the Nation that invent the sport England remember the US finish above England in the group stage last time and both nations were knocked out at the same stage in the tournament. England has not won since 1966.
They have never had a FiFA world player of the year winner (a few seconds and 3rd pace finalist) in the modern era. England has never won a European championship in the modern era or even made it to the final in a euro.
AND MANY MANY people in the US DO play the sport and DO care about it in fact it is fast becoming the Number one Amateur sport (when you include both male and female leagues) More kids play Soccer then Baseball.
It is only a mater of time the US WILL produce more and more players that will make it to top leagues around the world. As well as their own MLS teams getting better doing better every year in the Concacaf Club CL.
At one time it would have been unheard of for the US national team to beat Mexico even on a home field with a US mexico match played anywhere near the boarder having more Mexican supporters then US. NOW we have won in Mexico at the Estadio Azteca.
US Professional Soccer players are now becoming house hold names and few have become very well paid playing the sport. and THAT is what will bring top the money.
Even in the recent past the Soccer career in the US ended at collage now US Youth players are going pro at High school age (like in other nations) and forgoing collage for Professional careers in the sport.
It is going to take time but the sport Must grow from the bottom up NOT the top down. Like the NASL tried to do. I will go out on a Limb and say in 10 years the US will have a player playing at Real Madrid or Barca or ManU level club (not just as a Goal keeper) as Tim Howard did play for ManU.
Before you can have a Top US national team you first need to have at least 60-70 top players playing at Top Club level to have a big enough player pool to pick 22 top players to have a winning national team. England have around 189 player in the EPL and their national team coach considers that not enough to have big enough player pool at the top level to be World Cup winners.
US players have only been getting in to EPL First 11 teams for 10-12 years now and not many at that give it time. In 1970 Pele introduced a our nation to the sport it has taken 40 years to have a successful top full time professional league. Before that it was Simi pro and the failed NASL.
But it is strong enough now that young boys grow up playing and with real life hero of the sport on their walls to look up to and Some are even US american internationals like Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan this next group of youth players is going to surprise many in the future it will take generations but the sport has come a long way in a relatively short time in this country
if you play ball with your foot
its called Football
Further to the previous argument, and borne of the Olympic medal statistics, the US specialises at individual sports and is less competitive in top-level international team sports.
I can only think of basketball, and that is very heavily weighted in their favour.
Football is not a sport where might is right. The biggest countries are not the best. The countries with the most successful leagues are not the best.
Although power has shifted and success has been defined a lot by specific generations, there are plenty of small countries who employ a certain philosophy and have been able to be consistently successful despite not having a large pool of players or a good domestic league. Immediately Uruguay and Holland spring to mind, as well as the Balkan countries. Even my own country, Ireland, have punched well above their weight, albeit not recently, considering it is a minority sport in a country of 4 million people with a crushingly mediocre domestic league.
The US national team is improving at an impressive rate, but even if they gave up all other sports and concentrated on nothing else it would be a long time before they could compete at football’s top table.
@Pudsey, America is great at team sports internationally. The vast majority of our athletes specialize in football, baseball, and basketball. We dominate Basketball, There is no international football competition, and the World Baseball Classic in kind of a joke and most of America’s top players don’t play. Now can you imagine if America’s top athletes played soccer? A team with the likes of LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Adrian Peterson etc would certainly be among the world’s elite
I’m imagining . . . got it, they’d be rubbish.
Fisrt of all: americans? I´m from Argentina; Argentina is in America (BECAUSE AMERICA IS A CONTIENT), so I´m an american, and here we call it football.
It doesn´t matter those explanations, it´s easier than that.
FOOT BALL. USA football barely uses feet, so it´s not very intelligent to call it footbal. Would you call handball to ‘soccer’ just because the goalkeeper uses his hands?
@Emiliano: As stated in the article, nearly all sports played on feet with ball were once called football to distinguish them from sports played on horseback. Whether the ball was carried or kicked didn’t matter. Over time, the most popular football sport in certain regions became simply called “football” rather than, say, “Association Football”. In the United States, Association Football just isn’t anywhere close to the most popular.
Daven, you say that ‘nearly all sports played on feet with ball were once called football’. No they weren’t. The horseback theory is a modern myth. That’s what happens when someone like yourself with no knowledge on the subject, thinks they can write an article by surfing the net, you end up writing an article that is full of false ‘facts’.
Do I have this right: soccer is a word that was used by the middle-class and is now only used only by posh old gits and . . .
etymology, fascinating zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
The fact is the word soccer is only used by Rugby hoorays in England and Americans who desperately need to nurture the myth that American Football has significance in world sport
Football is Football, all other sports with the word football incorporated are pale shadows of the beautiful game.
Get over it, enjoy your chosen sport, but give up the trying to understand Football.
P.S.
Football has Working Class roots (not lower class).
Etymology, fascinating zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Well said CravenA, I regard myself as Working Class and not lower class.
For a long time it was a popular belief that Public School boys in England ‘civilised’ the
working man’s game of football. However, there have been books and articles in recent years
that have challenged this myth, and say that it was the working classes themselves who
civilised the game. Among these are Football’s Secret History (2001) John Goulstone,
Football: The First Hundred Years – The Untold Story (2005) Adrian Harvey, Beastly Fury:
The Strange Birth of British Football (2009) Richard Sanders and The Working Class Origins
of Modern Football (2000) John Goulstone. Beastly Fury even shows how the Public School
boys were the ones who were actually the uncivilised ones.
The rest of the world calls it football in their own language so I don’t consider it. In the English speaking world – USA, Canada, UK, South Africa, Australia- Only one of those countries calls soccer football, the UK.
Population of UK – 63 million
Population of the rest – 423 million
Get with it UK, its called soccer.
Annnnd the population of the rest of the world, calling the game “football” in their own languages.
(If we are starting to do this “majority wins!!11!” -thing.)
Population of USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia – 423 million
Population of the rest of the world – 6 billion, 850 million.
Get with it USA, its called football.
the rest of the world might call it football, but only one country cares about the name… and that country is….
England
@gtrogue – So you’re saying because 4 other countries call it ‘soccer’, that means the UK should? I think the country who invented the game that is now known as football/soccer should be able to call it whatever they like, don’t you? Also, you said ‘The rest of the world calls it football in their own language’. But you’re not considering it because they speak another language? That is a ridiculous thing to say. Ask any French, Spanish, German (etc) person who can speak English to tell you what they think Football is called, and you’ll hear your answer. In France, they call it football; in Latin America and Spain they call it fútbol. The Germans use a slight variation: Fußball or fooseball. (A popular game in America, ‘foosball’ is a loose transliteration of the German word “Fußball”, which itself means simply football, and is a ‘soccer’ based game (also called Table Football).)
@Daven Hiskey and the article itself – This was actually a good read. Though it does make more sense to call it ‘football’, it is interesting to know that England came up with the term ‘soccer’ that is most commonly associated here in England with Americans. Maybe people wouldn’t complain so much if they knew this, though they probably will. All I know is, in England it is called Football, in America it is called Soccer, and there’s not really much wrong with that. Call it what you like, it’s still a good sport.
“So you’re saying because 4 other countries call it ‘soccer’, that means the UK should?”
I think the thing that annoys the Brits, and maybe other countries, but the Brits are the most vocal, is that people in the US basically don’t think about or care about you. Americans are friendly people and will talk to anyone about anything if you are sitting in front of us, but we really don’t care about the daily lives of people living in Britain and other than period pieces it’s hard to find a movie or TV on American TV or in the theaters about modern day Britain. Americans are generally interested in learning more about other people and other cultures and are for the most part very friendly if you see down and talk with us. We don’t care to judge your culture but you guys seem to send a lot of time judging ours.
Everyone in the US knows it’s called football other places and that is just accepted. No one in the US, other than maybe a 5 year old kid who just picked up his first soccer ball would ever ask why is it called football or why is it called soccer. It just is. No one in the US cares to change the name around the world, we are just happy to call it soccer and are happy to let the rest of the world call it football but most find it annoying it’s an issue at all. I have read through a large part of these replies and I haven’t read one person wanting to call it soccer around the world. You guys say blokes, we say dudes. No one in the US is going to comment on you guys saying blokes but you guys have a lot to say about us saying dudes. Call it what you want so long as we all know what we’re talking about what’s the big deal?
Shhh…
You’re on the internet, you shouldn’t be using logic. Here, only baseless attacks, hearsay, and CAPS LOCK are the only ways to prove to the other idiot that they’re wrong and you’re right. Shout obscenities about their families, tell them you’re going to violently rape them, and then stalk them for at least a few days. This has been Introduction to Educating Internet Dwellers 101.
In all seriousness – you’re spot on. Here in the US, we don’t care what other people call it. We call it soccer since a different type of “football” became the more popular sport and thus got the common parlance associated with it. We don’t go to other countries berating them about not just calling our game “Football” – we don’t care. So long as everyone knows what is being referenced by a non-vulgar term, there shouldn’t be a problem.
Sorry Rebecca, but if Americans didn’t care about the name of the game, why are there so
many of these type of articles on the net, and nearly always written by Americans trying to
justify calling the game ‘soccer’ and getting most of their ‘facts’ wrong? If you don’t care
don’t write about it. Simple.
Why are there a number of Americans prepared to believe the horseback theory when it is just
a myth with no historical evidence to back it up and not believe the truth which is the only
games that were known as football were those that involved kicking the ball with the foot,
hence the name Football, which there are plenty of historical evidence to back it up. It seems
that they are prepared to believe anything to justify calling the game ‘soccer’.
University of Michigan professor Stefan Szymanski even went as far as writing a research
paper on the fact that ‘soccer’ is a British word. He could have saved a lot of time by just
getting a good British football book out of the library and they would have told him this, it is
already well documented in a number of British publications.
Maybe your major TV channels don’t show a lot of British programmes, but your Public
Broadcasting Service stations show quite a number of British TV programmes and a lot of
them are not period pieces. Also of course, you have BBC America showing British TV
programmes. I have stumbled across a number of American websites over the years dedicated
to British comedy / British TV programmes / British films / British music / British culture /
British Football.
NBC show every FA Premier League game live, beIN Sport USA show 3-4 Football League
games live per week, they also show the Football League Cup games live, while FOX Sports
show the FA Cup games live. All of these are English (and Welsh) football shown live in the
United States.
