The History of Football

The contemporary history of the world's favourite game spans more than 100 years. It all began in 1863 in England, when rugby football and association football branched off on their different courses and the Football Association in England was formed - becoming the sport's first governing body.Both codes stemmed from a common root and both have a long and intricately branched ancestral tree. A search down the centuries reveals at least half a dozen different games, varying to different degrees, and to which the historical development of football has been traced back. Whether this can be justified in some instances is disputable. Nevertheless, the fact remains that people have enjoyed kicking a ball about for thousands of years and there is absolutely no reason to consider it an aberration of the more 'natural' form of playing a ball with the hands.On the contrary, apart from the need to employ the legs and feet in tough tussles for the ball, often without any laws for protection, it was recognised right at the outset that the art of controlling the ball with the feet was not easy and, as such, required no small measure of skill. The very earliest form of the game for which there is scientific evidence was an exercise from a military manual dating back to the second and third centuries BC in China. This Han Dynasty forebear of football was called Tsu' Chu and it consisted of kicking a leather ball filled with feathers and hair through an opening, measuring only 30-40cm in width, into a small net fixed onto long bamboo canes. According to one variation of this exercise, the player was not permitted to aim at his target unimpeded, but had to use his feet, chest, back and shoulders while trying to withstand the attacks of his opponents. Use of the hands was not permitted. Another form of the game, also originating from the Far East, was the Japanese Kemari, which began some 500-600 years later and is still played today. This is a sport lacking the competitive element of Tsu' Chu with no struggle for possession involved. Standing in a circle, the players had to pass the ball to each other, in a relatively small space, trying not to let it touch the ground.The Greek 'Episkyros' - of which few concrete details survive - was much livelier, as was the Roman 'Harpastum'. The latter was played out with a smaller ball by two teams on a rectangular field marked by boundary lines and a centre line. The objective was to get the ball over the opposition's boundary lines and as players passed it between themselves, trickery was the order of the day. The game remained popular for 700-800 years, but, although the Romans took it to Britain with them, the use of feet was so small as to scarcely be of consequence.

Roots of American Football

The birth date of football in the United States is generally regarded by football historians as November 6, 1869, when teams from Rutgers and Princeton Universities met for the first intercollegiate football game. In those early games, there were 20 players to a team and football still more closely resembled rugby than modern football.
The game of football has a history of constant rule changes. Rule changes have been implemented to bolster the excitement of the game of football and to increase the game's safety.In 1873, representatives from Columbia, Rutgers, Princeton, and Yale Universities met in New York City to formulate the first intercollegiate football rules for the increasingly popular game. These four teams established the Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA) and set 15 as the number of players allowed on each team. Walter Camp, the coach at Yale and a dissenter from the IFA over his desire for an eleven man team, helped begin the final step in the evolution from rugby-style play to the modern game of American football. The IFA’s rules committee, led by Camp, soon cut the number of players from fifteen to eleven, and also instituted the size of the playing field, at one hundred ten yards. In 1882 Camp also introduced the system of downs. After first allowing three attempts to advance the ball five yards, in 1906 the distance was changed to ten yards. The fourth down was added in 1912. Within a decade, concern over the increasing brutality of the game led to its ban by some colleges. Nearly 180 players had suffered serious injuries, and eighteen deaths had been reported from the brutal mass plays that had become common practice. So in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt called upon Harvard, Princeton, and Yale to help save the sport from demise. At a meeting between the schools, reform was agreed upon, and at a second meeting, attended by more than sixty other schools, the group appointed a seven member Rules Committee and set up what would later become known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or the NCAA.From this committee came the legalization of the forward pass, which resulted in a redesign of the ball and a more open style of play on the field. The committee prohibited the rough mass plays, which once caused so many serious injuries. Also prohibited was the locking of arms by teammates in an effort to clear the way for their ball carriers. The length of the game was shortened, from seventy to sixty minutes, and the neutral zone, which separates the teams by the length of the ball before each play begins, was also established.

