The Origin of the Word “Soccer”
Today I found out the origin of the word “soccer”. For all you out there who love to complain when Americans, and certain others, call “Football”, “Soccer”, you should know that it was the British that invented the word and it was also one of the first names of what we now primarily know of as “Football”.
In fact, in the early days of the sport among the upper echelons of British society, the proper term for the sport was “Soccer”. Not only that, but the sport being referred to as “Soccer” preceded the first recorded instance of it being called by the singular word “Football” by about 18 years. This happening when it became more popular with the middle and lower class. When that happened, the term “Football” gradually began dominating over “Soccer” and the then official name “Association Football”.
In the 1860s, as in most of history with records as far back as 1004 B.C., there were quite a lot of “football” sports in existence being played popularly throughout the world and of course, England. Many of these sports had similar rules and eventually, on October 26th, 1863, a group of teams in England decided to get together and create a standard set of rules which would be used at all their matches. They formed the rules for “Association Football”, with the “Association” distinguishing it from the many other types of football sports in existence in England, such as “Rugby Football”.
Now British school boys of the day liked to nickname everything, which is still somewhat common. They also liked to add the ending “er” to these nicknames. Thus Rugby was, at that time, popularly called “Rugger”. Association Football was then much better known as “Assoccer”, which quickly just became “Soccer” and sometimes “Soccer Football”.
The inventor of the nickname is said to be Charles Wredford Brown, who was an Oxford student around the time of Association Football’s inception. Legend has it, in 1863 shortly after the creation of Association Football, Wredford-Brown had some friends who asked him if he’d come play a game of “Rugger”, to which he replied he preferred “Soccer”. The name caught on from there.
In the beginning, the newly standardized Rugby and Soccer were football sports for “gentlemen”, primarily being played by the upper echelons of society. However, these two forms of football gradually spread to the masses, particularly Soccer as Rugby didn’t really catch on too well with the lower classes. This resulted in the name switching from “Soccer” and “Association Football”, to just “Football”; with the first documented case of the sport being called by the singular term “Football” coming in 1881, 18 years after it was first called simply “Soccer” or officially “Association Football”.
This game then gradually spread throughout the world under the lower class name of “Football”, rather than “Soccer” as the “gentlemen” called it. The problem was though, that a lot of other countries of the world already had popular sports of their own they called “Football”, such as the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, to name a few. In these countries, the name “Soccer” was and, in some, still is preferred for this reason.
Bonus Factoids:
- Just as intriguing, for those who like to lambaste American Football being called such when the ball interacts primarily with hands, most of the earliest forms of Football were named thus, not because you kicked a ball with your foot, but because they were played on foot. Peasants played most of their sports on foot; aristocrats played most of theirs on horseback. Thus, games played on foot were called “football”, whether they had anything to do with kicking a ball or not. Indeed, many of the earliest forms of football involved carrying balls in an attempt to get across goal lines passed some opposing team or individual players.
- Soccer balls were originally painted with the now classic black and white checkered look in order to make them more visible on black and white TV during the 1970 FIFA World Cup. Naturally, people wanted to buy balls that looked like those that the professionals used on TV and thus everybody bought the black and white checkered soccer ball instead of the previous traditional solid color ball.
- In the United States, early on the word “Football” was incorporated in the name for Soccer. The first name of the league was the “United States Soccer Football Association”. This lasted about 30 years before it was shortened to simply the “United States Soccer Federation” in 1975.
- “Rugby” was also once known as “Football” and originally had almost the same set of rules as Soccer, though over time increasingly diverged. The name “Rugby” comes from Rugby School in England. Legend has it, during a Football match at that school, William Webb Ellis picked up the ball in his hands and ran with it over the goal line. It didn’t count as an official goal, as you weren’t supposed to use your hands; but the referee remarked, it was a “jolly good ‘try’”, which, according to legend, is where that particular Rugby scoring term comes from. The official Rugby Union was then formed in 1871 with a split in 1893 forming the Rugby League.
- Rugby never caught on with the lower class as Soccer did. Thus, the famous British saying, “Soccer is a gentleman’s game played by ruffians and Rugby is a ruffian’s game played by gentlemen.”
- The earliest known record of a Soccer-like sport was in 1004 B.C. in Japan. There are also many references to Soccer-like sports in 50 B.C. China, even being played between teams from China and Japan.
- The Romans also played several types of Football games, including some that resembled Soccer. One of which was also included in the Roman Olympic Games. This particular version, in the Olympic Games, featured 27 men a side. The game was so rough that 2/3 of the players had to be hospitalized after the game.
- The last genuine leather soccer ball used in the World Cup was the Adidas Tango Espana, used in the 1982 World Cup. Shortly thereafter, in 1986, the first fully synthetic World Cup soccer ball was used.
