FOOTBALL

Some of the many different games known as football. From top left to bottom right: Association
football or soccer,Australian rules football, International rules football, rugby union, rugby
league, andAmerican football.
Football refers to a number of sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the
foot to score a goal. The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more
commonly known as just "football" or "soccer". Unqualified, the word football applies to
whichever form of football is the most popular in the regional context in which the word appears,
including association football, as well as American football, Australian rules football, Canadian
football, Gaelic football, rugby league, rugby union[1] and other related games. These variations
of football are known as football codes.

COMMON ELEMENTS
The various codes of football share the following common elements
Two teams of usually between 11 and 18 players; some variations that have fewer players (five
or more per team) are also popular.
A clearly defined area in which to play the game.
Scoring goals or points, by moving the ball to an opposing team's end of the field and either into
a goal area, or over a line.
Goals or points resulting from players putting the ball between two goalposts.
The goal or line being defended by the opposing team.
Players being required to move the ball—depending on the code—by kicking, carrying, or hand-
passing the ball.
using only their body to move the ball.
In most codes, there are rules restricting the movement of players offside, and players scoring a
goal must put the ball either under or over a crossbar between the goalposts. Other features
common to several football codes include: points being mostly scored by players carrying the
ball across the goal line; and players receiving a free kick after they take a mark or make a fair
catch.
Peoples from around the world have played games which involved kicking or carrying a ball,
since ancient times. However, most of the modern codes of football have their origins
in England.[7]

An illustration from the 1850s ofAustralian Aboriginal hunter gatherers. Children in the
background are playing a football game, possibly Woggabaliri.[20]
The Māori in New Zealand played a game called Ki-o-rahi consisting of teams of seven players
play on a circular field divided into zones, and score points by touching the 'pou' (boundary
markers) and hitting a central 'tupu' or target.[citation needed]
Games played in Mesoamerica with rubber balls by indigenous peoples are also well-
documented as existing since before this time, but these had more similarities
to basketballor volleyball, and since their influence on modern football games is minimal, most
do not class them as football.[citation needed]
Northeastern American Indians, especially
the IroquoisConfederation, played a game which made use of net racquets to throw and catch a
small ball; however, although a ball-goal foot game, lacrosse (as its modern descendant is called)
is likewise not usually classed as a form of "football."[citation needed]
These games and others may well go far back into antiquity. However, the main sources of
modern football codes appear to lie in western Europe, especially England.

MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN EUROPE

Further information: Medieval football
The Middle Ages saw a huge rise in popularity of annual Shrovetide football matches throughout
Europe, particularly in England. An early reference to a ball game played in Britain comes from
the 9th century Historia Brittonum, which describes "a party of boys ... playing at
ball".[21] References to a ball game played in northern France known as La Soule or Choule, in
which the ball was propelled by hands, feet, and sticks,[22] date from the 12th century.[23]

An illustration of so-called "mob football"

The early forms of football played in England, sometimes referred to as "mob football", would
be played between neighbouring towns and villages, involving an unlimited number of players
on opposing teams who would clash en masse,[24] struggling to move an item, such as inflated
animal's bladder[25] to particular geographical points, such as their opponents' church, with play
taking place in the open space between neighbouring parishes. [26] The game was played primarily
during significant religious festivals, such as Shrovetide,Christmas, or Easter,[25] and Shrovetide
games have survived into the modern era in a number of English towns (see below).
The first detailed description of what was almost certainly football in England was given
byWilliam FitzStephen in about 1174–1183. He described the activities of London youths during
the annual festival of Shrove Tuesday:
After lunch all the youth of the city go out into the fields to take part in a ball game. The students
of each school have their own ball; the workers from each city craft are also carrying their balls.
Older citizens, fathers, and wealthy citizens come on horseback to watch their juniors competing,
and to relive their own youth vicariously: you can see their inner passions aroused as they watch
the action and get caught up in the fun being had by the carefree adolescents.[27]
Most of the very early references to the game speak simply of "ball play" or "playing at ball".
This reinforces the idea that the games played at the time did not necessarily involve a ball being
kicked.
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".[28] Football was played in Ireland in 1308, with a documented reference to John
McCrocan, a spectator at a "football game" at Newcastle, County Down being charged with
accidentally stabbing a player named William Bernard. [29] Another reference to a football game
comes in 1321 at Shouldham, Norfolk, England: "[d]uring the game at ball as he kicked the ball,
a lay friend of his... ran against him and wounded himself".[28]
In 1314, Nicholas de Farndone, Lord Mayor of the City of London issued a decree banning
football in the French used by the English upper classes at the time. A translation reads:
"[f]orasmuch as there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large foot balls [rageries
de grosses pelotes de pee][30] in the fields of the public from which many evils might arise which
God forbid: we command and forbid on behalf of the king, on pain of imprisonment, such game
to be used in the city in the future." This is the earliest reference to football.
In 1363, King Edward III of England issued a proclamation banning "...handball, football, or
hockey; coursing and cock-fighting, or other such idle games",[31] showing that "football" —
whatever its exact form in this case — was being differentiated from games involving other parts
of the body, such as handball.
A game known as "football" was played in Scotland as early as the 15th century: it was
prohibited by the Football Act 1424 and although the law fell into disuse it was not repealed until
1906. There is evidence for schoolboys playing a "football" ball game in Aberdeen in 1633
(some references cite 1636) which is notable as an early allusion to what some have considered
to be passing the ball. The word "pass" in the most recent translation is derived from "huc
percute" (strike it here) and later "repercute pilam" (strike the ball again) in the original Latin. It
is not certain that the ball was being struck between members of the same team. The original
word translated as "goal" is "metum", literally meaning the "pillar at each end of the circus
course" in a Roman chariot race. There is a reference to "get hold of the ball before [another
player] does" (Praeripe illi pilam si possis agere) suggesting that handling of the ball was
allowed. One sentence states in the original 1930 translation "Throw yourself against him" (Age,
objice te illi).