Evolution and the Beginnings of Standardization

Football didn’t really begin to take on any consistency of rules and boundaries until it was picked up as a sport in the seven major public schools of England in the early 1800’s. Six of the seven schools were largely playing the same game (including Eton, Harrow and Winchester) - while the seventh, Rugby School (founded in 1567) was playing a markedly different version of football. The other schools moved ahead refining their rules and eventually their game became known as "association football" - or soccer, which was played back then much as it is today.Rugby School went in a different direction. How and why the game developed differently at Rugby School appears to have been lost in history, but what is known is that by the 1830's, running with the ball at Rugby School was in common use and 18 foot goal posts had been added with a cross-bar at 10 feet above the ground.
The inclusion of the cross-bar was accompanied by a rule that a goal could only be scored by the ball passing over the bar from a place kick or drop kick. Apparently this was done to make scoring easier from further out and also to avoid the horde of defenders standing in and blocking the mouth of the goal.Players who were able to "touch down" the ball behind the opponents goal line were awarded a "try-at-goal" - the player would make a mark on the goal line and then walk back onto the field of play to a point where a place kick at the goal was possible (a conversion). There was also an "off-your-side" rule used to keep the teams apart. Passing the ball forward was not allowed.By the mid-1860s British schools and universities had taken up Rugby's game and honored the school by giving the "new football" the name of rugby.The game soon went trans-Atlantic to America and landed on fertile soil.

Football’s Early Beginnings

Football (as well as rugby and soccer) are believed to have descended from the ancient Greek game of harpaston. Harpaston is mentioned frequently in classical literature, where it is often referred to as a “very rough and brutal game“. The rules of this ancient sport were quite simple: Points were awarded when a player would cross a goal line by either kicking the ball, running with it across the goal line, or throwing it across the line to another player. The other team’s objective was simply to stop them by any means possible. There was no specific field length, no side line boundaries, no specified number of players per team, only a glaring lack of rules Most modern versions of football are believed to have originated from England in the twelfth century. The game became so popular in England that the kings of that time (Henry II and Henry IV) actually banned football. They believed that football was taking away interest from the traditional sports of England, such as fencing and archery.

Football

Atari's take on football rejected most of the rules and conventions of Vince Lombardi's game in favor of an almost surrealistic experience. Teams consisted of three-man squads composed of players who more closely resembled appliances than people. They moved their way up and down a tiny vertical field without yardage markers, end zones, or goalposts. Aside from the four-down system, safeties, and the ability to punt, nothing of real football survived. There were no field goals or point-after-touchdown conversions. There were no interceptions, no fumbles, and no going out of bounds. Tackles were automatic on touching the ball carrier, the ball could be guided in flight on passing plays, playcalling involved little more than slightly varied formations, and the lack of computer AI made two players a requirement. Poor visuals affected play as well. Programming for the Atari 2600 was in its infancy, and little was known about how to push the system to its limits. As a result, even the rough graphics on display here suffered from problems with flickering players and ghost tackles. Stuttering animations turned plays into strange crawls through which everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Still, the idea of "programming" players to run specific pass routes on offense or cover certain areas of the field on the other side of the ball was intriguing. And even somewhat advanced for the time, considering that the only real competition were handheld LED-based games like Coleco's popular Electronic Quarterback. Also interesting were two game options that let you call plays as a coach and then watch the computer carry them out on the field. Another good idea was Atari's placement of a line on the field, which showed where you needed to move the ball to collect that all-important first down. Other game designers took the better part of a decade to pick up on that innovation. Disappointment in Football and competition from Intellivision's strong line of sports games in 1979 and 1980 pushed Atari and other developers to design better football games for the 2600 in subsequent years. These later efforts made the initial one look like something produced in an era of stone knives and bearskins. Intellivision producer Mattel ported its NFL Football game (see below for more) to the rival system in 1982 with good results. The M-Network-labeled Super Challenge Football featured five-man teams with players that had actual moving arms and legs, along with a regulation 100-yard field complete with scrolling and yard markers. Playcalling was far more interesting, as you could individually program each lineman with specific blocking instructions. Interceptions were also possible. But that was about it in terms of sophistication--you couldn't play against the computer, you couldn't punt or kick field goals, and there was no going out of bounds. Even more strangely, you could run off one end of the field and reappear at the other. Players could have linebackers run in the opposite direction and emerge directly behind the opposing quarterback--and were actually advised to do so in the tips section of the game manual! Atari responded to the Intellivision threat with the RealSports line in 1982. This series included most of the major sports, including baseball and soccer, though football was perhaps the most successful entry in the lineup. Overall gameplay wasn't as good as that provided by the rivals at Mattel, though you could at least play solo against the computer here. Teams consisted of five players each, but the visuals were crude and tended to flicker. The field, while regulation-size and of the same side-scrolling type introduced by Intellivision, lacked hash marks and sidelines. Plays were slightly more advanced versions of those found in Football, though field goals were finally possible. With the great video game crash of 1983-1984, the viable shelf life of the Atari 2600 abruptly ended. Even its intended successors, the unimaginatively monikered Atari 5200 and 7800, were critically wounded by this slump. Games continued to be designed for all three systems throughout the 1980s, though sales were poor due to the rise of more advanced alternatives such as the NES, Sega Master System, and the Commodore 64 computer. Super Football was the last of the Atari 2600 football games to emerge. Unfortunately, it didn't hit the market until 1988, when an Atari 2600 was about as commercially and culturally relevant as a Nehru jacket. Obsolete platform or not, Super Football was very good. It could even be considered a predecessor of contemporary football gaming in that it used a scrolling 3D field, colorful, more realistic graphics, and an impressive selection of plays.

