• Henry VII of England, in 1540
Who owned the first pair of football boots?
King Henry VIII’s soccer shoes — called football boots — were listed within the Great Wardrobe of 1526, a shopping list of the day. They were made by his personal shoemaker, Cornelius Johnson, in 1525, at a cost of 4 shillings, the modern equivalent of CDN$160 (US$127). Little is known about them, as there is no surviving example, but the royal football boots are known to have been made of strong leather, ankle-high, and heavier than the normal shoe of the day.
What British king was first to give soccer royal approval?
Charles II of England gave the game of soccer royal approval in 1681 when he attended a match between the Royal Household and the Duke of Albemarle’s servants.
What was tsu chu?
As far back as 2500 BC a game of kicking a ball called tsu chu (also spelled as cuju) was played in China. Tsu means “to kick the ball with feet” and chu means “a ball made of leather and stuffed.” Matches were often staged in celebration of the emperor’s birthday. The objective was for players to kick a ball through a round opening into a small net attached to bamboo poles. The opening was about 1 foot (30–40 centimetres) wide and elevated about 30 feet (nine metres) from the ground. During the Ts’in Dynasty (255 BC–206 BC) a form of tsu chu was used for training by soldiers, and from the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) there survives a war manual featuring physical exercises called tsu chu. These exercises involved a leather ball filled with feathers and hair. With the exception of the hands, all other body parts could be used while trying to “score.”
Quickies
Did you know …
• the first instance of the modern spelling of “football” appeared in 1608, in act 1, scene 4 of Shakespeare’s King Lear: “Nor tripped neither, you base football player”?
What was kemari?
Between 300 AD–600 AD a game called kemari emerged in Japan. Also called kenatt, it was played by eight or fewer people using a sawdust-stuffed deerskin ball about 9 inches (22 centimetres) in diameter. On a rectangular field called a kikytsubo, players had to juggle the ball with their feet and pass it to one another in the air, keeping it from touching the ground. Each corner of the kikytsubo was marked with a sapling, the classic version featuring a cherry, maple, willow, and pine. When kicking the ball up, a player would call “ariyaaa!” (here we go) and when passing it to someone else, “ari!” (here). The golden age for kemari was between the tenth and sixteenth centuries, as the game spread to the lower classes and became a popular subject for poets. One surviving anecdote tells of an emperor and his team who kept the ball aloft for over 1,000 kicks. Beginning in the thirteenth century, kemari players wore uniforms based on the traditional samurai’s costume, the hitatare.
Quickies
Did you know …
• an ancient Greek marble relief housed in the National Museum of Archeology in Athens shows an athlete balancing a ball on his thigh as a young boy looks on? This very same image is featured on the European Cup trophy.
What was episkyros?
Around 2000 BC, the Greeks played episkyros (also known as phaininda), a kicking and throwing game played primarily by men, usually in the nude. Early balls were made of linen and hair wrapped in string and sewn together, though it is believed inflated balls — inflated pig bladders wrapped in pigskin or deerskin — were used by later practitioners of the game.
Quickies
Did you know …
• Cicero describes an incident in which a man getting a open-air shave was killed when a harpastumball hit his barber?
What was harpastum?
For over 700 years during the realm of the Roman Empire, a game called harpastum (meaning “the small ball game”) was very popular. Employing a small, hard ball, harpastum was played by 5–12 athletes on a rectangular pitch marked by boundary lines and split by a centre line. The game’s objective seems thoroughly counterintuitive to us today: each team had to keep the ball in their own half for as long as they could, while their opponents tried to steal it and take to their side. Both the hands and feet could be used to move the ball. Because the rules indicated that only the player with the ball could be tackled, complex passing combinations developed. Emperor Julius Caesar used harpastum to maintain the physical readiness of his soldiers.
Quickies
Did you know …
• there are records of a harpastum match being played between the Romans and the British natives?
What was pok-a-tok?
As far back as 3000 BC, Mayans and other inhabitants of the Meso-American region played a game called pok-a-tok, in which the ball could only be touched with the elbows, hips or knees. The exceedingly challenging objective was to project the ball through a ring attached to a sloping wall.
Quickies
Did you know …
• the Inuit played a game called asqaqtuk, which involved booting a heavy ball stuffed with grass, caribou hair, and moss across the arctic tundra between goals as much as 10 miles (16 kilometres) apart?
What was pasuckuakohowog?
North American Indians played a soccer-like game called pasuckuakohowog, which means “they gather to play ball with the foot.” It was played in the early 1600s on beaches along the Massachusetts coast with half-mile-wide goals about one mile apart. As many as 1,000 players dressed in disguise and with war paint on their faces participated in these rather violent games, which went on for several days and ended with a feast.
Why is Piazza della Novere in Florence considered by some to be the cradle of European soccer?
In the sixteenth-century in Florence, Italy, there emerged an early European cousin of soccer called calcio. It was played in the city’s Piazza della Novere by teams of 27 using the feet and hands to try to kick, throw, or carry a ball over a designated spot on the perimeter of a playing pitch covered in sand. The first official rules of calcio were published in 1580 AD by Giovanni Bardi. Originally, calcio was only reserved for the rich aristocrats, who played every night between Epiphany and Lent.
What is the oldest record of a soccer club in existence?
The title of the world’s oldest soccer club is often disputed, or is claimed by several different clubs, across several different codes of soccer. It is possible that an organization of soccer players existed in London between 1421 and 1423. The records of the Brewers’ Company of London, a guild, mention the hiring out of their hall “by the ‘ffooteballepleyers’ for 20 pence,” under the heading “Trades and Fraternities.” The listing of such players as a “fraternity” is the earliest allusion to what might be considered a soccer club.
Quickies
Did you know …
• on February 17, 1530, while the troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, were besieging Florence, a game of calcio was organized in the city as a show of defiance?
What is the oldest national soccer team in the world?
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