AND THE GAME WAS MADE!

During the later 19th Century, groups of "lads" played a variety of football games usually using their own local "rules" or at least those involving a piece of ground and a ball. Following on from October 26th 1863, the date when the Football Association was founded in Central London, a group of "clubs" that favoured round ball games and various ways of playing with it, met to bring some order by agreeing on "rules" or Laws,  as the Association prefers. Impromptu matches were played since the 1200s and these games were often dangerous and unruly. Around the 1820s, many groups liked the idea of setting down some rules. Approaches to this varied depending on where, who and what! Some groups liked catch and run, some running with the ball on the ground and there was, of course, some consideration to foul play! Rugby was not far away!! The Cambridge Rules of 1848 based on the University and the Sheffield Rules, set down 10 years later attempted to bring some order to the national game. Dribbling was well known but there was a need to forbid catching the ball and running with it in the hand. The game was close to Aussie Rules played now. Meanwhile the Blackheath Club and Rugby codes preferred a full on handling and hacking game.

Local schools such as Charterhouse, universities and local clubs across the  nation stuck to their form and of course their preference carried on in later life. At Uppingham School, a master, JC Thring drew up a "mish mash" of various rule books in 1862 and called it "The Simplest Game". It did not catch on but the concept of homogenisation did. In October 1863, representatives from the Kilburn Club, Barnes, The War Office, Crusaders, Preceval House, Crystal Palace, Blackheath Club, Kensington School, Surbiton and Blackheath, met in Central London to agree new rules and formed the Football Association. This did not solve everything and by December, Blackheath withdrew to prefer more handling in their "sport", eventually unifying their game into Rugby in 1871. The William Webb Ellis myth of picking up the ball during a football game at Rugby School in 1823 is just that, although the first official Rugby international was held in 1871, when the game was offically recognised.When catching was finally outlawed in "football" in 1866, the ball was literally and finally rolling!

Timeline of football history.

• 1000 BC: Mesoamerican ball games
• 3rd century BC: First forms of football in China "Tsu' Chu"
• 7th century AD: The Japanese ball game "Kemari"
• 12th century: Mob-, Folk- and Shrovetide Football - the origin of modern football 
• The emergence of modern football:
• 1848: Cambridge Rules
• 1858: The first English football club
• 1863: Founding of the first national football association
• 1871: Introduction of the FA Cup
• Football history in Germany
• 1860: Founding of the Lausanne Football and Cricket Club
• 1874: Grammar school teacher Robert Koch introduces football as a school sport
• 1888: Founding of the oldest still existing football club in Germany
• 1890s: Founding of numerous football clubs in Germany
• 1900: Founding of the German Football Association (DFB
• The international spread of football 
• 1904: Foundation of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)
• 1930: FIFA organizes the first Football World Cup in Uruguay
• 1954: European Football Association UEFA is founded in Basel
• 1991: First World Cup in women's football takes place in China