The History of Football Games

he story of sports gaming is the story of football gaming. Ever since the console and computer games industries got off the ground in the later 1970s, developers have been trying to build a better football title. No other sport was given the attention granted to the gridiron game. Even baseball, the national pastime for nearly a century and an apparent natural to be reenacted on a TV screen or computer monitor, lacked the prestige of its younger brother.Part of this was due to the way that the National Football League surged in popularity at the same time as the video game era dawned. Thanks to the efforts of commissioner Pete Rozelle and innovations like ABC TV executive Roone Arledge's Monday Night Football, the NFL was enjoying an unprecedented explosion in public support. So when the Atari 2600/Video Computer System (VCS) and Mattel's Intellivision brought video games to our living rooms in 1977 and 1979, respectively, there was really only one sport that people wanted to play on them. The idea that those little black boxes would be able to drag Sunday afternoon and Monday evening through the rest of the week was a huge selling point for the console systems. Of course, reality didn't quite match expectations. Gameplay was generally very crude, even by the lowered standards of the time. In 1978, Atari's Football for the 2600 employed three-man teams consisting of players who looked like washing machines and a field that filled a single screen. You could call plays on both sides of the ball, but only basic ones that shifted receivers and backs from one side of the field to the other. Intellivision's NFL Football arrived a little more than a year later with more sophistication, boasting five-man squads with players who had moving arms and legs and the ability to use elaborate formations. There were serious drawbacks, however, most notably molasses-slow animation and the complete absence of artificial intelligence that made two players a necessity. When the Commodore 64 became fashionable as a gaming machine in 1984, football game development kicked into high gear. These early computer football efforts were generally more complex than their console cousins, even simplistic fare like Gamestar's On-Field Football. Some could still be categorized as rather advanced simulations. 4th and Inches from Accolade was published in 1987, yet it remains playable today as an arcade experience with a little bit of depth. Design evolutions, along with advancements in technology and programming skill (a lot more could be jammed into an Atari 2600 cartridge in 1984 than in 1980), were increasingly seen through the end of the decade on both consoles and computer systems. Tecmo released Tecmo Bowl for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1988, kicking off a sensation that lingers to this day. The smart, fun gameplay spawned a sequel, Tecmo Super Bowl, that is now 10 years old but is still being played in online leagues. A pinnacle was reached in 1989 with Cinemaware's TV Sports Football. It was jammed with more features than any of its predecessors. Full season play, coaching mode, and playbooks that varied from team to team made it the template for everyone else to copy. Good or bad, football games were popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Even though they were simplistic in comparison with the real thing, football titles asked more of the gamer than those depicting the other big three North American sports. Being required to outwit your opponent as well as outplay him provided football gaming with an added strategic element that couldn't be matched by baseball, basketball, or hockey. Playcalling may have been rudimentary, but it was still there, and it gave players an extra dimension that was more interesting than the simplistic arcade challenge of hitting a ball, sinking a basket, or scoring a goal. It may be strange to think of a small playbook and stick-figure players as being representative of any great depth, but they seemed almost unbelievably refined in comparison with their rivals. Over the following pages, we look back at those early days, tracing the evolution of football as console video game and computer simulation. This piece concentrates on the major football titles of the past, although reference can be found to lesser-known works. For example, all of the football games produced for the Atari 2600 can be found under the main heading of Atari's original Football. Regardless of status, most of the games themselves are now no more than nostalgia pieces. Some can still be entertaining diversions--something that was proven during the extensive research that went into this article--and all serve to show how far we have come since 1978. Those too young to have experienced these games firsthand would do well to read on before they complain too much about comparatively minor problems with today's games.