France circa 1750

King Henry IV of England also presented one of the earliest documented uses of the English
word "football", in 1409, when he issued a proclamation forbidding the levying of money for
"foteball".[28][32]
There is also an account in Latin from the end of the 15th century of football being played
atCawston, Nottinghamshire. This is the first description of a "kicking game" and the first
description of dribbling: "[t]he game at which they had met for common recreation is called by
some the foot-ball game. It is one in which young men, in country sport, propel a huge ball not
by throwing it into the air but by striking it and rolling it along the ground, and that not with their
hands but with their feet... kicking in opposite directions" The chronicler gives the earliest
reference to a football pitch, stating that: "[t]he boundaries have been marked and the game had
started.[28]
Other firsts in the mediæval and early modern eras:
 "a football", in the sense of a ball rather than a game, was first mentioned in
1486.[32] This reference is in Dame Juliana Berners'Book of St Albans. It states: "a
certain rounde instrument to play with ...it is an instrument for the foote and then it is
calde in Latyn 'pila pedalis', a fotebal."[28]
 a pair of football boots was ordered by King Henry VIII of England in 1526.[33]
 women playing a form of football was in 1580, when Sir Philip Sidney described it in one
of his poems: "[a] tyme there is for all, my mother often sayes, When she, with skirts
tuckt very hy, with girles at football playes."[34]
  the first references to goals are in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In 1584 and 1602
respectively, John Norden and Richard Carew referred to "goals" in Cornish hurling.
Carew described how goals were made: "they pitch two bushes in the ground, some
eight or ten foote asunder; and directly against them, ten or twelue [twelve] score off,
other twayne in like distance, which they terme their Goales". [35] He is also the first to
describe goalkeepers and passing of the ball between players.
 the first direct reference to scoring a goal is in John Day's play The Blind Beggar of
Bethnal Green (performed circa 1600; published 1659): "I'll play a gole at camp-ball"
(an extremely violent variety of football, which was popular in East Anglia). Similarly
in a poem in 1613, Michael Drayton refers to "when the Ball to throw, And drive it to
the Gole, in squadrons forth they goe".

CAMBRIDGE RULES
In 1848, at Cambridge University, Mr. H. de Winton and Mr. J.C. Thring, who were both
formerly at Shrewsbury School, called a meeting at Trinity College, Cambridge with 12 other
representatives from Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury. An eight-hour meeting
produced what amounted to the first set of modern rules, known as the Cambridge rules. No copy
of these rules now exists, but a revised version from circa 1856 is held in the library of
Shrewsbury School.[74] The rules clearly favour the kicking game. Handling was only
allowed when a player catches the ball directly from the foot entitling them to a free kick and
there was a primitive offside rule, disallowing players from "loitering" around the opponents'
goal. The Cambridge rules were not widely adopted outside English public schools and
universities (but it was arguably the most significant influence on the Football
Association committee members responsible for formulating the rules of Association football).

SHEFFIELD RULES
By the late 1850s, many football clubs had been formed throughout the English-speaking world,
to play various codes of football.Sheffield Football Club, founded in 1857 in the English city
of Sheffield by Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest, was later recognised as the world's oldest
club playing association football.[75] However, the club initially played its own code of football:
the Sheffield rules. The code was largely independent of the public school rules, the most
significant difference being the lack of an offside rule.
The code was responsible for many innovations that later spread to association football. These
included free kicks, corner kicks, handball, throw-ins and the crossbar.[76] By the 1870s they
became the dominant code in the north and midlands of England. At this time a series of rule
changes by both the London and Sheffield FAs gradually eroded the differences between the two
games until the adoption of a common code in 1877.

