The
Origin of the Word “Soccer”
Today
I found out the origin of the word “soccer”. For all you
out there who love to complain when Americans, and certain others, call
“Football”, “Soccer”, you should know that it was the British that invented the
word and it was also one of the first names of what we now primarily know of as
“Football”.
In
fact, in the early days of the sport among the upper echelons of British
society, the proper term for the sport was “Soccer”. Not only that, but
the sport being referred to as “Soccer” preceded the first recorded instance of
it being called by the singular word “Football” by about 18 years, with
the latter happening when it became more popular with the middle and lower
class. When that happened, the term “Football” gradually began dominating over
“Soccer” and the then official name “Association Football”.
In
the 1860s, as in most of history- with records as far back as 1004 B.C.- there
were quite a lot of “football” sports in existence being played popularly
throughout the world and of course, England. Many of these sports
had similar rules and eventually, on October 26th, 1863, a group of teams in
England decided to get together and create a standard set of rules which would
be used at all their matches. They formed the rules for “Association
Football”, with the “Association” distinguishing it from the many other types
of football sports in existence in England, such as “Rugby Football”.
Now
British school boys of the day liked to nickname everything, which is still
somewhat common. They also liked to add the ending “er” to these
nicknames. Thus Rugby was, at that time, popularly called “Rugger”.
Association Football was then much better known as “Assoccer”, which quickly
just became “Soccer” and sometimes “Soccer Football”.
The
inventor of the nickname is said to be Charles Wredford Brown, who was an
Oxford student around the time of Association Football’s inception.
Legend has it, in 1863 shortly after the creation of Association Football,
Wredford-Brown had some friends who asked him if he’d come play a game of “Rugger”,
to which he replied he preferred “Soccer”. Whether that story’s true or
not, the name caught on from around that point on.
In
the beginning, the newly standardized Rugby and Soccer were football sports for
“gentlemen”, primarily being played by the upper echelons of society.
However, these two forms of football gradually spread to the masses,
particularly Soccer as Rugby didn’t really catch on too well with the lower
classes. This resulted in the name switching from “Soccer” and “Association
Football”, to just “Football”; with the first documented case of the sport
being called by the singular term “Football” coming in 1881, 18 years after it
was first called “Soccer” or, officially, “Association Football”.
The
game gradually spread throughout the world under the lower class name of
“Football”, rather than “Soccer” as the “gentlemen” called it. The
problem was, though, that a lot of other countries of the world already had
popular sports of their own they called “Football”, such as the United States,
Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, to name a few.
In these countries, the name “Soccer” was and, in some, still is
preferred for this reason.
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Bonus Facts:
·
Just as intriguing, for those who like to lambaste
American Football being called such when the ball interacts primarily with
hands, most of the earliest forms of Football were named thus, not because you
kicked a ball with your foot, but because they were played on foot.
Peasants played most of their sports on foot; aristocrats played most of theirs
on horseback. Thus, games played on foot were called “football”, whether
they had anything to do with kicking a ball or not. Indeed, many of the
earliest forms of football involved carrying balls in an attempt to get across
goal lines passed some opposing team or individual players.
·
Soccer balls were originally painted with the
now classic black and white checkered look in order to make them more visible
on black and white TV during the 1970 FIFA World Cup. Naturally, people
wanted to buy balls that looked like those that the professionals used on TV
and thus everybody bought the black and white checkered soccer ball instead of
the previous traditional solid color ball.
·
In the United States, early on the word
“Football” was incorporated in the name for Soccer. The first
name of the league was the “United States Soccer Football Association”.
This lasted about 30 years before it was shortened to simply the “United States
Soccer Federation” in 1975.
·
“Rugby” was also once known as “Football” and
originally had almost the same set of rules as Soccer, though over time
increasingly diverged. The name “Rugby” comes from Rugby School in
England. Legend has it, during a Football match at that school, William
Webb Ellis picked up the ball in his hands and ran with it over the goal
line. It didn’t count as an official goal, as you weren’t supposed to use
your hands; but the referee remarked, it was a “jolly good ‘try’”, which,
according to legend, is where that particular Rugby scoring term comes
from. The official Rugby Union was then formed in 1871 with a split in
1893 forming the Rugby League.
·
Rugby never caught on with the lower class as
Soccer did. Thus, the famous British saying, “Soccer is a gentleman’s
game played by ruffians and Rugby is a ruffian’s game played by gentlemen.”
·
The earliest known record of a Soccer-like
sport was in 1004 B.C. in Japan. There are also many references to
Soccer-like sports in 50 B.C. China, even being played between teams from China
and Japan.
·
The Romans also played several types of
Football games, including some that resembled Soccer. One of which was
also included in the Roman Olympic Games. This particular version, in the
Olympic Games, featured 27 men a side. The game was so rough that 2/3 of
the players had to be hospitalized after the game.
·
The last genuine leather soccer ball used in
the World Cup was the Adidas Tango Espana, used in the 1982 World Cup.
Shortly thereafter, in 1986, the first fully synthetic World Cup soccer ball
was used.
·
The designers of the Adidas Teamgeist, used
in the 2006 World Cup, claim that ball was the roundest ever made for a sport.
·
During King Edward’s reign (1307-1327), he
had laws passed against the playing of football sports. Anyone caught
playing any form of football would be imprisoned, “For as much as there is a
great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls, from which many
evils may arise…”
·
He wasn’t the only British monarch that hated
football. Queen Elizabeth the First “had football players jailed for a
week, with follow-up church penance”. King Henry IV and Henry VIII also
passed laws against football sports.
·
American Football was originally known in
England as “Start-Stop Rugby with Padding”… Catchy.
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