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Who Invented Football Who invented football? The origins of football began across the Atlantic Ocean in England during the early 1820s. By this time there were two distinct versions of the game: one known as soccer, and the other rugby. American Football - known simply in America as 'football' - was invented with a mixture from both these games during the 19th Century. Who invented football? In 1820 students at a New Jersey college (now known as Princeton University) began kicking a ball around, made from a blown-up bladder. However, long before this in 1609, a form of football was played in the colony of Virginia. |
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Let's go back even further. Who originally invented football? The history behind who really invented football dates back over 3,000 years ago to the 2nd Century BC and China. Documentary evidence can be found in a Chinese military manual from the Han Dynasty period. This is the earliest known version of football and was called 'Tsu Chu'. It consisted of kicking a leather ball through a hole in a piece of silk cloth that was attached to two thirty feet poles. This was used more as entertainment for people to watch rather than actually play as a competitive game.
Later in the 4th Century BC, the Greeks and the Romans had invented their own football variations. The Greeks played 'Pheninda' which involved kicking, handling and running with the ball. The Roman version was called 'Harpastum', and was played in teams with as many as a hundred people defending opposing ends of the field. As with the Chinese version this was used as a form of military training and the ball was made from leather, stuffed with animal fur and chopped sponges. By the time of the 5th Century BC the Japanese had also invented a football game called Kemari. They played with up to eight people and used a deerskin ball stuffed with sawdust. Fast forwarding on to medieval times in Europe, the question of who invented football becomes much more of a heated debate. Italians believe they were responsible for the invention of football, also by this time known throughout Europe as soccer. It is their belief that the Romans imported the game when they founded Florence and the Florentines renamed it 'Calcio'. This emerged during the Renaissance period and is, the Italians believe, the real ancestor to football. |
So who invented football? Football as we know it today was most certainly derived from London. Students all over England were playing versions of the game. Meanwhile, students back in America were forming their own rules to the game, such as advancing the ball by punching it with their fists. Who invented American Football? Again this is a cause for much heated debate! The Oneida Football Club in Boston believes they were the very first American Football team in 1861. Yet some say that Americans didn't begin competing in teams until 1869. At this time the game still resembled soccer more than modern day American football. Again we ask; who invented football as we know it today? The first pro league, the American Professional Football Association, was born in 1920, changing their name in 1921 to the National Football League. This was the beginning of American football as we recognise it today. To sum up the question of 'Who invented football?' with one word, the answer could arguably be, 'Students'!
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However, if you want to be more specific you could choose to answer 'Who invented football?' with the answer 'Walter Camp'. Walter was born in 1859 and attended Yale for the period of 1876 to 1882. He was general Athletic Director and the head Advisory Football Coach at Yale University from 1888 through to 1914. Walter was also the chairman of the Yale football committee until 1912 and it was Walter who helped evolve the rules of American football as we know them today.
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