I have corresponded with a lot of Americans over the years who happily call themselves
‘Anglophiles’. So not all American think the same way as you do.
Well…I think you British say things weird. But, I don’t criticize and say your wrong. You pronounce and say things the way your culture states. I do according to mine.
This really is a UK thing. I don’t think any of the other countries care. British people are the only people that seem to be upset about it. The rest of us don’t care. Call it what you like, we all know what you’re talking about.
gtrogue, not true, here in New Zealand many football fans can’t stand the name ‘soccer’, so much so that most of the media here has change from using soccer to Football. In Australia, the same thing has happened with the media, many have changed to calling it Football. And if Americans didn’t care about the name of the game, why are there so many of these type of articles on the net, and nearly always written by Americans trying to justify calling the game ‘soccer’ and getting most of their ‘facts’ wrong?
After reading those “Savage” comments and seeing news about all those British football hooligans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_hooligan#United_Kingdom), I can see why they don’t call it “soccer.” When those drunken louts hear the word “soccer” they’ll likely as not turn around and slug the first woman they see. ;- )
Charles Wreford Brown is my grand-dad
Football is played with a ball, kicked with skill and never handled. The game uses a ball.
Rugby, Gridiron, AFL and like games don’t use a ball, even though the dumb dumbs call the spheroid a ball.
Australians call their game of running with a leather object, spheroid, in hand, footy. NRL is National Rugby League, and AFL is Australian Football League. AFL players can kick their leather object between two white posts with no top bar, at any height, and call it a goal. If between two smaller posts at each side of the bigger posts it’s called a ‘mark’, and scores a point. Football is British football, not soccer, never was soccer, FOOTBALL. Start calling the other games HANDBALL, what, too girly for the masochistic rugby and AFL bully-boys who have to HOLD the leather object to enable them to kick it in the right direction.
‘Legend has it, in 1863 shortly after the creation of Association Football, Wredford-Brown had some friends who asked him if he’d come play a game of “Rugger”, to which he replied he preferred “Soccer”’
Charles Wreford-Brown (who is generally considered to have coined the name ‘soccer’) was born in 1866. How could he have named the sport before he was even born?
Nothing in this article is remotely true.
@Nope: Exactly. This is why it’s a legend, and as with most of these historical anecdotes, these sorts of stories usually don’t add up, hence why I put the “legend” tag on it where most sites say that’s what happened.
Well it kind of makes a massive hole in your claim that soccer is an older term than football when the ‘football association’ (as in, an association for football – meaning they must have known the game simply as football) was founded three years before the man who coined the name soccer had even been born.
@Nope: You’re missing the point. He likely did not name soccer. The other documented instances of the name are, well, documented. We have the references and dates. The legend is just a story passed down which at some point someone wrote down.
But there are no references of the term soccer being used before the 1880s and football was clearly used on its own at least by 1863, and most likely earlier than that too!
Sorry Daven, but it’s you that keeps missing the point. The word soccer was not around in 1863, it was most likely coined around 1888. If you knew that Charles Wreford-Brown wasn’t born until 1866, you would have mentioned it in your article. The truth is that you have copied some dodgy information from a website, didn’t bother to check if the details were correct and now try and defend yourself by saying he probably didn’t name it.
You say that “other documented instances of the name are, well, documented. We have the references and dates”. Oh do you? So where are these documented references that say the term soccer was around in 1863, and where are the documented references that say the term association football was around in 1863. And while we are on the subject where are the references that say the first documented case of the sport being called by the singular term Football was in 1881. By documented references, I don’t mean more dodgy websites, but proper documented references. Of course, you won’t find any, because all this is not true.
The word “socker” was first used in 1892, then in 1894 (when “rugger” was compared to “socker”) 1895 when it was spelled “soccer” and 1899 when Socker was used without quote marks. In the anglo countries Association Football was called “Sock-er” and other variations, usually in quotes for another couple of decades
SomeOutsidersCan’tConcurEverlastingReality
I was born in the North of England, we played football at school on the football pitch, as it was called. We had relatives who lived on the other side of the town, near the football ground, to indicate the direction. My father was a member of the local football club and my uncle played in the local football league. Most boys played football in the street, on any spare land and old bomb sites using any type of ball, i.e., tennis ball, basket ball. Football was played in winter, cricket was played in summer on the football ground. My favourite team is Manchester United, known as Manchester United Football Club which is is an English professional football club who have won many trophies in English and European football. All the main towns and cities in England and Scotland have a professional football club, e.g., Arsenal F.C., all with F.C. on the flag or badge or plaque meaning Football Club. I never, ever heard the word SOCCER used to describe football until I lived in Australia. This was because the Australian game was the Aussie god, ‘the footy’, using a leather-covered sphere which was kicked and caught in the hands, dropped onto the foot and kicked to the goal, or another team member, and is similar to Gaelic/Irish football, the difference being the use of a round object, a ball, not a sphere.
The word soccer may be used by those who want others to understand they are referring to English Football, but the die-hard football players and world-wide followers will always call the game football. Soccer sounds like female boxing, and the word should be deleted, eliminated, burnt or otherwise destroyed.
All I heard was “blah blah blah blah blah blah blah”. A bunch of whining that the US and the world won’t conform to the term you use for Soccer. I liked your joke at the end though…”sock her” 😀 good stuff
Corey, despite what many Americans seem to think, the US is hardly “the world”. Many people outside the US and Canada call it football.
Except the majority of the world does call it football… Retarded inbred Americans (y)
In contrast, I grew up in western Pennsylvania, went to a school district that didn’t even have a football team of any type, and played the game you grew up with only once, for 30 minutes, in elementary school.
I call it soccer, and I love it.
Jeez, do the Australians have to put up with this abuse, too?
Jonde, growing up in Britain in the 60’s and 70’s I never heard anyone call it ‘soccer’. The first time I heard anyone call it this, is when I moved to New Zealand. And now usually only die-hard rugby fans use the word ‘soccer’ in New Zealand, most football fans call the game football.
The thing is I grew up in an area in Britain where rugby union was quite popular, or though not anywhere near as popular as Football, and still nobody ever called our game ‘soccer’. I suppose if I was born with a silver spoon in my gob, I may have heard the word being used.
oops that should have been ‘although’ not ‘or though’, too much zider!!!
Thanks for the fascinating article. Although I have to say that reading all these comments has been almost as entertaining. It’s amazing how worked up people can get over this topic. Take a deep breath and turn the sports channel back on.
By the way, I live in New Zealand and I call it soccer.
Some don’t watch the sports channel in Australia, there isn’t one on regular TV, any other system one has to pay, so better to visit a live game.
New Zealand isn’t England and the favourite sport in NZ is rugby, so in your lingo you have to call football, soccer’.
No-one is ‘getting worked up’, merely clarifying how different areas distinguish rugby, which has two codes for some weird reason, Australian Football League, which is nick-named ‘footy’ for another weird reason and American Football which is deadly that players have to wear a cage and padding.
Enjoy your fush ind chups.
I really, really enjoyed you saying that no one is getting worked up immediately after you wrote “the word [soccer] should be deleted, eliminated, burnt or otherwise destroyed.”
Because that is definitely in no way hyperbolic or insane. No getting worked up here. No sir.
Trying to justify why Americans catches and hold a “foot” ball by hand? Very poor education system for not distinguishing which are your feet and which are yours hands.
Foot ball
Hand ball.
Lower class didn’t go to school or didn’t learn human anatomy?
Did you even bother to read the article before posting? Like honestly, did you read it AT ALL because he kind of explains why it’s called that in there. Before you attempt to insult other people make sure you have basic reading comprehension and maybe read about the topic you’re about to comment on.
Lolwut, reading the article would not help anyone, as most of it is incorrect. It’s a pity the author didn’t bothered to do some proper research instead of just surfing the net.
What is funny is the name of the sport is “association football,” thus the singular “football” is just as much a nickname as “soccer.” Thus, people are getting mad that Americans use one nickname instead of the other…a nickname they didn’t even invent.
One things for sure, calling it Soccer sure annoys a lot of people. The game is called different things in different places, but if someone says Soccer everyone in the world that knows anything about “association football” knows what game their referring too, whether they like the name or not. If you say “football” at least 500 million people will think your talking about something other than “association football”. Of course as the OP demonstrated in the article the term soccer arose originally to differentiate “association football” from other games of football, just as soccer does today.
So it seems to me that since EVERYONE knows what game soccer refers to, it is the correct name, even if it makes he English pee their pants.
hahahahaha I wish they had a thumbs up feature. Well said 😀
as an american living abroad (brazil, no less), it is really tricky to chose a name. if i say “football”, everyone thinks i am referring to american football. if i say “soccer”, they think i am a foolish american who doesn’t know the correct word. so i have to say something preposterous, like “football, not american football, but the one you play here”.
This article makes no sense lol. First it says that soccer came first, and was later called association football; then it says that soccer came from an abbreviation of association football. I think i’m going to coin the phrase ‘chicken and egg journalism’ to describe this article. I even checked out your sources and they directly contradict some of what you’ve written in the article. So maybe I should just call this ‘facepalm journalism’ instead?
@Ash: You need to actually read the article, not skim. It says “preceded the first recorded instance of it being called by the singular word ‘Football’ by about 18 years.” And no where does it say it was called “Soccer” before “Association Football”.
Daven, you need to actually do some proper research and not skim! Not sure where you got the “preceded the first recorded instance of it being called by the singular word ‘Football’ by about 18 years.” from? Maybe it was something you misread, misunderstood or something you just dreamt up! It certainly is not true. If you had bothered to check newspapers, magazines, books, programmes etc from the period you would have known this. In short you shouldn’t skim your research!
If you would have asked me I could have told you the word soccer came from Association Football. The word is most often used as a way of insulting the worlds game. By the way it is not only Brits who get sick of hearing the word soccer, most of the world does. The game is foot-to-ball and calling it by its correct name is not going to lessen the USA version of the game which is a beautiful game. I love the game and that does not stop me from calling Association Football by its true name. Oh, and by the way I come from a nation that has more than one football and we do not have a problem calling the worlds game by it true name–football and we do not get confused by having to use the same word for more than one game.
