Kick Back and Relax, Soccer’s Here To Stay

In terms of participants, viewers, and ridiculously loud, outrageous fans, soccer ranks among the most popular sports in the world today. Regardless of age, location, or race, soccer fans across the globe cheer on their favorite clubs with signature obnoxiousness and hooliganism. But in the midst of a drunken soccer chant, sweat dripping down your brow despite the 30F degree weather, you may find yourself wondering how such a magnificent sport ever came to be? Well, it is actually unknown as to soccer`s pinpoint of origination in history, but variations of the sport are said to have been played as early as 2000 B.C.!

There are recordings of Japanese variations of the sport being played in 1000 B.C., and there are even ancient texts from China detailing a match of a soccer-like game between Japanese and Chinese teams in 50 B.C. The Chinese conducted their variation of the sport with a leather ball filled with hair, and there was an actual soccer game played in Kyoto, Japan in 611 A.D. There was even a similar version of the game played in the Roman Olympics in which each team had 27 members and competition was so fierce that two-thirds of the competitors had to be hospitalized after a competition! However, historians were not very concerned with tracking the history of ‘games’ and thus it is difficult to tell how the sport spread from Asia to Europe through history.

During King Edward`s occupation of the throne of England in the 1300`s, he declared playing soccer a punishable offense. King Henry IV, King Henry VIII, and Queen Elizabeth I also passed laws jailing soccer players for up to a week at a time! But despite the throne`s attempts, soccer players didn`t give up and soccer became an officially sanctioned sport by the crown of England in 1681. Soccer had become so popular in England that by the 1800`s teams would get so riled up after matches that they would run through their local villages yelling, screaming, and rampaging. One account of a match played in Derbyshire, England in 1829 said that the match had, ‘broken shins, broken heads, torn coats, and lost hats.’ Records show that first actual rules for the game were used at Eton College in 1815, and slowly spread to all colleges around England, commonly known as the Cambridge rules.

Now soccer is played and viewed by more than 8 million people around the globe, on every continent (except Antarctica) and almost every country. What started out as a somewhat rag-tag, small sport played in Asia, moved through Europe only to become an illegal sport in England, quickly spread throughout the world and is now arguably the most popular sport on the globe. The latest World Cup was watched by over 33 million people around the world for 27 total days, which totals more than the most recent Olympics, or that of America`s basketball, baseball, and football championships combined!