The Beautiful Game
A phrase first coined by Didi (Valdir Pereira), borrowed by Pele (Edison Arantes do Nascimento) and later embellished by Ruud Gullit with his phrase, 'shexy football'. Football, football, football. Not soccer, football.
Games similar to what we now know as football have been played throughout the ages. The Chinese played a game, so did the Japanese. The ancient European civilisations, the Greeks and the Romans both had games. So too did Native peoples in both North and South America.
But what of modern football? Well, evolving from games between neighbouring villages, the game was played in British Public schools. However, each played to different rules and when they went up to University and later still when they started to form clubs, they decided to get together and codify a set. This was done in by 12 London teams in 1862 and prior to this, clubs in northern England were using the Sheffield Rules, first formulated in 1858.
The Football Association was formed in 1863, with the excellently monikered Ebenezer Cobb Morley its first secretary, second president and most importantly the draughtsman of the original Laws of Football, which were approved on 8 December 1863.
In 1871, we saw the first use of the term soccer to describe association football, the game that we call football nowadays. It was at this time that the (English) Rugby Football Union was formed by clubs that wanted to continue with the practice of running with the ball in the hand, hacking, tripping and holding - activities outlawed in association football since 1863.