Another example of someone that didn’t read the article. It’s not called “football” because it’s “foot to ball” It’s called “football” because it’s played on foot versus on horse back. It’s a shame that people’s fingers are so busy that they can’t stop to read what’s written on the very same page that they’re posting on. Soccer was named Soccer before it was named “Football” Referring to it as “football” was essentially just slang and eventually became the more commonly used name. Call the American’s tradtionalists or whatever you like, it doesn’t matter. But the fact that the word “soccer” annoys you so much as you stated in your post speaks volumes about your temperament. All of the whining is what annoys me. As I’ve told the rest of the people that are like you that can’t bother reading the article and just want to whine…Soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer. That’s what we call it. Get used to it.
Corey you are another example of someone who believes any rubbish that you read on the net. How gullible are you? The horseback theory is just a myth with no historical evidence to back it up. The word football came first. It is not slang to call it football, the slang word is soccer. See my other posts for details.
Personally I don’t care if you want to call it soccer, most know it as football or a variation of football in their language. What I do care about is people like Daven Hiskey writing an article trying to justify calling it soccer and getting most of their ‘facts’ wrong and people like you believing it and thinking that you are the ones that are right.
Don’t waist your time. This is about someone trying to justify the use of the word “soccer” when the vast majority of the world collectively use another. And possibly to also justify using “football” to describe that game played in plastic armor. Somehow it just doesn’t describe it accurately.
Of all of the “Football” Federations in the world there are four that use the term “Soccer” in their title: Canada, the Virgin Islands, St Maarten, and the US. All other nations (and we’re talking hundreds) use “football”.
It’s also amusing that with US domestic season-ending games and series like the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals the winners are dubbed “world champions”. Really? The winners of the biggest sporting competition, the FIFA (Federation Internationale de “Football” Association ) World Cup, are crowned true champions of the world because of the sports global reach.
My point? Use what ever term makes you happy. Just try not to get upset when you have to further explain what you mean. There are far better things to do in this life.
@Del: To be fair, do you really think there’s any other American Football, Basketball, or Baseball team in the world that can beat said top team in the NFL, NBA, and the MLB? Someday (perhaps soon in the latter two, particularly baseball), but not so much right now, and certainly not when something like the “World Series” was originally named. 🙂
First of all, I’ve no idea why’re referring to someone’s “waist”. Secondly, this is an article meant to counter all of the people whining that the Americans call it Soccer. Simply put, just because everyone else calls it Football, doesn’t mean that we do as well. And lookie here, it was actually Soccer first. So shut up already. You can call it a “waist” of time, but that’s coming from a dude that very likely whines about that very thing and hates to be contradicted and proven wrong. Soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer soccer. GET USED TO IT, IT IS NOT CHANGING.
No Corey it was not soccer first. Just because the author of this article is unable to do proper research and gullible people like you who are so desperate to justify calling the game ‘soccer’ that they are prepared to believe any rubbish they read on the net, doesn’t make it true.
American view of football http://static.businessinsider.com/image/4ebbfd4969bedd0128000007/image.jpg
Hats off to you, Mr. Hiskey. I love this game, and I love this article. I only have one quibble, and it’s just with one of the Bonus Facts. The U.S. Soccer Federation is an organization like the English FA. It isn’t a league, but a governing body, and it sanctions the several professional and amateur leagues in the U.S.
Excellent article. I hope it doesn’t get removed and could be a reference to all those stubborn soccer fans.
Al, it should be removed because basically most of it is incorrect (see my other posts for details). It would fool people with no knowledge of the game’s history, like yourself and fool the author who somehow believes he is correct.
So, I’m actually pretty confused.
You say in the article that “Not only that, but the sport being referred to as “Soccer” preceded the first recorded instance of it being called by the singular word “Football” by about 18 years…” (end of the second paragraph).
In your own “Factoid” section, you note that both King Edward and Queen Elizabeth I made football illegal.
I’m not entirely certain how you can claim that the name football wasn’t used until 1881, considering that Edward and Elizabeth both banned the game – and called it football when they banned it. Edward banned it in 1314, which I put as being 549 years before it was ever called “Soccer”.
Now, you might say out that those proclamations weren’t written down. That might be true – I can’t find much detail on the banning of the game in England.
What I can find detail on is the banning of the game in Scotland. James I, the King of Scotland, banned football in Scotland in 1424.
Now, this only applied to Scotland, as the two monarchies weren’t united until the 1600s. (The countries weren’t formally joined for a while after that, but that’s besides the point).
However, the 1424 Football Act was passed by the Parliament of Scotland. What’s important about this is that, because it was passed by the Parliament rather than just proclaimed, /the whole thing was written down/.
Specifically, the Act says that “the King forbiddis that na man play at the fut ball under the payne of iiii d.”
It’s written in a Scottish-style accent. To ‘clear it up a bit’, the Act would read that “The King forbiddes that any man play at the foot ball under the pain of being fined four pence”.
There were later examples, of Acts written and passed to ban football. In each one, the game is named “football”.
If you go to the Records of the Parliaments of Scotland site (www.rps.ac.uk), you can find them. The site isn’t linking properly for me, but hit Advanced Search, type the word “Football” in the search bar, and search.
I’ve for four results coming up:
the 1424 Act I mentioned;
one in 1458, under James II (“… and that football and golf be utterly cried down and not used…”);
one in 1471, under James III (“… and that football and golf be discontinued in the future”);
and one more in 1491, under James IV (“And further, that football, golf, or other similar unprofitable sports are not to be played anywhere in the realm…”).
So, I can’t give you a written source from England, but I can give you several from Scotland, dating to around four full centuries before Charles Wredford Brown sauntered onto the field.
What confuses me is that you all but acknowledge this with your factoid section, and /still/ say that the word soccer came before football.
I’m not arguing that the British didn’t invent the word. We did. Most words in English come from England (not a jab, just a fact).
My two cents on the names of the two games. You’re welcome to use the term “football” for what most of the world calls American football. But in the end, language ultimately, as Wittgenstein said, just a game, and the rules of that game are decided by the majority.
Until you can convince the rest of the world to call American football “Football”, and change football to “soccer”, you’re probably going to get the occasional funny look.
And, in case anyone thinks I’m complaining. I am, but not about the names. I really, really don’t care what people call either game, as I don’t care about sports.
I care about accuracy. This article seems to contradict itself, and doesn’t seem to agree with the sources I can find.
Sorry.
As he explained, “football” was any game that wasn’t played on horseback. Be it soccer, football, rugby or whatever games that are concocted. So if the monarchs did indeed say “football”, it was a generalization, not specifying soccer itself. And I believe this author uses the term “football” as is most commonly used, instead of soccer. Soccer was simply the first name used, obviously not the most common TODAY. And it’s worth noting that he is writing this article TODAY versus in 1642. Comprendo?
Yep, I do “comprendo”, muchas gracias.
I think my point still stands. I read the article, and noted – with interest – the point about foot-versus-horse sports. I hadn’t heard that before, and it was interesting.
The reason I still have a problem is due to the wording of the 1491 Act banning football. f you read my comment again, and notice the short section of the 1491 Act, it says (further abridged here) “… that football, golf, /or other similar unprofitable sports/ are not to be played…”
Now, I don’t know how to bold the text, so I tried to add a stress thing without capitals. It seemed rude to caps it.
But anyway. If “football” was really just “all sports played on foot, with a ball”, then I don’t think they would have needed to specify the “other similar unprofitable sports”. It’s the “similar” bit that gets me – the games that are most similar to football (soccer) would be covered by the term “football”, if it truly meant what the article suggests. Unless you can suggest a game that is similar to football, but that isn’t played on foot?
(As a side-note: Wikipedia mentions a quote from Derek Baker’s England in the Later Middle Ages, where Edward III of England passed a law in 1363 banning “handball, football, or hockey…”. So, either hockey used to be played on horses, or again, this might hint that the English language started to differentiate the word football earlier than the 1800s.)
That makes me think that football was the term for all foot-based ball sports, in the earlier days, but by the end of the 1400s, it was beginning to mean one specific sport – which is now know as football, or soccer.
The other thing that occurs to me is this: if football was a general term for all sports played on foot and involving balls… how did people know what to play?
To illustrate the point: when I’m at the pub and buy a friend a drink, he doesn’t tell me to “get him a beer”. The pub has a wide selection of beers, numbering in the dozens, if not hundreds. My friend will usually ask for a specific type of beer (“bitter”) or a brand.
I find it difficult to believe that there was an association governing the sport of soccer in the 1500s. England didn’t have an army, Government was haphazard, and private business interests great. How would an organisation be expected to govern a sport in a country with not postal service and a literacy of maybe 30% amongst men?
So, if there’s no association, the name soccer isn’t likely. And then, what do you call your sport? If football is an umbrella term for many sports, then you can’t say to your friends, “Let’s play a lover-lee game of football, chaps!”. So, what did people call it before the associations? And why has that named disappeared from history?
The fact that I’ve never heard of any names for football other than football and soccer makes me think that the term “football” became associated with a single sport earlier than the article might suggest.
The wealthy wouldn’t have played the game until later, by which time the associations could exist, and so they’d call it soccer. In the mean time, I suspect that the dirty peasants called it football (and I wouldn’t be surprised if they called it football for the reason most people assume – namely, “foot” + “ball” = football).
While the article raises interesting points, I’m just not convinced that the name “soccer” was more common early on. Both words are English, but I suspect that the commoners always called football football, and it was only the toffs who ever called it soccer.
My point in commenting on the American usage of the term soccer was meant as a commentary on the various arguments going on in the comment sections. I don’t understand why anyone cares that the US uses a different term.
The funny-looks comments was really just meant to say… well. You use a different term to almost everyone in the world. It’s slightly eccentric, and it will come across as strange. But whatever – as I said, it doesn’t seem that important.
Finally, I’m well aware that the article is modern, and not written in 1642. I’m not really sure what point you’re making there.
Anyway. Tenga un dia bueno.
I would be careful about using Wikipedia as an authoritative source. Anyone can put anything up there. We have no idea what sports were like in medieval times. The sport called either “soccer,” “football,” “calico” or what have you definitely did not exist in its present form in 1400. It was codified only in 1863.
I would be careful about using Wikipedia as an authoritative source. Anyone can put anything up there. We have no idea what sports were like in medieval times. The sport called either “soccer,” “football,” “calico” or what have you definitely did not exist in its present form in 1400. It was codified only in 1863.
My first comment was far more in depth, and I searched through the various acts listed on the Records of the Scottish Parliament site. Those quotes specifically mention football and golf.
