How Football has Changed Through the Ages

The world’s favourite sport, football is a global industry with huge celebrities, vast paycheques and recognisable brands. Its origins, however, are very different. In the middle ages, English football was a rough and violent game with few rules. A game of football often pitted the men of one village against the inhabitants of a neighbouring village; violence was not uncommon. In fact, the first written record of a football match relates to the death of a player who was stabbed by another.

Over the centuries, football evolved into a number of different forms, some of which were kick-only and others of which involved carrying the ball; these games were the ancestors of modern rugby and American football. It wasn’t until 1863 that the Football Association was created to standardise the rules of football. Association football — or “soccer,” in the era’s slang — was born and the rest is history.