THE ORIGINS AND EARLY DAYS OF FOOTBALL Jeremy Knight from Horsham Museum & Art Gallery has written this article on how football started in Horsham
Carfax United Football Club winners of Horsham Charity Shield 1902, 03, 04 & 05.
East End Ramblers Football Club winners of Horsham Senior Charity Cup and runners-up Division 1, 1935-36.
uch to the relief of football fans across the
M
wide array of variants and few formal rules, with
country, the UK’s most popular sport is back
different versions played from one village to the next.
on our screens. Some loyal fans may have
Several famous public schools also created their own
enjoyed the break from fretting about the fortunes of
style of football, including Eton, Harrow and Rugby.
their team, while others may have been missing the
These disparate forms of football are the root of the
dizzying highs and crushing lows of the football season.
modern games of Association football, Rugby League,
Whichever camp you are in, one thing is certain, the
Rugby Union, Gaelic Football and Aussie Rules.
return of football feels like the beginning of a return to the “new normal”.
After hundreds of years of footballing variation, on 26 October 1863 the captains and secretaries of 12
Football, soccer, whatever you call it, is popular
London and suburban clubs gathered at the
around the world. The most widely played version of
Freemason’s Tavern on Queen Street, London finally to
the sport is Association football, which evolved from
lay down a set of formal rules for the increasingly
earlier ball games. A form of football has been played in
popular sport. That night the Football Association (FA)
Great Britain since the Middle Ages, and games that
formed. There were a further five meetings in the next
involve kicking a ball have existed for millennia. The
few months that laid down the rules and regulations of
Greeks, Romans and Han dynasty Chinese all played ball
Association football. These initial rules allowed for a mix
games that involved kicking, passing between players
of handling and dribbling the ball, and there were
and scoring points.
extensive arguments over the legality of “hacking”, i.e.
The Medieval game was extremely physical.
kicking your opponents’ legs to win the ball. The new
According to 16th century, pamphleteer Philip Stubbs
Association published their final rules, minus hacking, on
“as concerning football playing I protest unto you that
8 December 1863. The impact of the FA took some
it may rather be called a bloody and murthering
time to be felt, yet eventually, as the standing of the
practice than a fellowlye sport”. Medieval football had a
body grew and following the introduction of the
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AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2020
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