Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The alternative name soccer was first coined in late 19th century England to help distinguish between several codes of football that were growing in popularity at that time, in particular rugby football. The word soccer is an abbreviation of association (from assoc.) and first appeared in English public schools and universities in the 1880s ...
The game of association football is played in accordance with the Laws of the Game, a set of rules that has been in effect since 1863 and maintained by the IFAB since 1886. The game is played with a football that is 68–70 cm (27–28 in) in circumference. The two teams compete to score goals by getting the ball into the other team's goal ...
Early football leagues in the U.S. mostly used the name football leagues: for example, the American Football Association (founded in 1884), the American Amateur Football Association (1893), the American League of Professional Football (1894), the National Association Foot Ball League (1895), and the Southern New England Football League (1914 ...
The various codes of football share certain common elements and can be grouped into two main classes of football: carrying codes like American football, Canadian football, Australian football, rugby union and rugby league, where the ball is moved about the field while being held in the hands or thrown, and kicking codes such as association football and Gaelic football, where the ball is moved ...
The English word football may mean any one of several team sports (or the ball used in that respective sport), depending on the national or regional origin and location of the person using the word; the use of the word football usually refers to the most popular code of football in that region.
A 1721 illustration of so-called "mob football", a variety of medieval football. Medieval football is a modern term used for a wide variety of the localised informal football games which were invented and played in England during the Middle Ages. Alternative names include folk football, mob football and Shrovetide football.
The Football Association is founded in 1863 (the first football association in the world), and it ratifies the original 14 rules of the game. In 1860, the first non-British team in Europe, Lausanne Football and Cricket Club of Switzerland, is formed.
Folk football was essentially rural and matches tended to coincide with country fairs. Change was brought about by industrialisation and the growth of towns as people moved away from the country. The very idea of a game taking several hours over huge areas ran counter to "the discipline, order and organisation necessary for urban capitalism". [6]