Soccer And Its History

                                        Football Clubs

         Football clubs have existed since the 15th century, but unorganized and without official status. It is therefore hard to decide which the first football club was. Some historians suggest that it was the Foot-Ball Club formed 1824 in Edinburgh. Early clubs were often formed by former school students and the first of this kind was formed in Sheffield in 1855. The oldest among professional football clubs is the English club Notts County that was formed in 1862 and still exists today.Early soccer leagues in the US mostly adopted the name 'football' for their activities, but confusion between American football and association football resulted in the term 'soccer' being used to describe the latter in the 1910s and early 1920s. Two professional soccer leagues were started in 1967, the United Soccer Association and the National Professional Soccer League, which merged to form the North American Soccer League in 1968. Interest in soccer within the United States continued to grow and, as part of the United States' bid to host the 1994 FIFA World Cup, US Soccer pledged to create a professional outdoor league. Major League Soccer duly launched in 1996.            

        During the 12th century, what you could call the “bare bones” of soccer was being played in the meadows of England. This early version was called ‘Folkball,’ and while it barely resembles the modern sport, as it involved punching the ball with your fist and violently tackling the opposing team, it did focus on kicking. But the game was far too violent.It wasn’t until the 1800s after the British government had banned it for centuries, that it was re-established as a winter sport with much safer rules. The game was played between English public schools like Eton, Winchester, and Charterhouse. The only problem was that each school had its own rules. Some allowed the limited carrying of the ball, like rugby, while others didn’t allow players to touch it.The different rules made it hard for schools to compete. That is until 1848 when the Cambridge Rules were adopted. These rules were the first set of widely accepted soccer laws, but they still didn’t specify whether the ball could be handled.So, in 1863 the first Football Accociation was formed in London to standardize all rules relating to soccer. That’s when soccer and rugby became two separate sports and touching the ball with your hands became illegal.