The counter-argument was that all sports played on foot (rather than on horse-back) were call football. So by that logic, golf used to be played on horse-back. The Wikipedia thing was just another quote that supported my point. I know it’s not the best source, but it was a quote take from a book; when there are footnotes, it tends to be more reliable.
There is a poem called Sir Hugh and the Jew’s Daughter, which begins with a description of a game like football. Sir Hugh “kicked the ball with his right foot”, and “Catch’d it with his knee”. The poem was probably written in the 13th century – certainly before 1290, as the Jews were expelled from Britain then. Not much point writing propaganda poems against people you’ve already forced to leave. (Plus, there was an accusation of a blood libel in 1255, which could have inspired the poem).
There is also Francis Willughby’s Book of Sports, which I’ve seen (but don’t have a copy handy). That has a description of a game of football. There’s a drawing in there too, if I remember.
While I admit, the game might only have been codified in the 1863, it existed before then, and it was similar enough by the 1500 or1600s that a modern audience would know what they were playing.
But the main reason I wrote my original comment was to point out the problem in the article. They say that the game was called soccer in 1863, and first called football in 1881. So, what was it called before?
The game was definitely played before the 1800s. Not in exactly the same way, but close enough to recognize it. So, what was it called?
Books and laws would suggest it was called football, so the original article would be wrong. And if the article isn’t wrong, I’d be curious to know what the game was really called until 1863.
@Hansl
The game didn’t exist in it’s form today before 1863. 1863 was the year when they coined the phrase “Association Football” to distinguish it from all other Footballs out there. A game where 11 players on each team would use their feet only to advance the ball and kick it inside a frame. That’s it. All other mentions of the name football prior 1863 were to other sports that were played on foot, some of them are today’s American Football, Rugby Football and so on… Golf was just a sport that had a unique name given to it, and it stuck. That’s why it was mentioned. I’m pretty sure it’s an american sport as well, do correct me if I’m wrong though.
Now that’s not to say that SOME english-men did still use the word Football alone to refer to Association Football before 1863 when it was officially named thusly. But it also doesn’t mean that soccer isn’t an official name for it as well. Just because the brits decided to gradually use it less because they were offended by Americans having a more popular sport named Football in their country, doesn’t make soccer a less valid word.
In conclusion, Soccer is a British word, devised to shorten the official term “Association Football” to make it more people friendly, and the word is still used throughout the world today, even though some countries refuse to simply admit it, and realize that American Football is also a very real an intense sport, and it lives up to the name completely.
Hansel, you have made some very good points. The fact is that most of this article is
incorrect. The trouble is the author has took some very dodgy information that he has found
on the net and based his article on the information. If he had done some proper research he
would have found that most of what he has written to be incorrect. His intentions was
probably good, but the result is bad, so many people believing this article to be correct. See
my posts at the bottom of this page.
John T., you are right about wikipedia, unfortunately the author of this article, Daven Hiskey
used wikipedia as a resource.
Vit, the Football Association didn’t invent an all new ball game in 1863, the game already
existed played by clubs all over Britain. They just tried to standardise the laws of the game.
Working class men were playing organised games of football complete with marked out
grounds by the late 15th century. By 1595, the number of players was defined, modern style
goals by 1605, goalkeepers by 1672. A set time for duration of matches have been recorded
from 1755. Football clubs of sorts by the 1780’s. Local rules were flexible and could be easily
adapted by outside teams.
The term Association Football was unknown in 1863. It didn’t become known by this name
until much later, probably coming in common use after the formation of the Rugby Football
Union in 1871.
The Horseback theory is just a theory and nothing else. See my posts at the bottom of this
page. The modern game of golf began in Scotland, so no it is not American.
In Britain and most countries around the world, soccer is not an official name. There are 209
members of FIFA, only United States, Canada and the U.S Virgin Islands have it as their
official name. In the U.K, Republic of Ireland, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and a
few others, it is a nickname for the game.
I think we should follow the example from the land of the free. They are as they say a “democracy”the largest in the world . Based on the rules of democracy and seeing that unlike many American sports this is a true world sport, we should put it to the world vote .
I think that this would clearly show that the American term is a minority .
Now this maybe a very large pill for them to swallow but it is would be the act of a true democracy
American football is named accordingly,as it’s there own version of what they call football .
Only they can explain why on earth it was called football when they throw it . But even they can see it’s not a world sport.
Only 150 million global viewers in comparison to 4.2 billion global viewers by the British premier league .
This is very similar to something called the World Series that is pretty much only played in the US
I am really not sure why the leading power in the world feels the need to reaffirm it’s self so much when in clearly is number one
Humility could be a better word for them to focus on
What are you babbling about? It’s called Soccer in the US, get used to it. Are you suggesting that the world should vote on what the Americans call the sport? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. People are freagin moronic when it comes to that. All of your babbling about humility and such while you’re trying to cram something down our throats is just silly. We call it soccer, get over it already.
Yes, Corey. Americans do call it “soccer” (sAA kEERR as they pronounce it, because they can’t pronounce that kind of English O sound). That makes them a minority in the world where most people call it by its English name, FOOTBALL.
And lord, why do people make comments without reading the articles? This guy clearly explained that “Football” is any game played on the feet versus on Horseback. That’s where the names come from. Soccer was not named “football” because they kick the ball, it’s a name that separates it from Equestrian sports. Horseback and Football. Basketball would be considered “Football” by those standard.
Corey, and why do people like you believe any myth they read on the net. The horseback theory is a fairly modern one. Not sure if it began as a joke or a desperate attempt to justify calling the game ‘soccer’. Either way it has people like you fooled who are prepared to believe anything that suits them. There is no historical evidence to prove this theory/myth/joke.
If the horseback theory was true then games such as cricket, hockey, stoolball, bandy, golf and loads more would have also been known as football. We know through records kept that these games were not known as football, in fact the only games that were known as football were those that involved kicking the ball with the foot, hence the name Football. For more details refer to my posts at the bottom of the page.
Association football is named after the football association. Why would they have a football association if they didn’t just know it as football? You need to check your facts. You’re wrong on your dates too, soccer was not first used in 1863, it wasn’t used until the 1880s. 1863 is when the football association was founded.
@wat: “Why would they have a football association if they didn’t just know it as football?” If you’d read the article, you’d know that it was to distinguish it from the other forms of football. “Football” at the time was a generic term for many sports played on foot. “Association Football” was then a specific type of football, as explained in the article.
‘“Football” at the time was a generic term for many sports played on foot’
There is no evidence for this. It is an alternative, unaccepted theory that is not supported by the facts.
And once again. Football Association. Every city in England had its own rules so they met in 1863 to come up with a definitive version. There were no other codes of football in THE Football Association so once again: Why would they call it the football association if they didn’t know it only as football? The name association football came AFTER the football association, so it is impossible for them not to have called it football before they called it soccer.
And you need to check. Your. Own. Sources.
‘soccer (n.) Look up soccer at Dictionary.com
1889, socca, later socker (1891), soccer (1895),’
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=soccer
Football association founded in 1863, soccer first documented in 1889. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that you presumably read ‘soccer was founded in 1863’ and based this entire article off of your own misunderstanding.
“There is no evidence for this”
Yes there is. Rugby Football, and the likes. It says so in the damn source you posted which was originally Daven’s source.
“Why would they call it the football association if they didn’t know it only as football?”
The FA was named so after Association Football and vice versa. Why is it so hard to grasp???? Where did the SOCC come from if not from Assoiciation Football? Just grow up already.. sheesh.
“There were no other codes of football in THE Football Association”
AGAIN! RUGBY and the likes! jeezzz…
The football association was formed in an attempt to create a single version of the various games of football being played at the time. There was no game called “association football” before the FA formed.
It’s also ridiculous to suggest Association Football was never called just football until 1881. There are countless contemporary examples in newspaper reports of it happening way before that. Just look up any one.
For example, I have a book on the history of Reading FC, formed in 1871/72, and excepts from early match reports talk clearly of “foot-ball”, with no mention of “Association”, and certainly no mention of soccer.
The term soccer itself was widely used in the past. It owes its lack of popularity in the UK to the NASL, where cheesy and gimmicky attempts to reinvent the game for an American audience lent the word a disneyfied lack of credibility, from which it never recovered.
It’s only generally used either for alliteration in tv show titles, or by upper class types, usually dismissive of the sport – which further erodes popularity.
In reply to Vit, I think it is quite clear that Wat is referring to the horse back theory, and he is
right there is no historical evidence to prove this. In your reply, you say Rugby Football.
Rugby did not exist in name in medieval times. Yes there were games known as football that
included carrying the ball, but these also involved the kicking of the ball, that is why they
were known as football, NOT because they were played on foot as oppose to horseback. If
this was true, then games such as cricket, hockey, stoolball, bandy, golf and loads
more would have also been known as football. We know through records kept that these
games were not known as football.
The terms ‘Association Football’ and ‘soccer’ did not exist in 1863, they came much later.
How do we know this? Well we have newspapers, books, magazines, programmes, match
tickets, posters and advertisements fom the 1860’s and 1870’s, which have hundreds of
references to the game being referred to as Football.
It is yourself and Daven Hiskey that are finding it difficult to grasp. If Daven had bothered to
do some proper research before he wrote the article instead of copying some dodgy
information from the web, all of this could have been avoided. A list of some of the incorrect
information that Daven has used in this article is listed in my post at the bottom of the page.
Anyone that knows the history of football, can point out that most of this article is incorrect.
It is clear that Daven and yourself know very little about the history of the game.
The fact that hundreds of millions of third-world imbeciles love this mindless boring game is just additional proof that it does, indeed, suck- So I don’t see it ever becoming popular here in the states.
Let’s have a look at American Football shall we?
NFL Football is a complex undertaking involving offensive and defensive formations where individual players must make instant “reads” and adjustments. This takes not only incredible physical skills, but brains as well.
At the opposite end of the spectrum dwells soccer, a minimalist game in every sense of the term – kick ball, run, stand, watch, run, kick ball, stand – on and on and on ad nauseam.
It takes absolutely no brains, recognition, or hand-eye coordination to play, and it is therefore ideally suited to nitwit euros and the slovenly illiterate primitives of South America, Africa and the Middle East where it is popular.
If you would care to offer any evidence to the contrary, I would be happy to educate you.
.
