Sport History of the Greeks and the Romans - Research Paper Example

Name) (Instructor) (Institution) (Course code) (Date) Football History It the most popular game loved by its followers worldwide. It is also known as soccer. This sport helps its followers and fans and players themselves to relief stress, induce teamwork and discipline. The game also promotes fitness to the health of the players. Where, how and when did sport football or soccer started The current soccer game is a product of invention of the nineteenth century. It was nurtured with certain goal in mind; discipline, teamwork, respectability and teamwork which describe how the sport is played and organized. Modern football resulted from the industrial revolution period (Sanders, 2010). The origin of football is thought be ancient times. It is unanimously believed it originated with the Greeks and the Romans. Though it was not played in the Olympic sport, the same with it is played today. The unfortunate thing about the football of that time is that it was very violent and those who played was to prove their bravery. What is unaccepted in modern day football was accepted. Such actions included assaulting the opponent, punching and hacking was fully accepted as part of the ancient football (Sanders, 2010). There are evidences that football was already established in Britain in the twelfth Century. The sport was played in the streets. Here the ball played by a group of youngsters who would kick and chase it. The youngsters who played were egged on by their guardians or parents. The number of players often reaches two hundred or more who were boys or males. Here in Britain, this sport was based within rural communities. This kind of game was played on important occasions, holidays or days of the year. These special days include Shrove Tuesday among other local special days. Just like other kind of sports, football in Britain at that period was basically played at a local level than nationally. Playing rules was set by the players and other participants themselves (Sanders, 2010). It is undoubtedly accepted that the early version of the sport was played in China around 2500BC using the bladder of a pig. Football then was kicked between thirty feet high poles. The sport also played as part of military training for warriors. Around 50 AD, the Chinese renamed this sport to ‘tsu chu’. Historical records shows compare the square goal and ball to Yang and Yin which to Chinese were symbols of harmony. Just like their British counterparts, football matches were usually played special and important days of the calendar. Other evidence also shows that this sport might have existed in Italy, to be specific, in the City State of Florence (Sanders, 2010). Back in Britain, during the time of Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan which was leading faith movement that time, banned football games. They argued that the sport was not only unruly but also ungodly. They also cite that there other kinds of entertainment which could be played on Sunday. Despite the efforts of the ruling class to ban it, football continued to be played roughly until the beginning of industrialization in the year 1750 (Sanders, 2010) From then on, there an increased dramatic and fundamental change in the then British society from rural to urban migration. This resulted in the people moving from the rural areas to the expanding urban centres and cites countrywide. As people moved from countryside to urban centres, they left with them they roots and culture behind, some sports including football was not left behind. They move with them to the urban areas (Sanders, 2010). Some problems came into being during this transition period. The middle class who were the key decision makers as well as the driving force in the society noted that they needed certain kind of human resource. Thy needed workforce who were very reliant who could not be influenced by nature like seasons and many breaks. They needed the manpower that were highly organized, disciplined, and compliant and controlled by clock. The indigenous form of soccer, which the urban migrants carried with them, was not accepted as it promoted no discipline and unruliness. It was then required to be tandem with the new of thinking brought about by industrial revolution (Sanders, 2010). As a result the middle class could not ban football sport as the previous ban did not succeed. The came to a conclusion that the sport needed to reformed through organization and control. Public schools and universities of that time came up with individuals who could bring effective reforms into the sport. The was solely because there were systems in place that had accepted soccer as sport a couple of years earlier (Sanders, 2010). It is until the Victorian time that saw the establishment of the current sport that was lightly religious. National religious census was carried out in the year 1851. The census showed majority of the working class did not usually go to church. The Church of England was in the fore front to amend the mess through the adoption of radical ideas. Their strategy was to go for the working class. The real targets were the young generation of the working class who were engaging in non-religious activities (Sanders, 2010). The most popular entertainment activity was sports which was soccer to be precise. The people who were responsible for the formation of the modern football were men in public schools and universities who were entering church (Sanders, 2010). Whilst the advancement residential estates in the Midlands and North England including London are some of the places where modern football was nurtured and developed. No wonder there exist a lot of football clubs in these areas. Some of the case examples include Aston Villa is a product of chapel at Aston Cross. Another case example is Birmingham whose ground today carries the name of church who traces their origin to. The church is located at Bordesley name St Andrews church. Their stadium name is St Andrew (Sanders, 2010). Other major clubs like Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers links their origin to the same religious origin. Because of this, it is undoubtedly link the development of modern day football to church. A part from tracing the origin to church, there were some influential people who sought to promote morale of their workers. Most of these influential people owned factories and industries. These people noted that football was the best way of disciplining their staff. Example of clubs that can trace their origin to industries include east London club, West Ham United. That is one of the reason is commonly known as Hammers due to its large engineering complex dealing with Hammer works (Sanders, 2010). Other teams were formed but the problem is that there was organization of play into groups or fixture of play. Another problem is that there were no standard rules that would guide their play. There two set of rules that each guided the football matches. Each team adopted one of the set rules basing on their location. Teams that in the midlands and the southern adopted a set of rules called London rules while the northern clubs adopted a set that was called Sheffield code (Sanders, 2010). There were a lot of similarities and a few differences between the two set of codes. Some of the similarities included marking out of playing area. This marked the end of chaos of street games. One of the differences between the two codes included that no throwing in of the ball was allowed in Sheffield code. As a result the ball would be kicked in. on the other hand; London rules allowed the throwing in of the ball like the way it observed currently (Sanders, 2010). With the advancement and development of the game, these teams started to become independent by breaking away from the church and were run by working class members in the society leading to a new phase of development. The resultant development lead to source of entertainment capturing the more fans that started to pay in order to watch football matches (Sanders, 2010). From then on, associations were formed to organize, set standards and run football at the national level came into being. One of such organization is known as FA – Football Association which runs up to today. FA brought in organization into the football industry by organizing team to compete for a cup. The first completion attracted fifteen teams who competed for the FA in the year 1871(Sanders, 2010). The FA could not satisfy the spectators and clubs demand. These fans wanted more games which were both friendly or cup games. As result, 1885 Football League was born leading to the formation of the first world league which entailed structured fixtures. There was a total 12 twelve teams that participated in the league. It was observed that there no club among the southern raft that part of this first raft. With the formation of Football League and FA saw the death of league code. A set of standard rules came into play. This became a success story leading to the formation a second division which incorporated teams from the south (Sanders, 2010). From then on football became commercialized and spread across the globe and became internationalized. As a result international bodies were formed including FIFA which runs the world modern football. References Sanders, M. (2010). Essay on Football | AdvancedWriters.com Blog. [online] Advancedwriters.com. Available at: http://www.advancedwriters.com/blog/essay-on-football/ [Accessed 6 Dec. 2014]. Read More