History about football

The contemporary history of the world's favourite game spans more than 100 years. It all began in 1863 in England, when rugby football and association football branched off on their different courses and the Football Association in England was formed - becoming the sport's first governing body.

The most admitted story tells that the game was developed in England in the 12th century. In this century games that resembled football were played on meadows and roads in England. Besides from kicks, the game involved also punches of the ball with the fist. This early form of football was also much more rough and more violent than the modern way of playing. An important feature of the forerunners to football was that the games involved plenty of people and took place over large areas in towns (an equivalent was played in Florence from the 16th century where it was called Calcio). The rampage of these games would cause damage on the town and sometimes death. These would be among the reasons for the proclamations against the game that finally was forbidden for several centuries. But the football-like games would appear again in the streets of London in the 17th century. It would be forbidden gain in 1835, but at this stage the game had been established in the public schools.

An attempt to create proper rules for the game was done at a meeting in Cambridge in 1848, but a final solution to some questions of rules was not achieved. Another important event in the history of football come about in 1863 in London when the first Football association was formed in England. It was decided that carrying the ball with the hands wasn't allowed. The meeting also resulted in a standardization of the size and weight of the ball. A consequence of the London meeting was that the game was divided into two codes: association football and rugby.in the 1871–72 season, the FA Cup was founded as the world's first organised competition. The first international match took place in November 1872 when England travelled to Glasgow to play Scotland.At first, the FA was strongly opposed to professionalism and that gave rise to a bitter dispute from 1880 until the FA relented and formally legitimised professionalism in 1885. A shortage of competitive matches led to the formation of the Football League by twelve professional clubs in 1888 .

Attendances increased significantly through the 1890s .Through media coverage, football became a main talking point among the population and had overtaken cricket as England's national sport by the early 20th century. The size of the Football League increased from the original twelve clubs in 1888 to 92 in 1950. The clubs were organised by team merit in four divisions with promotion and relegation at the end of each season. Internationally, England hosted and won the 1966 FIFA World Cup but has otherwise been among the also-rans in global terms. English clubs have been a strong presence in European competition with several teams, especially Liverpool and Manchester United.The sport was beset by hooliganism from the 1960s to the 1980s and this, in conjunction with the impact of rising unemployment, caused a fall in attendances and revenue which plunged several clubs into financial crisis. Following three major stadium disasters in the 1980s, the Taylor Report was commissioned and this resulted in all-seater stadia becoming mandatory for clubs in the top-level divisions. In 1992, the Premier League was founded and its members negotiated a lucrative deal for live television coverage with Sky Sports. Television and marketing revived national interest in the sport and the leading clubs became major financial operations. As the 21st century began, the top players and managers were being paid over £100,000 a week and record-breaking transfer fees were frequently paid.