Did no one se the inconsistency in the beginning of the article? I quote ” “Soccer” preceded the first recorded instance of it being called by the singular word “Football” by about 18 years” So “Soccer” predates the term football by 18 years correct? Then how could the next paragraph about “Soccer” being the shorter version of “Association Football” Possible be true? “Now British school boys of the day liked to nickname everything, which is still somewhat common. They also liked to add the ending “er” to these nicknames. Thus Rugby was, at that time, popularly called “Rugger”. Association Football was then much better known as “Assoccer”, which quickly just became “Soccer” and sometimes “Soccer Football”.” I call BS. If soccer predates Football, then how could it have come about as a shortening of a term that contains “Football” ? Clearly Football predates “Soccer” and “Soccer” is the slang term as it was derived from a shortening of the term “Association Football”.
@Sean M: “Then how could the next paragraph about ‘Soccer’ being the shorter version of ‘Association Football'” The word “singular” is key there and shouldn’t be ignored, as in without “Association” preceding it, which is the entire point. “Association” was used to distinguish it from other types of football. At first, had people just said “football,” no one would have known which football they were talking about. There was no such problem with “Association Football” or “Assoccer” or “Soccer.”
Except Daven you are wrong when the Football Association was formed in 1863, the terms ‘Association Football’ and ‘soccer’ didn’t exist, they came much later. The game was always known as Football. Go to a library, do some proper research but stop surfing the net!
very interesting article. I do understand where legitimate English people (meaning people from England) might get offended by a different use of the English language. I think it needs to be mentioned that English itself is a corruption of Germanic languages (with a significant influence from romance languages) and Germans today might say that your just mispronouncing proper German. Taking this into account along with the fact that America (300,000,000) has the largest population of any one country in the ‘english’ speaking world (England is #5, with 60,000,000) you must understand — Just ’cause yo name on it don’ mean you own it biotch. lol. You guys are awesome England you keep doing what your doing. an we be doin’ what we be doin’.
@joe. No education is necessary for educated people. Rugby is not at all about intelligent moves, it is all about legal thuggery and wrestling a player to the ground because he has a leather, egg-shaped object in his possession.
If the person holding the object is able to run fast enough he can approach a white line drawn on the ground, take a flying leap over the line, imitating a badly-landing aeroplane, bash the object on the ground and it is only a try, so what then, try, try try again without much success in achieving a final ending.
The real football, football, as named for playing a ball game without hands, except for the goalie takes accuracy with footwork, split second decisions to place a ball shaped leather object in a small space in relativity to the playing field which is protected by a person who can move almost as fast as the ball being kicked with great velocity.
Football is the second most watched world sport, second only to the Tour de France, and I would advise you Joe to keep your mouth closed in any country whose prime sport is football.
Something else to keep in mind is that it isn’t as if British English (or should I say “English English” as opposed to Scottish English) is any “purer” than American English. Both evolved from a common source (the English of the 17th century) and both have diverged from it. In some cases American English has changed less than British English. The English used to articulate the Rs in words the way most Americans still do, and they used to call autumn “fall” the way most Americans still do. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that Americans kept the term “soccer.”
KPOM, a slight problem with your idea. Americans could not have “kept” the term “soccer” because it was not part of the English language of the 17th century.
I want to like soccer but I still don’t because of diving and cheating pro players who attempt to act at every instant. Look at the Italian guy who got bitten by Suarez. The bite to his shoulder somehow caused him to drop like he’d been sniped with a gun. Seconds later he’s back on his feet….why? Because Suarez bit his shoulder not his bloody Achilles Tendon!!
Until (mainly European and South American) players stop their diving acting crap, I will continuously be frustrated by soccer. AFL (Aussie Rules) is my sport. A sport where the rules don’t allow for faking /diving.
FIFA live video referee review pls!
The correct word is FOOTBALL. All the great countries call is Football cause it is as the word. Which makes more sense than the stupid game they play like buffoons in a crazy wrestling match. FOOTBALL is the greatest game of the world…no doubt there. Great countries like the South Americans and Europeans are the best. I think the US Americans want a part of this game that they barely know off to and cnt evn comprehend thoroughly. And pbly want to justify their name soccer. Ohh please!!! Half of their team in the world cup imported from the Europe ect. And due note…..Proper English stemmed from the UK and half of the words the US use not even close. BTW I am from the Caribbean….So dnt even class me cause everyone wants to dream vacation here anyhow…LOL
Can’t we all just get along?
This link pretty much sums it up. No accusations of taxation without representation, no tea parties, no long white wigs being worn. Just two countries looking for a name to call a sport that just happens to not coincide with the name of another sport. Who cares if its two different names for two different reasons.
http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/why-do-some-people-call-it-soccer
American “football” is just Rugby with padding. The name football is far more prevalent with “soccer” than rugby where people carry the ball most the time.
In Football you’re only allowed to move the ball with your feet most of the time… so if anything from a logical standpoint, it is rightfully called Football.
American “football” should be called Carryball… because that’s what they mostly do. They carry the ball most of the time.
sosherfan: “So if soccer is a shortening from ‘Association Football’, why don’t we pronounce it ‘sosh-er’?”
Ben: “Because it’s not ‘assoshiation’.”
What is it than, Assokiation?
You have to wonder if it matters anymore. I mean its fairly established now. Eventually the U.S. is gonna start using the term, football, in place of soccer as well. But the new term ‘American Football’ will be used to distinguish it from ‘soccer’.
No. “Football” is established in U.S. usage as American football, which is the most popular spectator sport here. The name of the sport is not going to change.
There’s nothing wrong with the word “soccer.” I don’t know why British people have a problem with it. It’s just a name, guys.
Dear Mr. John Savage Tomakin,
You accuse the Yanks of speaking “American” at an “eighth-grade level at best” and yet you commit rather basic grammatical errors such as (and I quote) “the universality of it’s useage” and other examples in which you–how did you say it?–“unwittingly mangled the English language.” You are clearly a pompous fool and and an ass and, by Jove, I dare say you deserve the loss of your empire.
Stating that the first documented use of the singular term “football” to refer to association football was in 1881 is wrong. The first documented use was right back at the beginning in 1863 with the formation of the Football Association – note the name! They called the sport they were codifying “football” – the name “Association” was only applied as a qualifier afterwards, from the name of the organisation. After all, they didn’t call themselves the “Association Football Association” did they!
Most people around the world get a great understanding of the person who uses the word soccer. It football. Besides all the facts and history it’s simple logic. USA likes to be different than others which can b good and also ignorant however u choose to c it. I mean after all they don’t use the metric system as most other countries do. But that’s a whole other subject. American Football is more popular because mad money goes into it, considering the whole actual play time of the game is 20 mins and the rest money sucking advertisement. Again it’s basic logic that’s all. It’s played by foot so it’s really simple The game is beyond the name tho and it’s too bad some people are ignorant into not understanding such a wonderful game that’s beyond a pastime. Not until they understand the soul of the game will they be convinced that it’s the real football
The world isn’t as rational as you make it out to be. To avoid abuse, just skip down to my fourth point.
FIRST: Americans didn’t just start calling it “soccer” to be different. That’s not how language works. “Soccer” was an old word for the game and it stuck.
SECOND: American football has a lot of money behind it if all you discuss is the NFL. Almost every college has a gridiron football team, too. And they’re popular in the states for different reasons.
THIRD (and proof you didn’t read the article): Both games are “football” because they’re played on foot, not on horseback.
FOURTH: You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT that most Americans don’t understand the soul of the game. I love the game, and I get it, though it took me months to get my head around it. And just so you know, I’m also fond of our native sport, being born and raised in the heart of the Steeler Nation.
Are you aware that Canada, Australia and New Zealand also call the sport “soccer”? This isn’t an American/British thing. Many English-speakers around the world call it “soccer”. It has nothing to do with “wanting to be different” but rather, that all of these countries have a domestic sport called “football,” so association football needs to be called something else.
I too used to cringe at the use of the word soccer until I read that in fact it was an English word, as previous commentary, and that the football association was formed of soccer clubs. The question I would like to know is what is the linguistic origin of the word Soccer. And apologies if it is in previous commentary, I skipped f4rom June 2010 to the present day as most of the commentary was getting insulting.
“Soccer” comes from “association,” which is often abbreviated as “assoc.”
the only BS in the article would the fact that early forms of “football” were played in Japan in 1000BC. Football or Soccer is just about kicking something round otherwise we could argue that stone age people invented it by kicking ball shaped rocks :). it only counts in the form and rules closely as it is played today. its like that myth that pizza was invented in China because Marco Polo saw how they made Chinese pancakes and then brought the recipe to Italy lol. the modern day pizza as we eat today has in fact nothing to do with China and it has Napolitanian origins of no earlier than 18th century, in the form as it is.
It is called “Soccer” in USA but “Football” by the other american countries.
I repeat, where are the sources? I didn’t your garbage, No thanks. It is still football!
To be fair to my snobbish Brit friends, I’m American, and I always felt the naming of football (American) to be relatively stupid. Sure, you can punt and kick field goals, but that’s not the main mechanism of scoring. Tackleball and gridiron both sound cooler and more accurate.
100% agree with you, Nick…
Respect from sunny “Down Under”, mate…
I have read the above responses with a smile! I’m from South Wales, United Kingdom. Here it is the codified rugby rules of football that originally took off in the late nineteenth century and became most popular and followed successfully later by the association rules. Previously there were rambling no holds barred games of ‘football’ between two neighbouring villages where the ‘ball’ would be carried and kicked etc.
It is obvious to me that whatever ‘football’ rules that were originally taken up and played in your region then that game would be known as playing ‘football’. If that was using the association rules, a large part of industrial England, then association rules would be your football. In my area I played ‘football’ i.e. rugby – the rugby football club was founded in 1897, and to all of us particularly the older folk, rugby is our ‘football’. To differentiate the two games when the association football club set up in only 1972 ,their game is known around here as ‘soccer’.
It is not an American/British thing – FACT! 🙂
I’m South African and I’ve never known football to refer to anything else other than soccer. You said in the last paragraph that South Africa had its own sport called football. What was it?
Love it. I can’t wait until a British person asks me again why Americans call it soccer. I will say, “It’s a British term. How did you guys come up with such a silly name?”
I also find it interesting that when it comes to overall numbers in English speaking countries, there are more English speakers that call it soccer rather than football. First British invented the term, didn’t stick with it and chose something else, while other English speaking nations stuck with tradition. If anything, people in the UK should be the ones calling it soccer to join the rest of us purest.
