The first
reference of a football match was found about 2300 years ago during the Han
Dynasty of China. The existence of this form of football, known as ‘Tsu Chu’,
was revealed from a Chinese military manual of second and third BC. The game
consisted of kicking a leather ball filled with feathers and hair through an
opening into a net. This form of the game was played in a competitive
environment.
Another form of
the game, known as ‘Kemari’, was found in Japan during 600 AD. In Kemari,
people used to stand in a circle and kick a ball to each other in a way so that
the ball would not be dropped on the ground. This form of the game was far less
spectacular, but ‘more dignified and ceremonious experience’, requiring certain
skills, but not competitive in nature.
Any analytical
discussion on the game of football would be incomplete without a brief
reference to its growth and development in Britain. The game was introduced in
England after the Norman conquest of 1066. It was more of a battle between two
whole villages rather than a game, taking in its turn a toll of life, limb and
property. Despite periodic proclamations to outlaw the game, it survived until
Edward II banned football on the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. The
apathy against football continued until Richard Mulcaster imposed rules on
football as a mean of eliminating or at least reducing roughness or violence of
the game and to promote in the young the virtues of health, strength and
character. He made an attempt to have a stipulated number of players on both
side and a schoolmaster to supervise training and settlement of dispute in
matters. These ideas were too revolutionary for his time and their
acceptability was delayed by three hundred years, i.e. at the turn of the
nineteenth century. The public schools, the industrial revolution (1760), the
migration to the urban areas and the rise of the middle class- all contributed
to the rapid growth of football in the early part of the nineteenth century
England.
The acid test of
the popularity of any game is its acceptability in schools and colleges, but
the many different rules of Associations thwarted the pursuit of football in
schools and colleges. To overcome this problem, representatives of Harrow,
Eton, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury met to formulate what came to be known
as Cambridge Rules of 1848. Next on leaving the Universities, these young men
founded clubs. Among them the oldest registered club in 1855 was the Sheffield
United Cricket and Football Club. In London too clubs were formed and eleven of
them, besides some unattached footballers and observers, met in Freemasons
Tavern, Great Queen Street, Holborn, in October 1863 to constitute the Football
Association. The Football Association, from a very early stage, promoted
professionalism- clubs operated on profit making from gate receipts. The
growing population in both England and Scotland led to the formation of
football clubs and associations throughout Britain and holding of matches and
tournaments on a regular basis was the natural outcome of this development
leading to the FA Cup and the Football League which became a profit generating
source both for the clubs and the players.
The Football
Association, the FA Cup, professionalism and the Football League, which were
all 19th century developments in Britain, made the game world’s most
popular sports.
The expatriate
writers and factors of the British East India Company and army personnel
brought the game to India for their exclusive enjoyment and fun in an alien
soil beset with many vicissitudes, although it has been claimed that the game
was started by the Christian Missionaries. Whatever may be the origin, it
cannot be denied that it was the British rulers in India who patronized the game
as a prominent recreational activity for their peers in India.
In my next
article, I shall discuss about the gradual development of the game of football
in India.
