has to be one of the original sports games every played by people. I can just imagine cave dwellers kicking around the old ball. Or maybe it was a rock? A coconut perhaps? It's got to be one of the simplest form of sports play imaginable. I mean, really, I kick the ball this way and you try to kick the ball that way. Whether the ball (coconut?) goes more this way or more that way determines the winner. While it may be easy for me to imagine being kicked around by a bunch of caveman sports enthusiasts, the earliest official record of by played was in China about 3000 years ago. Wow, that's like 750 World Cups, if anyone was keeping track.
Ultimate Header
Soccer is also kind of bizarre, in that it's one of the few sports I can think of where you use your head for more than just strategizing. You actually can use your head to make contact with the ball. Imagine trying that in football (American) or hockey for that matter. Nothing link deflecting a slap shot with the forehead for a game winning goal. Stitches don't hurt that much. Those guys are kinda funny that way. But the ultimate head shot in was a little more bizarre.
Gruesome actually. Apparently in more medieval times, the head of a defeated Dannish prince was used as the ball by early day hooligans in the east of England. Yuck. Think I'd be shopping for some new shoes after that match. It's a wonder ever caught on with the Danes after a defeat like that one.
Soccer Wars
As with many games these days, had it's origins on the battlefield. Rival towns would play against each other, with little or no rules, and massive sized teams. Violent, bloody games, with hundreds of people kicking, punching, tripping in an attempt to win the match. Sounds kind of like today, except today, that sounds like a more apt description of the fans instead of the players. You think it's tough being a referee today, imagine a few hundred years ago. At least today, they keep the fans and referees separated. As time went on, and the local authorities realized that banning wasn't going to work, more civilized fans brought rules and order to the game of soccer. Not everyone agreed, and there were some splinter groups that went off and formed derivatives of the game. Rugby was one.
Soccer As Civilized Play
So today we have the modern game of that we even allow our children to play. A far reach from the early beginnings of the sport. Perhaps an analogy can be drawn between and many new forms of expression. In the beginning, things can be a bloody mess, but a few thousand years of civility and anything can be reduced to child's play.