History of Chelsea Football Club

Chelsea was founded, like Liverpool FC, to fill a stadium that was empty. Gus Mears had an old athletics ground at Stamford Bridge in west London, which he decided to redevelop as a football stadium. After a number of unforeseen problems he received a very lucrative offer for the land and very nearly sold it. This was after failing to persuade Fulham to move to the ground from Craven Cottage. A colleague, who was a supporter of the football stadium project, attempted to dissuade him from selling up one Sunday morning. As the pair walked Mears dog attacked Parker and bit him, drawing blood but only an amused reaction from Parker.Mears was so impressed with how well Parker took the bite he told him he would now trust his judgement and he threw his weight back behind the football team idea. On 14th March 1905 a meeting was held in a pub opposite the stadium, at this meeting the club was named Chelsea FC after a number of other names, London FC amongst them, were rejected.Their first manager was a player manager, he was a Scottish international called John Tait Robertson, they also signed a squad or well-respected players - conditional on finding a league to compete in. Their application to join the Southern League was rejected so Chelsea applied to join the, then northern dominated, Football League. On 29th May 1905 at the Football League AGM Chelsea were elected to the 2nd Division, the first club ever to make the league without kicking a ball. Chelsea’s first ever-competitive game was a 1-0 defeat away to Stockport County on the 2nd September 1905. Despite this early setback crowds were good (67,000 against Manchester United on Good Friday of 1906) and in their second season they won promotion to Division One.Even back then Chelsea signed star names, which probably went a long way to explaining the high attendances. Their first goalkeeper was an England international called Willie Foulkes, he was nicknamed ‘Fatty’ and weighed over 22 stones. The following season they signed a striker called George ‘Gatling Gun’ Hilsdon who scored 107 goals in 6 seasons for the Blues. There is a weather vane at the ground which was modelled on him.They suffered relegation, closely followed by promotion to Division One over the next few years but by the time of the First World War the best they had managed was eighth place in Division One. In 1915 they reached the FA Cup final, held that year at Old Trafford, where they were soundly beaten, 3-0, by Sheffield United, in what was to become known as ‘The Khaki Final’ due to the number of military uniforms present among the crowd. Mears had passed away in 1912 so missed the joy of seeing his stadium host the FA Cup final in the final 3 seasons prior to the opening of Wembley in 1923. In October 1935 Stamford Bridge witnessed the highest ever crowd recorded for an English league football match when 82905 crammed in to witness the visit of Arsenal. With Arsenal winning four out of five championships in the early 1930s Chelsea began to spend money in an attempt to compete. They splashed out, for the time, huge sums on three Scottish international forwards, including one of the biggest names in the game, Hughie Gallacher for a club record fee of £10000 from Newcastle United. After the Second World War Stamford Bridge played host to Moscow Dynamo’s first match on their tour of Britain. The turnstiles were shut at 74,496 spectators but thousands more gained entry, estimates suggest over 100,000 people watched as Chelsea with new forward Tommy Lawton scoring their 3rd goal were held to a 3-3 draw. He scored a club record 26 goals in 34 League matches in his first full season but left after just two years for a British record £20,000. In May 1952 Ted Drake was appointed manager, he removed the Chelsea Pensioner from the club badge and banished the nickname ‘The Pensioners’. He became the club’s first tracksuit manager getting himself involved in training and also improved the youth and scouting programme.Drake led the club to its first Championship in 1955, but the following year the club struggled and they could only finish 16th. The next few years saw Chelsea struggle in the lower half of the table, this despite the emergence of Jimmy Greaves from the youth team. He reached the 100 goal mark before the age of 21 and by the time of his sale to AC Milan in 1961 he had scored 132 times in 169 appearances. The following season Chelsea were relegated after finishing bottom in Division One, Drake paying with his job a couple of months into the season. A 33 year old Tommy Docherty took over and he ruthlessly overhauled the playing stuff, bringing through a large number of youth team players such as Peter Bonetti, Ron Harris and Terry Venables. The average age of the squad dropped to just 21. The club soon won promotion back to the top flight and managed to produce some top 5 finishes and three consecutive FA Cup semi-finals. n 1965 Chelsea won their first major cup, defeating Leicester City 3-2 on aggregate in the Leagu Cup final (in those days it was played over two legs). In 1967 they reached the FA Cup final where they played Tottenham Hotspur in the first ever all London affair. A Spurs side boasting Greaves and Venables deservedly won 2-1. Not long after this Chelsea’s all-time leading goalscorer (202 goals in 370 matches) Bobby Tambling left the club.