I’m loving that there are so many English posters here pretty much pissing themselves to learn that the American usage is the one that actually conserves tradition.
David, how wrong can you be? Any true British fan will already know how the term ‘soccer’ came about, it is well documented in many British publications. And the word Football predates soccer in the English language by approximately 479 years. So it is the British and NOT the Americans who are keeping up tradition.
Forget the ‘Horseback theory’ it is a myth (see my other posts for details), forget the 1863 date for ‘soccer’ first being used, it is wrong (approximately 25 years too early), forget the 1881 date for the singular term ‘Football’ first being used, it is also wrong (maybe Daven Hiskey dreamt this one up). In fact, you might as well forget the whole article, as most of it is wrong (see my post at the bottom of this page for more details).
The sub title of this website is ‘Feed Your Brain’, not if all the articles are like this one, it won’t (give it a laugh, maybe!).
You should kill yourself. Would make the world a better place.
Very intelligent reply, you must have been up all night thinking up that. Poor boy.
“Any true British fan will already know how the term ‘soccer’ came about, it is well documented in many British publications.” – and yet it is those British complaining of the use of the word Soccer (as an American terminology for the sport) that brings everyone here.
As I said, Any true British fan, maybe they are not true British fans!!!
Spanish speaking countries do not call soccer “football”; they call it “fútbol”. That does NOT translate to “foot” and “ball”. While “bol” is close to “bola”, which is a word for “ball’, that is just coincidence in this case. “Fut” has absolutely no meaning in Spanish. They just took the word they heard the British use, and spoke/spelled it to fit their tongue. They certainly do not think of “foot” being a part of the word they use. Nothing at all wrong with that.
Languages change, new ones are formed, new dialects appear, new words are created or introduced, accents form, etc. All of this happens with the passage of time and as groups of people come or go or stay within regions. Big deal. I would that ye might answer: Why speakest thou not the English spoken in the KJV of the Bible? Because your language has changed (and is still changing). Nothing at all wrong with that.
I love soccer and have played it and watched it my whole life. I say soccer (not “football”) and football (not “American football”) and truck (not “lorry”) and French fries (not “chips”), etc. Because I am an American living in America. That’s all. No conspiracy to prop up the NFL, no slight against your football (it’s my favorite sport), etc. It’s just a part of my language.
Surely none of you are so insecure or haughty or ignorant or egocentric to think that one country has to change its language just to please you? When I’m in Chile or Argentina or Mexico or Costa Rica, I will remember to say “fútbol”. When I’m in England or Ireland I will try to remember to say “football”, but it will be tough since our languages are so similar. And when you are in America, please try to remember to say “soccer”. Otherwise, we might not know what you are talking about.
VERY well written, Mark…& to think that when I initially saw your user name (any reference to Guevara makes me feel nauseated), my expectations were not too high!!
I’m in America dude South America to be precise I call it football and futbol is the same. You “americans” are the real egocentrics.
As an Aussie who lived in England for a time as boy, I’ll throw my two cents in here, along with all the others – we should be racking up a fortune in the completely useless mad debate stakes by now – as it’s only very recent that the soccer media, then officials of soccer, and some hardcore fans (and there aren’t that many of them) in Australia have started calling it football.
First up, the game played mostly with the feet was once called soccer in the UK . . . and football.
The argument in this story is mostly correct: It comes from association football, to differentiate it from rugby. Now, in the UK, just to confuse the issue, there are two codes of rugby: rugby (15-man game) and rugby league (13). The evolution of speech being what it is, Association Football is now known in Britain almost exclusively as football; rugby football is now rugby; and rugby league is, well, roogby league given that it’s played mostly oop noorth.
Now, on to Australia, as I can’t speak for those in the US or Canada, but the parlells are obvious: Most Aussies still call it soccer, and it’s the fourth most popular winter ball sport on the island continent (despite the fact it’s played in summer in Oz to get bigger TV audiences as it simply can’t compete with the others in terms of sponsorship dollars and week-to-week audiences over winter).While it has high participation rates among very young players, this tends to dissipate at high-school level, when many kids go on to play Australian Football, rugby and rugby league.
Australian football (18 players, 150m oval ground) is the main winter sport in the southern and western states and is almost universally known in those states as FOOTBALL.
In the eastern states, rugby league and rugby are the major winter ball sports, and both of these are also universally known in those states (Queensland, New South Wales and the A.C.T) as FOOTBALL.
Soccer is NOT universally known in this country as football, despite what some imported pommy (British) media types and the ruling body of soccer in Australia would have us believe or would want us to believe.
Other games in this country are known to the vast majority of people in this country as football, while soccer is only known to a very vocal minority of soccer lovers in Australia as football.
It’s an artificial construct that has become confusing and politically correct, but just because a few try-hards want to change the name doesn’t mean that it washes with the rest of us.
I have no problem calling it football, BTW, it’s just that when other games are more popular and are also known as football, maybe, just maybe, they are the ones who deserve to keep the popular title.
Who cares what it’s called, anyhow. We all know what it is, despite the name. It’s 22 blokes booting a bag of wind up and down a field in the forlorn hope someone might score a goal, the same as the other football games are 18, or 15, or 13 blokes moving a bag of wind up and down a field in the same hope they might kick a goal or score a try.
If the Poles, Greeks, Poms or Callathumpians want to call it football, and Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders and Australians want to call something else football, who really gives a rat’s?
In the great scheme of things, how important is it?? A: Not that important at all.
What sport is more popular than football(soccer)? In individual countries there may be variances but worldwide football/soccer is the most popular sport.
STM, you say that ‘While it has high participation rates among very young players, this tends to dissipate at high-school level, when many kids go on to play Australian Football, rugby and rugby league.’ This of course is a common myth believed by followers of the other codes and we have the same myth here in New Zealand (except they believe kids go onto play rugby union or rugby league as Australian Football is a minor sport here).
However, the official figures actually tell a very different story. According to the Australian Sports Commission, Association Football is the sport with the largest number of participants in Australia. According to FIFA in 2007 Australia had 970,728 players of which 299,775 were under the age of 18, which is just 30.88% of the total. So rather than the number of players drop off when kids get older, it is actually the opposite, there are much more adult players. And just for the record there were 189,482 female players which is 19.52% of the total.
The football code with the next highest participants was Australian Football with 581,839 (all age groups), so even if you took the number of under 18’s away from Association Football you would still be left with 670,953 which is more that the total number (including under 18’s) for Australian Football.
“Soccer” is one of the few words, in which c followed by e is pronounced [k]. Others are recce (military slang for reconnaissance) and arced, arcing.
Be it referred to as Soccer, Association Football, or just plain Football, the best definition of the pastime is: “Twenty-two morons kick a bladder of wind from one end of a field to the other.”
Happy days!
First of all, I have no doubt that your intention is probably a good one, to explain to people
the origins of the word ‘soccer’, unfortunately I’m sorry to say that your article is full of
errors or incorrect assumptions, which could have all been avoided with better research.
Yes ‘soccer’ is a British term, it is usually credited to Charles Wreford-Brown at Oxford
University. However in your article you say that this happened in 1863. This is impossible as
Charles Wreford-Brown wasn’t born until 1866, Wreford-Brown played football for Oxford
University from 1888 to 1891, it is believed he coined the word about 1888.
You go on to say ‘the first documented case of the sport being called by the singular term
“Football” coming in 1881′. Again this is incorrect, if you do a search of British newpapers
from the 1860’s and 1870’s you will find hundreds of references to the game being referred to
as Football. Also books, magazines, programmes, match tickets, posters and advertisements
all commonly used the term Football in the 1860’s and 1870’s. I suggest contacting the British
Library if you need to research this for yourself.
You also say the game was sometimes known as “Soccer Football”, while I have heard it
being called this in both the United States and Australia, to the best of my knowledge this has
never been the case in Britain.
You also say that in 1863 ‘they formed the rules for “Association Football”’. Sorry but again
this is incorrect. They formed the laws for Football, as it was hoped that these laws would
become universal for all football games. The term Association Football was unknown at the
time. It didn’t become known by this name until much later, probably coming in common use
after the formation of the Rugby Football Union in 1871.
It should be noted that there was already a number of working class Football Clubs in
existence before the formation of the Football Association in 1863. You should perhaps read
Football’s Secret History (2001) John Goulstone, Football: The First Hundred Years – The
Untold Story (2005) Adrian Harvey, Beastly Fury: The Strange Birth of British Football
(2009) Richard Sanders and The Working Class Origins of Modern Football (2000) John
Goulstone. It was far from ‘primarily being played by the upper echelons of society’ as you
say.
You say that ‘Football were named thus, not because you kicked a ball with your foot, but
because they were played on foot.’ The theory ‘The word football was coined to refer to
games that were played on foot (as opposed to on horses.)’ has no historical evidence to prove
this. And it is just theory and nothing else, put about by people who try to justify calling
Association Football, ‘soccer’. And it is a fairly recent theory.
Let’s look at the evidence we do have. The word ‘Football’ has been in use in England since at
least 1314, this is when the Lord Mayor of London on behalf of Edward II, issued a writ to
prohibit football in England. However as the ruling classes used French as their language the
de cree was written in French and not English.
The oldest known use of the word ‘Football’ in English was in 1409, when Henry IV issued a
proclamation forbidding the leving of money for ‘Foteball’.
Then we come to a book written circa 1660 by Francis Willughby called ‘Book of Plaies’,
which describes ‘Football’ as a kicking game.
In 1780 ‘A General Dictionary of the English Language’ by Thomas Sheridan defines
‘Football’ as “a ball driven by the foot”.
If that is not enough, in 1801 ‘Sports and Pastimes of the People of England’ by Joseph Strutt,
tells us that ‘Football’ “is so called because the ball is driven about with the feet instead of the
hands.”
Now getting back to this theory that football referred to games that were played on foot as
opposed to on horses, this as I said before has no evidence. As we know the word ‘Football’ is
an English one. So for the horseback theory to be correct then there would have to at least
have been a medieval ball game played on horseback as opposed to on foot, played in Britain.
Yet the earliest record of such a game played in the British Isles is polo, which was
introduced to England in 1834. As we have already seen the word ‘Football’ had already been
in the English language for over 400 years by then.
