The History of English football is a long and detailed one, as it is not only the national sport but England was where the game was developed and codified. The modern global game of Football was first codified in 1863 in London. The impetus for this was to unify English public school and university football games. There is evidence for refereed, team football games being played in English schools since at least 1581. An account of an exclusively kicking football game from Nottinghamshire-Notts County in the 15th century bears similarity to football. England can boast the earliest ever documented use of the English word "football" (1409) and the earliest reference to the sport in French (1314). England is home to the oldest football clubs in the world (dating from at least 1857), the world's oldest competition (the FA cup founded in 1871) and the first ever football league (1888). For these reasons England is considered the home of the game of football.
Read more about History Of English Football: 1200–1800: Pre-codification, 1800–1870: Early Rules, 1870–1888: The FA Cup and Professionalism, 1888–1915: Creation of The Football League, 1919–1939: Inter-war Years, 1945–1961: The End of English Dominance, 1963–1971: The Golden Age, 1972–1985: The Rise of Liverpool, 1986–1991: The End of An Era, 1992–2001: The Premier League and Sky Television, 2003–present: Financial Polarisation
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, english and/or football:
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Idon’t enjoy getting knocked about on a football field for other people’s amusement. I enjoy it if I’m being paid a lot for it.”
—David Storey (b. 1933)