In 1970 Chelsea again reached the FA Cup final this time playing Leeds United which ended in a 2-2 draw with Leeds twice taking the lead. The replay was played at Old Trafford and in a often brutal game Chelsea triumphed in extra time despite Leeds again taking the lead in normal time.This lead to qualification for the European Cup Winners’ Cup where the Blues reached the final in Greece against Real Madrid, beating Manchester City in the semi final to get there. After extra time the two sides couldnt be separated and they held a replay two days later where Chelsea won 2-1 to win their first European trophy. The club entered a new era of debt when they began work to turn the ground into a brand new 60,000 capacity stadium. A new East Stand was the first stage, but this was beset with problems and was eventually finished a year late and a huge, for the times, sum over budget: £1.3 million. Just four years after their European CWC triumph, Chelsea were again relegated to Division Two, debts had now reached £3 million. Chelsea bounced back to Division One within a couple of seasons, no longer able to afford the big stars Chelsea relied on youngsters, led by new 18 year old captain, and darling of the Bridge, Ray Wilkins. But the club failed to agree personal terms with the manager and he walked out - the club finished 16th that season and went on to finish bottom and get relegated the following season. To stave off financial crisis Ray Wilkins was sold to Manchester United. Finances continued to get worse, until with the players unpaid and the bank refusing to accept Chelsea’s cheques, Ken bates was approached to invest in the club. He bought the club, and its debts, for just £1, the stadium remained as a separate company. He was appalled at what he found describing it as ‘a social club with a little football played on a Saturday’ (though how many people these days can still remember when football was played on a Saturday!!), even the clubs ‘fund-raising’ lottery was losing money. The club narrowly avoided going down to Division Three that season, then the following season, 1983-4, they won the Second Division Championship, with players such as Pat Nevin, Kerry Dixon and David Speedie. Dixon went on to become the clubs second highest scorer of all time with 193 goals, even sharing the Golden Boot in Chelsea’s first season back in the top flight with 24 League goals (36 in all competitions). After four years in the top flight they were once again relegated, the losing of their manager, this time through ill health, again contributing. The following season they easily won Division Two, again, with 99 points and a club record unbeaten league run.Problems beset the club off the pitch as former directors allowed ownership of the ground to be transferred to property developers and Ken Bates was forced to use millions on legal fees to keep the club at Stamford Bridge. Luckily a collapse in the property market ended the battle with the speculators.
The club made its first £1 million+ purchases in the form of midfielders Andy Townsend and Dennis Wise but the club never rose out of mid-table and struggled in the cup competitions (‘giant-killed’ on no less than 13 occasions in just 12 seasons!). In 1993 Chelsea appointed Glenn Hoddle, who was then at Swindon Town, manager and he led the club to the FA Cup final at the end of his first season. While Chelsea were beaten 4-0 by Manchester United it still pointed to a brighter future for the club. With Manchester United already having qualified for Europe through their league position Chelsea gained entry to the European Cup Winners Cup and reached the semi-finals the following season. Now the club was again able to attract the big names, Hoddle persuading Holland legend and ex-World Player of the Year Ruud Gullit to swap italy for London. Mark Hughes joining from Manchester United and Romanian international Dan Petrescu also arriving as Hoddle got the club playing flowing passing football once again. Hoddle left to take over the England reins in the summer of 1996, following the end of ex-Chelsea star Terry Venables rein. Gullit, who was already being talked of as the club’s best player ever after just one season, was handed control of the club as player/manager. Gullit returned to Italy to sign a top italian trio: striker Gianluca Vialli, midfielder Roberto Di Matteo and the magnificent Gianfranco Zola. The club again reached the FA Cup final but this time, thanks partly to a goal scored in just 43 seconds by Di Matteo (a Wembley Cup final record), Chelsea