Many people believe that Football or Soccer as it is also known was invented in England in the eighteen eighties. But a form of football was played long before then. What happened in 1888 was that The Football League was formed, 25 years after the formation of the Football Association, prior to which football was played mainly as an amateur game representing towns, universities and even large factories.
On 22nd March 1888, Scotsman William McGregor a Birmingham businessman and official at Aston Villa Football Club announced his plans at the Anderton’s Hotel in Fleet Street, London to those representatives of the clubs that he had written to. His concept was to form a league where clubs would have a regular income and the players would get pad. So even at this early stage money had already reared its ugly head.
Thus the Football League was formed on 17th April 1888 in the Royal Hotel in Manchester with the now famous twelve teams of Accrington, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Derby County, Everton, Notts County, Preston North End, Stoke City, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Of the original twelve, eleven teams are still playing in the Football League today with varying degrees of success. Accrington Stanley, my home side when I was a boy, was forced to drop out in 1962 due to crippling debts. Six years later after a meeting in the Bold Street Working Mens Club in Accrington, the club was resurrected to join the Lancashire Combination League in 1970 and now play in the of the Unibond (Northern) Premier Division League, with aspirations of eventually regaining their place in the Football League.
The first Football League matches kicked of in September 1988 and it fell to Preston North End to become the very first Football League champions. From such humble beginnings the game of professional football has spread far a wide to become the number one sport in the world and has spawned a number of variations like Australian Rules football and Gaelic football to name two. However some football historians have declared that football was ‘exported’ to Brazil prior to the formation of The Football League.
Today football is big business and the stars of the football world earn huge amounts of money and even larger amounts change hands when a star player is transferred from one club to another.
Today’s boots are more like good quality trainers with studs in the soles and are very light and comfortable. In my day the boots were made from tough leather with a very hard leather toecap and leather studs nailed into the sole and heel. Anyone who was kicked with an old fashioned boot knew that they had been kicked and because of this thick shin pads were worn to protect the shins.
Today’s ball is lighter than the ball of yesteryear and no longer has the infamous ‘lace’ that would make heading the ball an occasion to be avoided if possible. In years gone by a football was constructed out of shaped pieces of leather stitched together to form a sphere but a slit was left open through which a rubber bladder was inserted then inflated until the ball was so hard that it took a great deal of force to push a dent into it. The neck of the bladder was tied off to prevent deflation and it was pushed inside the ball, which was then laced up tightly to close the slit. With the best will in the world the lace always formed a bit of a lump and when heading the ball with the lace against the head the pain could be enough to deter all but the most hardened from doing so again. I have the mental scars to prove the case.
Once again the rules allow the goalkeeper to ‘carry’ the ball inside his own penalty area and many do, right to the edge before kicking it upfield. But some ‘keepers, notably Bartez of Manchester United, throw the ball almost as much as they kick it and in doing so could be penalised for handling the ball outside the area because although their feet are inside the area, the act of throwing the ball puts the hand holding the ball outside the area just prior to release. Strange that no referee has picked up on this yet if a goalkeeper is scrabbling on the ground to collect the ball, edges outside the area with the ball in his hand, he gets penalised and could even get sent off.
Sadly too many footballers, both amateur and professional, are becoming cheats to the detriment of the game. Commentators excuse the action by calling it a professional foul, but the reality is that if the rules of the game are broken it is a foul and should be suitably punished.
Awarding a free kick and maybe a yellow card doesn’t offer any recompense to the team sinned against as whatever advantage there was, has been lost. In fact just dishing out yellow cards eventually means that a player is banned from playing a few games later in the season or even the next season and favours some other team. In the meantime the team sinned against lost the match and ended up being relegated or knocked out of the cup etc.
To clean up the game the only answer is to punish ALL fouls, professional, accidental or otherwise, with a free kick AND yellow card. Two yellow cards and the player spends five or ten minutes in a ’’sin bin’’. Three yellow cards add up to a red and the player is sent off.
It wouldn’t be very long before players and managers would realise that committing their team to playing with 8 or 9 men for ten minutes only leads to defeats so they would exercise more care. Players would think twice before grabbing a handful of shirt to unbalance an opponent if they knew that they would spend the next ten minutes out of the game.
The Football League like the Football Association is steeped in history and woe betide anyone who tried to bring them into the 21st century with indignant haste. Both organisations cling to their respective positions of power which would do credit to a limpet but surely it is time for them to come together and form one national football office.