When was the first official game of football played

During one particularly competitive game of football, Naismith had an epiphany that would change the direction of his life.

He later remembered that the player next to him "encountered some difficulty, and losing his temper, made some remarks that, though forceful, are unprintable.

The incident made such an impression on Naismith that he became committed to the idea that physical training could be a means of spreading Christianity. Naismith was an active participant in college sports, playing soccer, rugby, lacrosse, and football British rugby , never missing a game, even though football was thought to be "a tool of the devil," not proper for a "theolog.

After graduating from McGill in , Naismith earned a graduate degree in theology. Seeking to combine his athletic talent with his calling to the ministry, he learned that the Young Men's Christian Association YMCA was developing "physical training programs to supplement interests in Bible study, education and social welfare. Naismith enrolled in the training school for the academic year. He stayed on to teach boxing, wrestling, swimming, and canoeing.

Midway through the term, the faculty encountered a problem with a class of men who were preparing to be YMCA administrators. They were required to take an hour of gym class every day; when the weather turned cold, they were "increasingly bored and irritated by the winter regimen of calisthenics, gymnastics, and children's games such as Prisoner's Base.

Naismith first tried modifying football, soccer, and lacrosse for indoor play but found that the results were "either too tame or too rough. There could be no tackling on a hard gym floor, so the alternative to running with the ball would be to pass it. The scoring system drew on "duck on the rock. This allowed another turn rather than elimination. Naismith also came up with the idea of a "horizontal goal. Each time the ball entered the box, it would count as a goal.

On December 21, , Naismith nailed a peach basket to the lower rail of the balcony, ten feet off the floor, at either end of the gym. He posted a typed list of 13 rules on the bulletin board and selected two men to be the captains.

After they chose sides, Naismith tossed a soccer ball up between the two centers. As he later wrote, "it was the start of the first basketball game and the finish of the trouble with that class.

Within weeks, some people were coming to the Springfield Y to watch the daily noontime games. When the students returned home for Christmas vacation, they took the game with them. Basketball quickly spread throughout the U. It was not long before international students ensured the popularity of the new game overseas.

Cylindrical wire baskets soon replaced the peach boxes, and in basketballs were introduced. Three years later, the teams were fixed at five men each, and the first professional league — the six-team National Basketball League — was formed. High schools and amateur athletic clubs embraced the game, and in the National Collegiate Athletic Association formally recognized it as a permanent winter sport. Always an avid student, he earned a medical degree from Gross Medical College in It was a blueprint for club football culture around the world and launched the tradition of football on Boxing Day.

Will this tradition persist? So, with two football clubs in the same city playing by the same rules, it seems pretty obvious what was coming next, right? The pair faced off on 26 December at Sandygate Road, a venue in Sheffield which Hallam still play at to this day.

Aptly named the Rules Derby due to the fact it was played under Sheffield Rules, the game took a far different look to the football we know and love today. With the offside rule not introduced until there were to be no offsides, pushing opposition players was completely legal and both sides fielded 16 players. In fairness it sounds like absolute carnage! So come on then, who prevailed on the day? It is therefore hard to decide which the first football club was.

Some historians suggest that it was the Foot-Ball Club formed in Edinburgh. Early clubs were often formed by former school students and the first of this kind was formed in Sheffield in The oldest among professional football clubs is the English club Notts County that was formed in and still exists today.

An important step for the emergence of teams was the industrialization that led to larger groups of people meeting at places such as factories, pubs and churches. Football teams were established in the larger cities and the new railroads could bring them to other cities.

In the beginning, football was dominated by public school teams, but later, teams consisting by workers would make up the majority. Another change was successively taking place when some clubs became willing to pay the best players to join their team. This would be the start of a long period of transition, not without friction, in which the game would develop to a professional level.

The motivation behind paying players was not only to win more matches. In the s the interest in the game has moved ahead to a level that tickets were sold to the matches. And finally, in professional football was legalized and three years later the Football League was established. During the first season, 12 clubs joined the league, but soon more clubs became interested and the competition would consequently expand into more divisions.

For a long time, the British teams would be dominant. After some decades, clubs from Prague, Budapest and Sienna would be the primarily contenders to the British dominance. As with many things in history, women were for a long time excluded from participating in games. It was not before the late 19th century that women started to play football. The first official women's game took place in Inverness in Other milestones were now to follow.

The following year a match between two national teams was played for the first time. The match that involved England and Scotland ended and was followed by 4, people at Hamilton Crescent the picture shows illustrations from this occasion.

Twelve years later, in , the first international tournament took place and included four national teams: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Football was for a long time a British phenomenon, but it gradually spread to other European countries. The first game that took place outside Europe occurred in Argentina in , but it was foreign British workers who were involved and not Argentinean citizens. England and the other British countries did not join FIFA from the start, they had invented the game and saw no reason to subordinate to an association.

Still, they joined in the following year, but would not partake in the World Cup until Domestic leagues occurred in many countries. The first was, as already mentioned, the English Football League which was established in The leagues would by time expand by more divisions, which were based on team performance. In would football for the first time be included as an official sport in the Olympic Games. Women's football was not added until As in many other sports the white male was predominant for a long time.

In football black players started being present relatively early and in comparison with, for example, tennis, football has traditionally been known as a sport with a mix of black and white players.

Few other sports show examples of passion to that extent as football. The arenas are flocked by shearing people; and in front of television even more are watching carefully and sometimes with great enthusiasm.

Already in the late 19th century, Goodison Park was built in England in purpose of hosting football games.