I learned the origin of the word ”soccer” today. For those of you who enjoy whining when Americans and others refer to ”Football” as ”Soccer,” you should know that the word ”Soccer” was coined by the British, and it was also one of the original names for what we now refer to as ”Football.”
In truth, the proper title for the sport in the early days of the sport among the top echelons of British society was ”Soccer.” Not only that, but the mark was referred to as ”Soccer” for roughly 18 years before it was referred to as ”Football” for the first time, with the latter occurring as it got more popular with the middle and lower classes. As a result, the term ”Football” gradually surpassed ”Soccer” and the then-official name ”Association Football.”
In the 1860s, like in most of history—with records dating back to 1004 B.C.—there were a plethora of ”football” sports being popularly played worldwide, including, of course, England. Many of these sports had similar rules, and on October 26th, 1863, a group of English teams agreed to band together and create a uniform set of rules that would be used in all of their matches. They devised the regulations for ”Association Football,” with the ”Association” separating it from the several other football sports popular in England, such as ”Rugby Football.”
Now, British schoolboys had a habit of giving everything a nickname, which is still practised today. They also loved to end their nicknames with the letter ”er.” As a result, Rugby was dubbed ”Rugger” at the time. Association Football was then known as ”Assoccer,” which was quickly shortened to ”Soccer” and occasionally ”Soccer Football.”
Charles Wredford Brown, an Oxford student at Association Football’s formation, is credited with coining the term. According to legend, Wredford-Brown was approached by some friends in 1863, just after the birth of Association Football, and asked if he’d like to play a game of ”Rugger,” to which he answered that he preferred ”Soccer.” Whether or whether that storey is real, the name became popular at that time.
Initially, the newly standardised Rugby and Soccer were football sports for ”gentlemen,” with the highest echelons of society largely participating. These two forms of Football, notably Soccer, gradually spread to the masses, despite Rugby’s poor reception among the lower classes. This resulted in the sport’s name being changed from ”Soccer” and ”Association Football” to just ”Football,” with the first documented instance of the sport being referred to as ”Football” in 1881, 18 years after it was originally referred to as ”Soccer” or, formally, ”Association Football.”
The game gradually expanded around the world under the lower-class moniker of ”Football,” rather than the ”gentlemen’s” one of ”Soccer.” The difficulty was that many other countries worldwide, including the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, also had popular sports of their own called ”Football.” For this reason, the name ”Soccer” was and still is favoured in these countries.
BONUS FACTS:
- For those who despise American Football for being named that when the ball interacts largely with hands, it’s worth noting that most of the earlier forms of Football were called that because they were played on foot, not because you kicked a ball with your foot. The majority of peasant games were conducted on foot, while most aristocratic sports were conducted on horseback. As a result, any game played on foot was referred to as ”football,” regardless of whether it involved kicking a ball or not. Carrying balls across goal lines past opposing teams or individual players was a common feature of many of the earliest incarnations of Football.
- During the 1970 FIFA World Cup, soccer balls were originally painted with the now-iconic black and white checkered design to make them more visible on black and white television. People naturally wanted to buy balls that looked like the ones they saw on T.V., so they all purchased the black and white checkered soccer ball instead of the prior solid colour ball.
- Early on in the history of Soccer in the United States, the word ”football” was integrated into the name. The league’s inaugural name was ”The United States Soccer Football Association.” It was reduced to the ”United States Soccer Federation” in 1975 after nearly 30 years.
- In Japan, the first documented record of a soccer-like sport is from 1004 B.C. In 50 B.C. China, there are numerous references to soccer-like activities, including games between Chinese and Japanese teams.
- The Romans also played a variety of football games, some of which were similar to Soccer. One of these was even part of the Roman Olympic Games. This special edition, which was played at the Olympic Games, comprised 27 men on each team. The game was so rough that two-thirds of the participants had to be taken to the hospital afterwards.