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Football is an 11-a-side field game played with a spherical ball; the most widely played team game in the world and the most popular spectator sport, followed avidly by millions of fans. It is often popularly called "soccer" (especially in the United States) which is a slang term dating from about 1891 as a shortening of "assoc." or "association". Association football is distinguished from American football, Canadian football, Rugby Union, and Rugby League football in that it is primarily played with the feet.
The ancestry of the game can be traced to 200 BC during the Han dynasty in China. Their game was called Tsu Chu (Tsu means roughly "to kick", while Chu denotes a ball made of stuffed leather). Chinese emperors themselves took part. The Greeks and Romans had a variety of ball games (such as episkuros and harpastum) and some of them were probably foot- as well as handball games. In the 7th century the Japanese had a form of football called kemari. In 14th-century Florence there was the game calcio (giuoco del calcio, "game of the kick") which was played 27-a-side with 6 umpires. This game allowed the use of hands as well as feet.
It is not until the 12th century that we find evidence of some form of football being played in England. Various forms of it were known in the Middle Ages. Basically, this was mob football which took place between rival factions and groups in towns and cities, and also between villages and parishes. Very large numbers of players took part and the goals might be a mile or more apart. Such games, which were often violent and dangerous, came to be particularly associated with Shrovetide and came to be called Shrovetide Football. Forms of this survived in England until well into the 20th century. Royal edicts by a succession of English kings failed to suppress mob football. In fact, such games flourished in the Tudor and Stuart periods. Oliver Cromwell managed to put a stop to them, but with the Restoration and the reign of Charles II it was soon revived. In the 18th century it was popular in English public schools but still involved scores of players on each side. A few public schools developed more organised forms and these have survived at Eton (Eton Wall Game, Eton Field Game), Harrow (Harrow Football), and Winchester (Winchester Football).
In 1846 came the first serious attempt to establish a code. This was instigated at Cambridge University by H. de Winton and J. C. Thring who met representatives from the major public schools with a view to creating a standardised set of rules. They agreed on and drew up ten, known as the Cambridge Rules. These were and are of vital importance in the history of what was later to be named association football, and which Thring described as "The Simplest Game".
In 1855 Sheffield Football Club (FC), the world`s oldest club, was founded, and in 1862 Notts County, the world`s oldest league club, came into existence. In October 1863 the Football Association (FA) was founded at the Freemasons` Tavern, Great Queen Street, London. The idea for the Football Association Challenge Cup (the FA Cup) came from the secretary of the FA, Charles Alcock, who proposed his plans at a meeting attended by 12 clubs in October 1871. Fifteen teams entered for the first competition in 1872 which was won by Wanderers against Royal Engineers. Until 1892 nearly all the finals were held at Kennington Oval, London, which is better known for cricket. Up to 1883 all the winners were amateur clubs. Wanderers won six times; old Etonians won twice and were six times runners-up. In 1872 also, there was the first official international match (between England and Scotland), and in 1878 the first match under floodlights was held.
In the late 1870s there began a long and sometimes acrimonious dispute over the rights and wrongs of professionalism and whether or not players should be paid money over and above compensation for expenses and wages lost by taking part in a match. In 1885 professionalism was finally legalised, but the dispute was to drift on for years and affect other countries. Another major event was the foundation of the Football League in 1888; this was to become a model for all countries that subsequently adopted the game.
This adoption took place rapidly in Europe and many other parts of the world in the closing years of the 19th century.
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