Soccer

Soccer

Soccer probably originated in China as early as 400 B.C. with a game called tsu-chin. In 200 A.D. , Romans and Greeks played a game in which two teams tried to move a ball across a line on a field. During the tenth century, London children played forms of soccer in the streets.

Two English towns, Derby and Chester, claim to have organized the first soccer game around 1220. The annual game, played on Shrove Tuesday, remained an English tradition until 1314. That year, King Edward II banned the sport because "too much noise is created in the towns by all the shoving and pushing around of the big balls, which may give rise to any number of the many evils that God forbids." Happily for soccer fans, the edict was never applied.

Soccer, as we know it today, was created in 1863, when the London Football Association distinguished it from football rugby and set up different rules for it. In 1871, the Football Association