A Timeline Of Football History And Facts

Soccer or football is a team sport between two teams of 11 players with a spherical ball. Football is the most popular sport of the world with the craze for it increasing more and more day by day and the major cause for it is the advent of fantasy football sports.  

Playing online fantasy football having detailed knowledge about the historical facts of the sport is much fun than playing without knowledge. Hence, know about the timeline of football from the early times. 

The Beginning of the Sport 

• The very early form of the game with scientific proof was an effect from a military manual in China. It dates back in 206 B.C. to 220 A.D. 
• The Han Dynasty predecessor of a football was termed Ts’u Chu. It was a leather ball of 30-40cm in diameter full with hair and feathers. 
• In Japan, a similar form of this game, known as kemari. It started about 500-600 years after the creation of Ts’u Chu. It then followed by chuk-guk in Korea and woggabaliri in Australia. 
• The Greek episkyros and the Roman harpastum were soon after played with a smaller ball by two teams on a rectangular field marked by boundary lines and a centreline. The aim was to get the ball over opponent’s area. 

Introduction to the global game of football 

• In 1314, football grew in fame in Europe, but authorities issued decrees forbidding the sport within the city due to the chaos it normally caused. 
• In 1365, King Edward III of England really made the game punishable by law as it distracted soldiers from practising more helpful military disciplines, in particular archery. The ban lasted nearly 500 years. 
• Although football was famous from the 8th to the 19th century, it muddled, violent, and more impulsive and normally played by an imprecise number of players. 
• It was 9 years after the rules of football were first recognized in 1863 that the size and weight of the football was ultimately standardised. 
• At the beginning of the 19th century, school football became the custom, in particular in the famous public schools. But the rules were still relatively free and easy, with no standard form of the game. 
• Handling the ball was at first authorized, but on 8 December 1863, football ultimately barred it. The game that adapted ball-handling became the official sport of rugby. 
• On the same year that the Football Association formed. 

Worldwide Membership 

• The world’s oldest football competition is the FA Cup. C.W. Alcock found it and has been contented by English teams ever since 1872. 
• The first official international match took place in 1872 in Glasgow, between England and Scotland. 
• England is also home to the world’s first football league, which was founded in Birmingham in 1888 by 
• Aston Villa director William McGregor. The original format has 12 clubs from Northern England and the Midlands. 
• When FIFA was founded in Paris in May 1904, it had 7 founder members: France, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden. 
• By 1925, the number had increased to 36, while in 1930 – the year of the first World Cup – it was 41. 
• Over the next half-century, football’s fame continued to attract new fans and at the end of the 2007 FIFA Congress, FIFA had 208 members in all parts of the globe. 

Women and Football 

• While football was played in several nations, in 1921 women of London were banned from playing the game. The banning lasted for 50 years. 
• By contrast, Italy and France formed women’s leagues in early 1930s. 
• The 1996 Olympics in Atlanta initiated women’s football as an Olympic event. 
• The first Women’s World Cup was held in China from 16-30 November, 1991. It was followed by Dr. Hao Joao Havelange, who is the president of FIFA. 
• At that event, the U.S. team won, beating Norway 2-1 in the finals. The U.S. later won the third Women’s World Cup in 1999, beating China. That event was held in the US. 
• At present, football is played at the pro level in many nations in the entire world and 176 national teams partake globally. 
• Twice the FIFA World Player of the Year, Mia Hamm led the United States to FIFA World Cup titles in 1991 and 1999 and Olympic gold in 1996 and 2004. 

Happy reading and playing fantasy football!