triumphed over Middlesbrough 2-0. Sadly lifelong supporter and vice-chairman, Matthew Harding, died a few months earlier and failed to see a victory which owed a lot to his money and hard work. The north stand at Stamford Bridge now bears his name, fittingly as he provided most of the finances for its construction.Gullit strengthened again signing Gustavo Poyet, Graeme Le Saux and Ed de Goey, among others, before the new season. But part way through the new seaon contract talks between Chelsea and Gullit broke down (early 1998) and he was replaced, again by a current player, this time it was Gianluca Vialli. He led the club to two trophies at the end of the season, the League Cup (Coca-Cola Cup as it was then) and the European Cup Winners Cup for a second time. Middlesbrough again the victims in the League Cup and Stuttgart beaten in the CWC final.In the summer Marcel Desailly was signed, and along with Frank Lebeouf, who was already at the club, went onto win that summers World Cup. The European Super Cup was added to the trophy cabinet with a victory over Real Madrid. The following season another FA Cup was added to the trophy cabinet in the last final to be played at the old Wembley Stadium, with a 1-0 win over Aston Villa. That summer the club paid out £15 million, equalling the British transfer record paid by Newcastle United for Alan Shearer, for forward Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. He scored on his debut to give the club yet another trophy, the Charity Shield.Italian manager Claudio Ranieri was now brought to the club as problems between Vialli and his players surfaced. He brought in the likes of defender William Gallas and midfielder Frank Lampard. With the Stamford bridge rebuilding finished for the start of the 2001/2 season the club was on the rise. That season the club again reached the FA Cup final, now at Cardiff’s Millenium Stadium, where Arsenal beat them 2-0. But debts were again starting to build as the club spent money rebuilding the squad and constructing the stadium and adjoining hotel and leisure complex.On 2nd July 2003 Roman Abramovich ushered in a new era in football as he bought Chelsea, lock, stock and barrel. Just 36 he was a Russian multi-billionaire who, at the time, was completely unknown in England. This led to uncertainty as to his intentions, with many city commentators suggesting he was looking to asset strip the club. Luckily for the club’s fans (though not so for the fans of the rest of the world’s clubs!) Roman was looking to win things, the club was given almost unlimited money to spend, transforming overnight from a team just trying to stay aflost to a team able to afford any player it wanted. His first action was to try and persuade a 37 year old Gianfranco Zola to sign a new contract, the problem was with the club having told Zola, just before Abramovich bought it, that it could not afford to give him a new contract, Zola had given his word to hometown club Cagliari that he would sign for them. Even though Abramovich negotiated a release from Cagliari and asked Zola to name his price to stay the little Sardinian refused to go back on his word and the club’s most popular player left. This was just a blip as the club embarked on a spending spree unparrelled in world football, youngsters Glen Johnson, Wayne Bridge and Joe Cole were brought in, Geremi, Juan Sebastian Veron and Damien Duff were also acquired, the latter for a club record £17 million. Also brought in were Hernan Crespo, Adrian Mutu and key player Claude Makelele. Over £100 million was spent on players that summer and off the pitch the club was taken into private ownership by Roman. At the end of that season the club had reached the European Champions League semi-finals and come second in the league but despite this Claudio Ranieri left as manager and Jose Mourinho, manager of the current Champions League winners Porto, was given the post. Brimming with self-confidence (some would say arrogance!) the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’ set about spending yet more money, buying three Portugese internationals, Petr Cech, Arjen Robben, Mateja Kezman and Didier Drogba for a new club record fee of £21 million. Mourinho handed the captain’s armband to youth product John Terry and oversaw a League Cup final win (over Liverpool), European Champions League semi-final ( a loss to Liverpool this time) and a League Championship. The London club achieved the best points total and defensive record in English top-flight history and John Terry became the first Chelsea player to win the PFA Player of the Year award. Frank Lampard making it a double with the Footballer of the Year award. But Mourinho and Chelsea havent finished there and they again broke their transfer record with the £24.4 million purchase of Michael Essien in the summer of 2005. With the club on top of the EPL once again and money no object they are beginning to look almost unbeatable, can they be stopped?

