Who invented the game of Football?

General Answer

Throughout history people have played sports involving ball and using hands, feet and sticks.

Each local area had their own rules so there was no definitive global definition of any sport.

In the 1300's the king of England Edward III banned football, hockey and handball. This shows a difference between sports using the feet, hands and sticks. So football was traditionally played using the feet and not the hands.

In 1863 at Cambridge university a group of Englishmen formed the Football Association and invented the modern game of football.

After this event many other "versions" of football were invented. Rugby and Australian rules were the first. In North America rugby and football were both played, and a hybrid of these two sports was invented called American football.

The first sport called football with global rules is football; other sports using the term football have words placed in front such as rugby, American or Aussie Rules (Australian) or Gaelic (Irish) to differentiate them from association football.

There remains only one football accepted by FIFA and the IOC.

Further detail on General Answer

Most modern versions of football, however, originated in England, where a form of the game was known in the 12th century. In subsequent centuries football became so popular that various English monarchs, including Edward II and Henry VI, forbade the game because it took interest away from the military sport of archery. By the middle of the 19th century football had split into two distinct entities because some British Public Schools developed their foot ball games into ball carrying games by copying the NZ Maori hand ball methods of play. Still popular today, these two sports included the football association game, or soccer (the word being a slang adaptation of the three letters, s-o-c, in Association), and rugby, in which players ran with the ball and tackled. Gridiron evolved out of rugby.

American Football

Answer

The origin of football is not an easy question to answer. There was renaissance football (Galileo was supposed to be a pretty good player) and various other forms of rugby/football in various cultures at various times in history. What we consider the first game of Gridiron (american football) as we know it was playing during a game in 1869 between McGill University of Montreal and Harvard. When several players were unable to continue the Association Football match (soccer) the number of players was reduced to 11 and McGill rules were used. This is considered to be the first time what we call Gridiron (american football) was played. Walter Camp was a great self-promoter who tried to milk Yale for as long as he could through many corrupt practices. Yale to this day would never admit that Harvard invented anything and Harvard would never admit that the boys from McGill taught them anything. The modern line (7 men on the line of scrimmage) was brought about due to several s from the Wedge formation and flying wedge formation that were being used by Harvard et al. In 1906, the rules were changed as the behest of Teddy Roosevelt. So who exactly invented Gridiron (American football)? Walter Camp claimed to invent everything but he didn't invent Gridiron. However he was a great admirer of the NZ rugby genius, Thomas Ellison, who had influenced the direction of rugby during the 1880s and 1890s. Ellison also proposed a forward pass rule that was not permitted in rugby rules. Camp saw the brilliance in such as rule, and had enough authority to get it included into the early years when Gridiron (American football) game was just beginning. McGill? They introduced the rules that Harvard used and became modern Gridiron. The answer is no one person invented Gridiron (american football). There are so many innovations that have been introduced by so many people that it is unfair to credit any one person.

Answer

Gridiron (American football), distinct type of football that developed in the United States in the 19th century from soccer (association football) and rugby football. Played by professionals and amateurs (generally male college or high school teams), Gridiron is one of the most popular American sports, attracting thousands of participants and millions of spectators annually. The forerunner of Gridiron may have been a game played by the ancient Greeks, called harpaston. In this game there was no limit to the number of players. The object was to move a ball across a goal line by kicking, throwing, or running with it. Classical literature contains detailed accounts of the game, including its rougher elements, such as ferocious tackling. However, historians have debunked the Roman or Greek origins, claiming no one knows what the rules were and that many people have invented simply stories based around the ball carryiny artwork left by the Greek artists.

Answer

Willie Tidwell made Gridiron (American Football). He was a really good Gridiron in the day. Willie and Walter Camp both made the rules up for Gridiron. They got it from Rugby and Football. They took the hitting and other activities from Rugby. In Football (soccer) they used the foot, and Tidwell and Camp both thought it would be good to have field goal post to kick field goals. That was three points if you made it. That is who created it.

Answer

There are many possible places and times when Gridiron (american football) might have been created. However, the most commonly accpeted answer is in 1869, when Rutgers and Prinston had the "first" Gridiron game. Of course, there had been others played before then, but this game was the first time that Gridiron had a name. As for who created it, Gridiron derives almost directly from rugby, though there are many people that could be credited with the creation of a large amount of rules that make up Gridiron today.

Brief Answer On Both of the Above

Both Gridiron (American football) and Football (soccer) have their origins in varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, and Gridiron (American football) is directly descended from rugby football.

Rutgers University and Princeton University, played the first game of college Gridiron (american football) on Nov. 6, 1869 in New Brunswick, N.J. Rutgers won that first game, 6-4.

An Alternate Answer

In most parts of the world, Football is soccer and the American game is known as Gridiron (American Football). Football (soccer) being the most popular sport in the world makes this an obvious distinction. Thus Gridiron (American football) developed from the English game and is most closely related to rugby, which has a similar objective but forbids the throwing of the ball forward and both its variations, Rugby League and Union, flow much more than the stop-start tactical action of Gridiron (American football).

Furthermore, the rugby game, despite the myths, was not invented by school boy William Webb Ellis. The catalyst for rugby invention occurred when the traditional Maori ball games (that utilised running with ball in hand skills) - were much admired by the first European 'intelligentsia' to NZ in the early 1800s, and always ones to seize on innovative concepts, they surreptitiously introduced these dynamic handling and running with the ball skills into their 'upper crust' public schools back in Britain.

The explanation for this eager adoption of this early Maori cultural game icon can be traced back to the attitudes of the early British anthropologists who regarded the Maori physique as superior to that of Europeans, Maori were on average (at that time) 3 inches taller than their European counterparts. The Maori mens bodies were compared to that of the Greek ideal, as depicted by statues of their well muscled Gods, and the British saw themselves as puny bodied by comparison. The anthropologists perceived that the Maoris well muscled bodies were a result of their lifestyles - in particular the many traditional sports that they played. Hence the ideal of improving 'British stock' through sports and exercise.

The Maori ball game skills totally revolutionised the British Public Schools kicking ball game. Practically overnight 'rugby' was born. The British of course did not credit the new game to a far off native race of people and have created a complex myth, that of William Webb Ellis, to cover their appropriation of a NZ Maori concept.

The ancient Maori ball games, several versions were played in different tribes around NZ in ancient times, are collectively known today as Ki-o-Rahi.

It is enlightening to read early accounts from the earliest missionaries to NZ who recorded the Maori ball playing as paganism! There was not a game like the Maori ball games anywhere else in the world at the time. The missionaries thought the quick passing, feints, swerves, sidesteps and fast running with small roundish flax objects was a frenzied religious ritual. It was beyond their comprehension!

So credit for the origination of rugby must go to the early British sports entrepeneurs who took the Maori ball handling concepts and combined them into their Public School system during the early 1800s.

Another Alternate Answer

Football (soccer) was invented by the Chinese over a thousand years ago, it was re-invented and codified by the English who are known as "the home of Football". Goal posts with nets were introduced in the very late 1800's.

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