12 Things You Probably Never Knew About Football…

With the World Cup fast approaching, there are many out there who have no idea of the history of this long-loved sport. If you love football, you’re probably only aware of its history from more recent times. And if you don’t like football, you probably want to remain ignorant. But football has a long, gruesomely violent, and hugely interesting past. And so, Dr Ariel Hessayon, Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, lets you know a few things you probably never knew about football.

1. Football has its traces in the Greek and Roman periods

Traces of football’s history go far, far back. The Greeks had a game called phaininda, which seems to have involved athletes hurling and catching a ball (there is a marble relief of this in the National Museum in Athens).

This game may have been a precursor of the Roman game harpastum, where a small, hard ball was thrown among a throng of players divided into teams. Having struggled within the confines of a dirt pitch to gain possession of the ball, a player would pass it to his team-mate. A point seems to have been scored by dropping the ball in a designated area.

2. Early footballs were made using leather and moss

In Britain, the first literary reference to a ball may be a ninth century chronicler’s remark that at Maes Elledi “boys were playing ball”. Balls at this time were small and could be caught in the palm of a child’s hand. They were made by sewing shaped pieces of leather around a core of tightly packed moss.

3. Goals may have originated from knights

The innovation of a goal (usually a prominent local landmark) may have derived from the chivalric ‘passage of arms’, a military exercise in which a group of knights attempted to defend the gate of a castle or town from attack.

4. Football was extremely dangerous – so much so that the Royals tried to ban it!

The first unambiguous reference to football in England is a writ for preserving the peace in London (dated 13 April 1314), which notes the “great uproar in the City, through certain tumults arising from the striking of large footballs in the public fields”.

That football could lead to serious injury or death there is no doubt. In 1321 one player died from wound sustained after accidentally running onto a sheathed knife. Yet despite a succession of royal proclamations promoting archery and a statute of 1409-10 forbidding labourers and servants from “playing at the Balls, as well Hand-ball as Foot-ball”. Yet this “common, undignified, and worthless” game remained ever popular.

5. The rules of the game only started to get introduced in the 18th century

In the 18th century, rules began to emerge. At a game played at Ditchingham, Norfolk in 1741, there were judges whose job was to settle "all differences that may arise" – the first reference to a referee. Players, for example, were forbidden to strike opponents "when down".

Time keeping was also used at a match in 1750, along with other innovations such as a rope to mark out the pitch. By the 1770s it was common in parts of Suffolk and Lancashire for a game to begin with the ball either "thrown off" or kicked by an impartial person.

6. Forget the World Cup, you’d win a hat in the 18th century (losers won stockings)

By the late eighteenth century members of the aristocracy, keen to have a healthy work force, began organizing matches - often in concert with local publicans. Prizes in the form of hats were provided for the winners (losers tended to receive stockings).

7. Public schools played a big part in the history of football

In the 1840s, public schools, where hitherto football had been regarded as ungentlemanly and “fit only for butcher boys”, began to codify the rules of their ball games.

At Rugby written rules that permitted players to carry ball were set down in 1845. Eton followed suit in 1849 with rules that, in deliberate contrast to Rugby, forbade Etonians from handling the ball.

At the Universities, undergraduates brought with them the rules favoured by their public schools. After some attempts to reconcile the various codes, Cambridge produced a revised code in 1863 which made no mention of handling the ball. These Cambridge rules were to form the basis of the code eventually adopted by the Football Association established later that year.

8. The working classes of the nineteenth century helped football become huge

Many teams built their grounds in among factories and the worker’s houses, cementing the support of their local communities. By the early twentieth century many of the largest cities had two major teams and the often intense local rivalry between these clubs was regularly played out before hordes of excited, partisan spectators that represented the largest regular gatherings in peace-time. In the 1880s, Liverpool alone had more than one hundred teams!

9. But, despite becoming hugely popular, football was still a violent pastime

The sectarian fuelled passions of the 50,000 or more who regularly witnessed the New Year’s Day clashes between Celtic and Rangers found an outlet in 1909 when 6000 fans rioted following a draw between the two teams. 54 policemen were injured, the ground damaged and virtually every street-lamp in the vicinity of the stadium destroyed.

10. Football teams had to become less local in order to become more successful

The fierce competitiveness that drove teams towards league and cup glory accelerated the professionalisation of football. Hungry for success on the pitch, teams began to recruit players from far and wide to realize their ambitions. Victorious teams, like the side that won the cup for Tottenham Hotspur in 1901, often contained no local players.

11. Footballers were seen as working class heroes. And paid accordingly.

Supporters continued to identify with the individuals that wore their team colours. Professional football players were perceived as working-class heroes and were paid accordingly: in 1931 the maximum annual salary of a professional footballer (including unofficial bonuses) was probably nearly £400, a figure far higher than the average industrial wage.

12. The 1934 FA CUP finalists promoted flannel trousers, shredded wheat and shoe polish. Football had become big business.

In the 1930s football was “a ridiculously cheap entertainment” but it was also big business, providing growing employment opportunities. Demand for news had created sports papers like the Saturday afternoon Pink un’ and Green ’un. Demand for food and drink benefited the catering trade. Demand for cigarettes led to the cult of the cigarette card made famous by John Player and Son. And the demand for gambling spawned pools companies like Littlewoods and Vernons. There was also advertising; the FA Cup finalists of 1934 promoted flannel trousers, shredded wheat and shoe-polish. By the eve of the Second World War The Times could describe football as “something like a national industry”.