You quote the saying “Soccer is a gentleman’s game played by ruffians and Rugby is a
ruffian’s game played by gentlemen.” The correct saying is ‘Football is a gentleman’s game
played by hooligans; Rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen.’ However this is not
to say rugby wasn’t taken up by the working classes, there were in fact many working class
rugby teams, but due to the Rugby Football Union refusal to allow broken time payments,
most of these clubs broke away from the Union to form the Northern Rugby Football Union
in 1895 (not 1893 as you say) changing it’s name to the Rugby Football League in 1922.
As far as the United States is concerned, the American Football Association was formed in
1884. A breakaway rival body was formed in 1890 known as the American Amateur Football
Association. A new governing body was formed in 1913 called the United States Football
Association. In 1945 it changed it’s name to the United States Soccer Football Association,
and in 1974 (not 1975) changed it’s name again to the United States Soccer Federation.
Please note this is not a league but the governing body.
Even though many early forms of football existed such as Tsu Chu or Cuju in China, Kemari
in Japan, Harpustum played by the Romans, the Greek game, Episkyros (aka Pheninda), or
Sepak Raga, played in the Malay states, or in South America, Poktapok which was played by
the Mayans. Ullamatzli played by the Aztecs, the Native Americans played ball games using
bats and feet. The Aboriginals in Australia played Marn Gook, while the Pacific Island
communities of Polynesia and Micronesia had their own kicking games, and in North Africa,
they played Koura. However, these had very little in common with Association Football.
A tip for you, if you are trying to write an article, try not to use the web too much. Although
sites such as Wikipedia mean well, they are unreliable. It would be better using books,
newspapers etc.
Poor guy. You know too much about a useless topic. I hope your life gets better.
If it’s a useless topic, why are you here? Maybe it’s because you are useless yourself?!
So if topic is useless, people can’t read it?
Sorry but you are replying to me, I’m not the one that said the topic was useless, it was the person who I was replying to who said this!
I know, but I asked a question
OK. Not sure if I understand the question, or were you just making a comment?
You were the one that supposed the idea of if it being a useless topic that he should not be reading it here.
For someone that went out of his way to dictate a very long correction to the author, your not understanding a simple question pertaining to your own remark is very odd to say the least.
you’ve lost the plot mate!
P.S I forgot to say that you will probably point out that you said “Legend has it, in 1863 shortly after the creation of Association Football, Wredford-Brown…”, but this is also wrong as the Legend goes he coined the word about 1888.
Wow, did anyone else browse through these comments and notice that FootballFan1894 replied around 100 times to comments 1-5 years old? I forgot what I was reading about and realized I was starting to obsess over FF1894 as much as he is obsessing over Davins inaccuracies.
Firstly, if I was insane I would be unable to contribute to the discussion. Secondly, is it wrong
to want to correct an article that has so much inaccurate information, on a website that claims
that their goal is to provide ‘a site where you know everything on it has been highly
researched by amazingly well credentialed authors’ and where the author of this article claims
‘I take the quality of information extremely seriously on my site’, obviously they have failed
on both statements.
The sad fact is that a lot of pupils these days try and do research for school essays and projects
and come to sites like these, believing that the statements are true and every effort has gone
into writing accurate articles. No article will be 100% accurate, but to have this many
mistakes, is beyond a joke.
You claim I am obsessing over Daven’s inaccuracies, you will note that I have replied to many
people’s posts and not just Daven’s. It’s just that Daven’s continuously insistence that his
article is correct and everyone that disagrees with him is wrong, means that I have replied to
him more than most. Take Daven’s statement ‘…referred to as ‘Soccer’ preceded the first
recorded instance of it being called by the singular word “Football” by about 18 years’. Many
people have pointed out to him that this is incorrect, but rather than check more reliable
sources, Daven keeps insisting that he is correct, without offering any concrete evidence.
As for replying to old posts, if you read through the comments made by people you will see
that many people have replied to old posts, this is what happens when an article is still open
for comments.
Judging by the comments in your post, you don’t have the knowledge to make a worthwhile
contribution to the discussion, so you just knock somebody that can.
Hahaha yeah I was just having a bit of fun, I’m happy you replied. Hey, I do have the knowledge to make a worthwhile contribution to the discussion, thanks to your many posts.
“Firstly, if I was insane I would be unable to contribute to the discussion.” – well you might know a lot about Football (Soccer) but you don’t know half as much about phsychology or simply care less to recognize different states of insanity and its blight on the human condition.
Read my further reply below:-
(There was a touch of sarcasm in my reply! Feel free to add to the discussion.)
Or don’t you understand?
There was a touch of sarcasm in my reply! Feel free to add to the discussion.
FootballFan1894 needs a column on this site. I enjoy your replies and use of historical facts.
Thank you for your kind words. Nice to know at least one or two have read my comments!
I am a Soccer player, but I myself was unknown from the story of the origin of the word soccer. Nice post, cheers to the author!
It is a pity that the author of the article, Daven Hiskey didn’t bother to do any proper research. If he had done he would have avoided producing an article that is full of ‘false facts’.
It’s so annoying when all your history is presented from the pen of well off or richmen. The vast number of sports in the world have been invented and played by normal people for many years before those people who could write and spread the word were even born.
Simple logic tells us that if you have money you have no need to invent ways to pass your time. And when laid on to of the fact that the rich represented less then 1% of the world how on earth could they dominate the invention of games like football. They didn’t, it started in the common man where no one was able to document it.
You are dead right, in years gone by in all but a few exceptional cases, publishers wouldn’t even consider works written by working class authors. The history of almost anything was written by the so-called upper classes, football was no exception, with works by Charles Alcock and the likes.
For a long time it was a popular belief that Public School boys in England ‘civilised’ the
working man’s game of football. However, there have been books in recent years that have
challenged this myth, and say that it was the working classes themselves who civilised the
game. Among these are Football’s Secret History (2001) John Goulstone, Football: The First
Hundred Years – The Untold Story (2005) Adrian Harvey, Beastly Fury: The Strange Birth of
British Football (2009) Richard Sanders and The Working Class Origins of Modern Football
(2000) John Goulstone. Beastly Fury even shows how the Public School boys were the ones
who were actually the uncivilised ones.
It is clear for anyone to see that the author of the article, Daven Hiskey has no knowledge on the history of the game, so what made him think that he could write such an article is beyond me. It is clear that he done his research by surfing the net and he managed to find all the dodgy websites to take the information from.
The funny thing about it is Daven’s continuously insistence that his article is correct and everyone that disagrees with him is wrong. Many people have pointed out to him that his article is incorrect, but rather than check more reliable sources, Daven keeps insisting that he is correct, without offering any concrete evidence.
This is why the founders of the USA decided against a class structure. While there was still a tendency to make the American landholders something like the lords of England, the barriers to becoming a landholder and part of the upper echelon were fairly low.
To this day, most of the Eastern USA is somewhat affected by the class system (with their Ivy League schools and division of labor) while most of the West has very little of this.
When young Samuel Clemens was a printer and then a steamboat pilot, he was probably not considered anything but a lower class citizen… and one with about a 4th grade education. By the time he published books as an established newspaper “reporter,” he was firmly a middle class man of modest means.
The world would soon find out all they needed to know about slavery, steamboats, and the Mississippi River from a man who actually experienced it all. I can only imagine the contrast… the horror and consternation of the Upper Crust reading Mark Twain’s humorous accounts… wavering between utter bewilderment, awe, and the almost-believable fiction that made him probably the second most popular American author of the 19th century… after Harriet Beecher Stowe, a woman of modest means who also had little of the Upper Crust in her.
That the Brits failed to shine in this “common man” literature speaks loudly as to why the American system grew to such prominence by the 20th century and the British Empire faded.
It is sad that the people of the US did not read Samuel Clemens writings on politics and the danger of creating an empire. He was oposed to the invasion of Cuba, The Philipines etc……………………………………………………………. “I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with he Rockies. Why not spread its wings over the Phillippines, I asked myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing to do
I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which had addressed ourselves.
But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Phillippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. . .
It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”
Australian football (aka Aussie Rules, or by the major league’s name AFL) was codified in 1856, before Association football. It is Australia’s indigenous code and has roots back to Gaelic football and an indigenous game called Marn Grook.
So for 100+ years football or footy has meant Australian Rules football in some states of Australia, Rugby or Rugby League in others. The Association version was called soccer both as that was what it was often called in England and to distinguish from the local codes. Yet here we are 150+ years later and it has now become “offensive” to call soccer soccer. Even our national broadcaster has the cultural cringe and calls Australian football incorrectly as AFL and calls soccer football. To do otherwise is somehow seen as racist against immigrants, so we’ve given up our own language. Disgraceful (and note I’m in general pro immigration and probably considered a liberal in US terms). Watch out USA, eventually you’ll be told what you can call your own sport.
You say that Australian Rules was codified in 1856, this all depends on what you mean by
codified. You say 1856, but the first known set of rules dates from May 1859, whereas the
rules for Football in England date back to at least the late 15th century. I assume you are taking
1863 when the Football Association was formed as the date when (what later became known
as) Association Football was codified, as this is the date that most use. So surely if we use the
date of the governing body being founded as the date of codification for Association Football
(1863), likewise Rugby Union (1871) and Rugby League (1895) surely we should do the same
for Australian Rules (1877) when the Victorian Football Association was founded.
As for your claim that the Association version was called soccer (in Australia), there is plenty
of evidence in Australia, that the game was referred to as ‘Football’ from at least the 1870’s,
and ‘Football’ was commonly used, especially between 1880 to the late 1920’s, to describe the
game. First of all between 1882 and 1914 we saw the formation of the following governing
bodies: the English Football Association (NSW) which was replaced by the Southern British
Football Association, the Anglo-Australian Football Association (VIC), the Anglo-Queensland
Football Association which was replaced by the Queensland British Football Association, the
Western Australian British Football Association, the South Australian British Football Association,
the Tasmanian British Football Association, the Canberra British Football Association, the Commonwealth Football Association, the Victorian Amateur British Football Association etc.