AUSTRALIAN RULES

An Australian rules football match at theRichmond Paddock, Melbourne, in 1866. Awood

engraving by Robert Bruce.
Various forms of football were played in Australia during the Victorian gold rush, from which
emerged a distinct and locally popular sport. While these origins are still the subject of much
debate the popularisation of the code that is known today as Australian Rules Football is
currently attributed to Tom Wills.
Wills wrote a letter to Bell's Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle, on July 10, 1858, calling for
a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during winter. [77] This is considered
by historians to be a defining moment in the creation of the new sport. Through publicity and
personal contacts Wills was able to co-ordinate football matches in Melbournethat experimented
with various rules,[78] the first recorded of which occurred on July 31, 1858. On 7 August 1858,
Wills umpired a relatively well documented schoolboys match between Melbourne Grammar
School and Scotch College. Following these matches, organised football matches rapidly
increased in popularity.
Wills and others involved in these early matches formed the Melbourne Football Club (the oldest
surviving Australian football club) on May 14, 1859. The first members included Wills, William
Hammersley, J.B. Thompson and Thomas H. Smith. They met with the intention of forming a set
of rules that would be widely adopted by other clubs.
The backgrounds of the original rule makers makes for interesting speculation as to the
influences on the rules. Wills, an Australian of convict heritage was educated in England. He was
a rugby footballer, a cricketer and had strong links to indigenous Australians. At first he desired
to introduce rugby school rules. Hammersley was a cricketer and journalist who emigrated from
England. Thomas Smith was a school teacher who emigrated from Ireland. The committee
members debated several rules including those of English public school games. Despite
including aspects similar to other forms of football there is no conclusive evidence to point to
any single influence. Instead the committee decided on a game that was more suited to
Australian conditions and Wills is documented to have made the declaration "No, we shall have
a game of our own".[79] The code was distinctive in the prevalence of the mark, free
kick, tackling, lack of an offside rule and that players were specifically penalised for throwing
the ball.
The Melbourne football rules were widely distributed and gradually adopted by the other
Victorian clubs. They were redrafting several times during the 1860s to accommodate the rules
of other influential Victorian football clubs. A significant re-write in 1866 by H C A Harrison's
committee to accommodate rules from the Geelong Football Club made the game, which had
become known as "Victorian Rules", increasingly distinct from other codes. It used cricket
fields, a rugby ball, specialised goal and behind posts, bouncing with the ball while running and
later spectacular high marking. The form of football spread quickly to other other Australian
colonies. Outside of its heartland in southern Australia the code experienced a significant period
of decline following World War I but has since grown other parts of the world at an amateur
level and the Australian Football League emerged as the dominant professional
competition.Football Association
The first football international, Scotlandversus England. Once kept by the Rugby Football
Union as an early example of rugby football.
During the early 1860s, there were increasing attempts in England to unify and reconcile the
various public school games. In 1862, J. C. Thring, who had been one of the driving forces
behind the original Cambridge Rules, was a master at Uppingham School and he issued his own
rules of what he called "The Simplest Game" (these are also known as the Uppingham Rules). In
early October 1863 another new revised version of the Cambridge Rules was drawn up by a
seven member committee representing former pupils from Harrow, Shrewsbury, Eton, Rugby,
Marlborough and Westminster.
At the Freemasons' Tavern, Great Queen Street, London on the evening of October 26, 1863,
representatives of several football clubs in the London Metropolitan area met for the inaugural
meeting of The Football Association (FA). The aim of the Association was to establish a single
unifying code and regulate the playing of the game among its members. Following the first
meeting, the public schools were invited to join the association. All of them declined, except
Charterhouse and Uppingham. In total, six meetings of the FA were held between October and
December 1863. After the third meeting, a draft set of rules were published. However, at the
beginning of the fourth meeting, attention was drawn to the recently published Cambridge Rules
of 1863. The Cambridge rules differed from the draft FA rules in two significant areas; namely
running with (carrying) the ball and hacking (kicking opposing players in the shins). The two
contentious FA rules were as follows:
IX. A player shall be entitled to run with the ball towards his adversaries' goal if he makes a fair
catch, or catches the ball on the first bound; but in case of a fair catch, if he makes his mark he
shall not run.
X. If any player shall run with the ball towards his adversaries' goal, any player on the opposite
side shall be at liberty to charge, hold, trip or hack him, or to wrest the ball from him, but no
player shall be held and hacked at the same time.