British Football History

In Britain during the 8th century, football was created, not as a recreational sport, but as a war game. One of the stories of the original roots of the sport comes from when a Danish Prince was beheaded, and his head was used as a ball and was kicked around. Ever since this 'legendary' tale, villages and other communities would play a game where they would have to kick a ball to a specific goal.
It was a violent game, where injury and death were not uncommon, but it was popular nevertheless. In fact, it was so violent, that in 1331, King Edward III passed laws to try to stop the playing of the game. It did not work, however, and the sport carried on.
There are even stories of football games that involved hundreds upon hundreds of players. In these games, there were many deaths, some resulting in the hundreds. It wasn't until 1815 when Eton College set up a series of rules for the game that it became less violent and more of a true sport.At this time, other colleges and universities took up the banner and began to play under similar rules. Later, the rules were evaluated and judged, and the Cambridge rules were created as a result in 1848. In the Cambridge rules, shin-kicking, carrying the ball and tripping were all forbidden. Rugby rules allowed these aspects, and the two varieties of football, or football, split to form their own followings. On 26 October 1863, London schools and sports club sent representatives to the Freemason's Tavern, where the Football Association was formed. Rugby supporters left this association to form the Rugby Association. This is where the birth of modern football began. In 1969, the Football Association finalized the modern game of football by forbidding the use of hands in the game. The term "Soccer" was coined when someone was asked if he was a Rugger, which is a Rugby player. The -er signified that the person participated in a particular sport. The individual, Charles Wreford Brown, replied with "Soccer!", taking the phrase from Association, SOC, and adding the -er. The term stuck. While British individuals still call the game Football, Americans and other countries call it Soccer, especially if they have heavy support in American Football present. Ever since the foundation of the Association, Football has risen in popularity, becoming one the best loved games in the known history of the Earth. Now, hundreds of thousands play the sport, although it lacks the initial violence present at its creation.