Also the clubs were usually called Football Club or Association Football Club. Far too many to list
but a few examples are: Anglo-Australian Football Association Football Club (Melbourne), Rangers Football Club (Brisbane), Rugby And English Association Football Club (Perth), Hobart Football Club,
Canberra Football Club and many, many more. Letters written to Australian newspapers from
the 1870’s onwards using the term ‘Football’ to talk about the game indicate that the term was
used by the general public. Australian newspaper reports from 1879 onwards used the terms
‘Football’, ‘Association Football’, ‘British Association Football’, ‘Association Game’, ‘English
Association Rules’, ‘British Association Rules’, ‘Association Rules’ or ‘Anglo-Australian Game’ to
report on the game. Local variations such as ‘Anglo-Queensland Game’ were sometimes used also.
The reports nearly always used ‘Football’ followed by one of the other terms to indicate what code
was being played / reported on. By the 20th century, newspapers reports were using mainly ‘Association Football’ or ‘British Association Football’ to describe the game. The first Australian
report I have come across that used ‘soccer’ was in 1915, but the same report also used ‘Football’,
and most reports continued to use ‘British Association Football’ or a variation of it. In 1926 some reports started using the term ‘Soccer Football’. The term ‘soccer’ appears to have been used more regularly from the late 1920’s when the national governing body changed their name to the
Australian Soccer Football Association.
The present governing body changed it’s name on the 1st January 2005 from Australian Soccer
Association to Football Federation Australia, as Football (or a local variation of the word
Football) is the most commonly accepted name around the world. You are not giving up your
own language as soccer is an English term and not an Australian one! Feel free to use soccer if
it makes you happy!
As a South African I can confirm that, here, the terms “football” and “soccer” refer to the same thing (referring to the last paragraph).
I’m sorry, but it will only ever be “kickball” to me and mine. In fact, I am gonna raise my kids to laugh and point at people who call it football, because they’re wrong. Not because they’re really right, but because they’re british. And every couple hundred years, that’s what Americans have to do, slap the british around. Today, we’ll do it by calling it the kicking ball game “kickball.”
I know I know, brits are gonna get all huffy by the notion, demand a brexit, and talk about how great the old Empire was… but it’s not anymore. So kick the ball around a huge field designed to decrease scoring chances and play your game… that might end in a tie. Maaaaaybe you’ll see ONE goal scored. If it’s a wildly high scoring affair, there might be two. Wake me up… I’ll be napping until the NFL kick off.
Oh please America’s lost far more wars than they’ve won, and you didn’t even manage to win your much celebrated war of independence you were getting your ass’s kicked and needed the Spanish from the South and French from the north to come save you! But they don’t tell you that in American schools do they lmao the same as you didn’t save the world from the Nazis, you entered both world wars almost over in Europe, with Germany on the retreat. Like a player being subbed on for the last 5 minutes of a game his team are already winning 5 – 0 and claiming he was the player that won the game
But then Americans rarely seem to know much accurately about their own history, or history in general as this article displays… I mean jeeez, your history is what, 10 minutes long? It’s shouldn’t be that hard! Haha
And by the way, ever heard of the commonwealth? The British empire is still the largest in the world, we just allow the majority of it to govern itself on most issues. But hey, just another subject most Americans seem to be ignorant of… politics and geography outside their own boarders.
Know your own strengths boy
Yes, my fellow Britons who have a pop at you for using the term “soccer” are, frankly, scoring a bit of an own goal.
Well done for finding out the origin of the word. Pity you neglected to find the origin of the sport was in Scotland. I know the English love to claim it as their own game, but the truth is Scotland was the first place to get the ball down and play pass and move football; in England it was a rugby type game. The world’s oldest football is from the mid 1500s iirc, and was found in an attic space in Stirling.
I think it’s safe to say that the modern game of Association Football began in Britain, with
both England and Scotland playing important roles in it’s early development. Football has
been played in England from at least the 12th century (and very possibly earlier) and
organised with rules, complete with a marked out pitch, from at least the 15th century. A book
written in 1633 shows that a game existed in Aberdeen organised with rules and consisting of
passing the ball and the inclusion of goalkeepers. Anyone interested in other early mentions of
organised football should perhaps read Football’s Secret History (2001) John Goulstone,
Football: The First Hundred Years – The Untold Story (2005) Adrian Harvey, Beastly Fury:
The Strange Birth of British Football (2009) Richard Sanders and The Working Class Origins
of Modern Football (2000) John Goulstone.
Passing the ball in football had taken place in Britain for hundreds of years. However in the
Football Association’s 1863 Laws of the Game, the offside law (Law VI) read ‘When a player
has kicked the ball, any one of the same side who is nearer the opponent’s goal-line is out of
play, and may not touch the ball himself, nor in any way whatever prevent any other player
from doing so, until the ball has been played; but no player is out of play when the ball is
kicked from behind the goal-line.’ This in effect ruled out forward passing. Players would go
it alone and try to dribble the ball as far up the field as possible. This was common practice
among the public schools. But remember back then many football clubs played to their own
set of laws and would have a different offside law to that of the FA’s.
In 1866, the FA changed Law VI to read ‘When a player has kicked the ball, any one of the
same side who is nearer the opponent’s goal-line is out of play, and may not touch the ball
himself, nor in any way whatever prevent any other player from doing so, until the ball has
been played, unless there are at least three of his opponents between him and their own goal;
but no player is out of play when the ball is kicked off from behind the goal-line.’ This change
of wording to the offside law in effect made forward passing possible.
Sheffield, who played to their own rules, had been passing the ball from at least 1865, and the
Royal Engineers from at least the late 1860’s. Both these English clubs along with Scottish
club Queen’s Park, who had amended the offside law from three to two of his opponents
between him and their own goal and who also had been playing a passing game from the late
1860’s, are known as early pioneers of the passing game in Association Football. It was
Queen’s Park’s short passing game however, that was the preferred choice, as the passing
game spread.
Many former public school boys would carry on with their dribbling game for a few more
years, but the passing game quickly spread amongst the working class teams in England,
helped by the importation of Scottish players who excelled at passing the ball.
Interesting to note that Sheffield was pioneers of another important feature of the modern
game, that is heading the ball, which they had done so from at least 1866.
Aye, well I guess it depends on your politics, but I would certainly take your point about it developing in ‘Britain’. What I won’t take, however, is the FA claiming it as their own.
No the FA certainly didn’t ‘invent’ the modern game, there were working class (and other
non-Public School) teams all over Britain, already playing a very similar game to the one the
FA wrote Laws for. Some people (including the author of the above article), seem to think that
a whole new ball game was invented in 1863, however this was not the case, that’s why when
the FA’s version spread to places like central Lancashire, Glasgow etc, the locals could easily
adapt their own game to that of the FA Laws. Having said that the FA played their part
(although often overstated) in the early development of the association game, but so did early
hotbeds of modern football, such as Sheffield, Glasgow and Lancashire.
I’m not sure about medieval games between English and Scottish teams, but there were games that are often referred to as Folk Football, Street Football or Mob Football. These games were played all over Britain and Ireland. Monarchs in both England and Scotland introduced laws banning these games. ‘Accidental’ deaths from the games were often recorded. However these games were usually played between neighbouring towns and villages. Without going through all my football books (I have over 2000 of them, most of which are packed away), from memory, books such as The People’s Game: The History of Football Revisited (1994) James Walvin, The Story of Football (1978) Martin Tyler, Encyclopedia of British Football (1974) Phil Soar & Martin Tyler, A History of Football (1954) Morris Marples and A History of British Football (1973) Percy M. Young should have chapters relating to medieval football. Also Uppies and Downies: The Extraordinary Football Games of Britain (2008) Hugh Hornby covers these games in more detail.
Jesus Christ, over 2,000 novels about football’ history & evolution – & to think that I have always thought that I was rather ‘smitten’ with the game!!
Yeah, I think I got a bit carried away buying football books! I started with one, read it and then found I wanted to know more and more…
Respect!
Oh and perhaps you could cite the reference to the games apparently between English and Scottish in the 12th century in which people were sometimes disembowelled. I cannot remember where I read that, but perhaps you know which of those books it came from, if indeed it was one of them.
Awesome post, FF1894…respect, mate.
Thanks mate
I found this very randomly as I was looking as to why the term “Soccer” became very popular in the US and found a lot of articles by Americans with the same or similar content as above.
From my own own research, I knew soccer was a British slang term used by a small group of people.
But as you had pointed out there were many myths which have been stated as facts.
If you do decide to create a site about the history of football, I’d very much like to read it. It would be great to have an article pointing out common myths about football as well, as we can see many commenters here, from all over the world, have some things they believe to be true but in turn aren’t.
Call it soccer or football – it doesn’t matter really.
There is a mistake regarding rugby in that it was & still is a lower class game in the north of England. 120 years ago rugby split in two; Rugby Union (the officer class game) & Rugby League (the professional game for the lower orders in the north). In recent years the difference has blurred somewhat.
Neat
I look forward to an article on why f****** Americans cannot get past making ‘British’ a synonym for ‘English’, burying us in anonymity that should also be the fate of Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish but never is, these nations being meticulously accorded the courtesy of their right names we, with equal care, are denied. As to Irish football this is fantasy, much like the current economics-led fetish for crediting China with the invention of everything. It’s best explained by a prevailing habit of the American mind that ensures software language options include Irish, a form of communication favoured by no fewer than four hundred and thirty seven souls world-wide, and which itself expresses a phenomenon first observed during the 20th century whereby a man farts in Dublin and the entire North American continent inhales as one, praising the sweetness of the air, making their inclusion on the ‘inventors of popular sports’ roster is an obvious next step really. With the American booby’s devoted help they get their greasy Germans on everything that isn’t nailed down eventually.
Because of the implied violence against women, there should be a change to call the game “socthem”!!
The “North-Americans” robbed us all the rest of us americans the word American and coined them for themselves. American Football is also Uruguayan Football, Chilean Football, Brazilian Football, Peruvian Football, Panama Football, Colombian Football, etc. They coined the NorthAmerican word for themselves also and culturally colonized the rest of us to think Mexico are not North Americans. I say we rob them term American Football because most of americans call it football and that football is also American Football. The American Football use of the word is not properly used here where I live (in America). It should be called Canadian and United States Football that’s the proper word you can’t even call it NorthAmerican Football because mexican football could also be called that way.
we spend so much time yelling at yanks for calling it soccer that our national team eats shit every 4 years
love how people go out of their ways to fight over something so trivial
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Now I get it. If it’s played on foot it’s called football.
If it’s played on horses it’s called horseball.
I see why so many kings banned the game, it seems to make a lot of people very riled up.