At the fifth meeting it was proposed that these two rules be removed. Most of the delegates
supported this, but F. M. Campbell, the representative from Blackheath and the first FA
treasurer, objected. He said: "hacking is the true football". However, the motion to ban running
with the ball in hand and hacking was carried and Blackheath withdrew from the FA. After the
final meeting on 8 December, the FA published the "Laws of Football", the first comprehensive
set of rules for the game later known as Association Football. The term "soccer", in use since the
late 19th century, derives from an abbreviation of "Association". [81]
The first FA rules still contained elements that are no longer part of association football, but
which are still recognisable in other games (such as Australian football and rugby football): for
instance, a player could make a fair catch and claim a mark, which entitled him to a free kick;
and if a player touched the ball behind the opponents' goal line, his side was entitled to a free
kick at goal, from 15 yards (13.5 metres) in front of the goal line.
RULES

The rules are designed to provide a compromise between those of the two codes, with Gaelic
football players being advantaged by the use of a round ball and a rectangular field (Australian
rules uses an oval ball and field), while the Australian rules football players benefit from the
opportunity to tackle between the shoulders and thighs, something banned in Gaelic football. The
game also introduces the concept of the mark, from Australian rules football, with a free kick
awarded for any ball caught from a kick of over 15 metres.[2]
A player must bounce, solo or touch the ball on the ground once every 10 metres or six
steps.[2] A maximum of two bounces per possession are allowed, while players can solo the ball
as often as they wish on a possession.[2] Unlike in Gaelic football, the ball may be lifted directly
off the ground, without putting a foot underneath it first.[2] Players however cannot scoop the ball
off the ground to a team-mate, nor pick up the ball if they are on their knees or on the
ground.[2] If a foul is committed, a free kick will be awarded, referees can give the fouled player
advantage to play on at their discretion.[2]

Scoring in international rules football

The game uses two large posts and two small posts, as in Australian rules, and a crossbar and
goal net as in Gaelic football.
Points are scored as follows:
 In the goal net (): 6 points, umpire waves green flag and raises both index fingers. [2]
 Over the crossbar and between the two large posts (an over): 3 points, umpire waves red flag
and raises one arm above his head.[2]
 Between a large post and a small post (a behind): 1 point, umpire waves white flag and raises
one index finger.[2]
Scores are written so as to clarify how many of each type of score were made as well as, like
Australian football, giving the total points score for each team; for example, if a team scores one
goal, four overs and 10 behinds, the score is written as 1-4-10 (28), meaning one goal (six points)
plus 4 overs (4 × 3 = 12 points) plus 10 behinds (10 × 1 = 10 points), for a total score of 28
points.
An international rules match lasts for 72 minutes (divided into four quarters of 18 minutes
each).[2] Inter-county Gaelic football matches go on for 70 minutes, divided into two halves, and
Australian rules matches consists of four 20 minutes quarters of game time, although with the
addition of stoppage time, most quarters actually last between 25 and 30 minutes.
As in Gaelic football, teams consist of fifteen players, including a goalkeeper, whereas eighteen
are used in Australian rules (with no keeper).

2006 RULE CHANGES

A number of rule changes were introduced before the 2006 International Rules Series:
 Each quarter was reduced from 20 minutes to 18 minutes
 A player who received a red card is to be sent off and no replacement is allowed; in addition
to this a penalty is awarded regardless of where the incident takes place (Previously a
replacement was allowed and a penalty was only awarded if the incident happened in the
penalty area)[3]
 A yellow card now means a 15 minute sin bin for the offending player, who will be sent off
if he receives a second card[3]
 Maximum of 10[4] interchanges per quarter
 Teams are allowed only four consecutive hand passes (ball must then be kicked) [4]
 Match time reduced from 80 minutes to 72 minutes (18 minutes per quarter)[2]
 Goalkeeper can no longer kick the ball to himself from the kick-out[2]
 Suspensions may carry over to GAA and AFL matches if The Match Review Panel sees fit[2]
 A dangerous "slinging" tackle will be an automatic red card
 A front-on bump (known as a shirtfront in Australian football) endangering the head will
result in a red card
 Physical intimidation can result in a yellow card
 One-handed tackles result in a free kick
 An independent referee can cite players for reportable offences from the stands
 Yellow card sin bin reduced to 10 minutes[2]

INTERNATIONAL RULES FOOTBALL AROUND THE WORLD

International rules is played in various locations throughout North America and

the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, and Australia and New Zealand between fledgling Australian rules
football and Gaelic football clubs.
In 2006, an exhibition match between South African youth teams and an Indigenous
Australian touring side composed of players from the Clontarf Foundation, led
by Sydney's Adam Goodes, was held at Potchefstroom.
Sweden: October 23, 2010 saw the inaugural International Rules Test between Malmö Gaelic
Football team (2009 Scandinavian Champions) & Aussie Rules side The Port Malmö
Maulers (2009 DAFL Champions)
The game was played in great spirit despite the cold damp conditions at Limhamnsfältet where
the GAA boys and Maulers share the pitch. The Gaelic Footballers of Malmö GAA Club ended
up winners on a scoreline of: Malmö GAA Club 5:6:7 = 55 pts Port Malmo Maulers 1:5:9 = 30
pts