- The designers of the Adidas Teamgeist, used in the 2006 World Cup, claim that ball was the roundest ever made for a sport.
- During King Edward’s reign (1307-1327), he had laws passed against the playing of football sports. Anyone caught playing any form of football would be imprisoned, “For as much as there is a great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls, from which many evils may arise…”
- He wasn’t the only British monarch that hated football. Queen Elizabeth the First “had football players jailed for a week, with follow-up church penance”. King Henry IV and Henry VIII also passed laws against football sports.
- American Football was originally known in England as “Start-Stop Rugby with Padding”… Catchy.
Sources:
You should think about renaming the Bonus facts section of your post from “factoids” to something else. A factoid from dictionary.com: “Something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised esp. to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition.”
Unless that is what you are going for.
Didn’t read
its football
k thx
“American Football” is still known as ‘start-stop rugby with padding’, although these days we sometimes leave out the ‘start-stop’ bit.
Where did you find this information out? Seeing as you forgot that crucial part… I hesitate to believe.
Interesting though.
weird, not one citation in the whole list…
Piss off! Bloody ignorant yanks! lol!
First off, aside from the relatively modern aberrance of the “Recieved Pronounciation”/”King’s English” developed in English “Public” schools (that are actually rather private as only the upper echelon of the English socio/econo/politico hierarchy, dominated by the Royal Family, could afford to gain addmittance to them), the “correct” or “accepted” form and usage of of a word depended upon the universality of it’s useage accross the myriad regional sub-dialects found throughout the English shires: the more people accross the more regions that used a common word to describe an abstract concept the greater the accepted correctness of the word in the “English” vocabulary- I doubt not that the functionality and efficiancy of the word greatly influenced the larger acceptance and percieved correctness of the word. Basically, the more people that use it over a larger area the more it’s legitamacy as a definition of an English word.
Second, up until the various modern “codifications” of the ball game played “on foot” by the above mentioned social elite schools (the graduates of which would go on to run the government and rule the country) , the original game played in England (undoubtedly there were simular games played around the world over the centuries that named it something in the local language but we’re talking about the conjunction of the English words “foot” and “ball” to name a game) since time immemorable was a competition “on foot “between the teams of different villages, towns, or cities that involved simply one team moving the ball (typically a pig’s bladder) from a midpoint between said village/town/city into their own village/town/city centre to score by whatever means possible using the relatively unarmored human body alone (carrying, throwing, kicking, elbowing, kneeing, heading, etc.) while doing one’s best to prevent the opposing team from interfereing in a relatively “no-holds barred” fashion (punching, kicking, tackling, elbowing, biting, headbutting, kneeing, gouging, scratching, throttleing, etc.). In essence a combination of the basic aspects of all the various later modern codifications of limiting rulesets of ball games played on foot in England of which the dominant ones were the primarialy no hands ball control only ruleset of the “Football Associations” (from which the slang word soccer was derived) and the primarily hand ball control of the Rugby Leagues (modern American grid football apparently evolved from a game called Stop-Start Rugby with Padding!) that splintered from this common root that probably goes back to the days of the Danelaw where, one could conjecture, the common born (who couldn’t afford to use a horse for sport) of neighboring Saxon and Norse/Danish villages/towns/cities could compete against each other in a less lethal manner to vent off the primal pressure of mutual antagonism between two or more disseperate socio-geno population groups.
So, in summation, as it’s quite likely that more people accross a greater regional and cultureal spectrum of the world call the Football Association style ruleset for the ball game played on foot using primarilly the foot “football” than call it by the slang term “soccer”, then that is the “accepted” “correct” name for it. By the same reasoning, as it’s quite likely that more people accross a greater regional and cultureal spectrum of the world call the USA’s NFL style ruleset for the ball game played on foot using primarilly the carry “American football” than call it just “Football”, then that is the “accepted” “correct” name for it.
At this point I will also point out that the overwhelming majority ( I would estimate more than 90+%) of yanks don’t speak English… because they haven’t been English for over two and a half centuries, they speak American.. generally at an eighth grade (academic year) level at best. They have unwittingly mangled the English language from which it descends with a profound and pervasive ignorance of the “accepted” “correct” gramatical useage of the syntax, spelling, and vocabulary of the the language spoken by Englishmen.
The word ‘soccer’ is commonly used in England.
See the sources. I got all the information from those links. I also tend to not put something unless I can find multiple reputable sources for some bit of information. I’ll rarely put all those sources, which would really just be duplicate sources for the same information; thus, I usually will just put the most convenient one for people to look at (generally links). But rest assured, I take the quality of information extremely seriously on my site. If you ever find inaccuracies, don’t hesitate to point them out. My goal here, albeit probably slightly unrealistic, is to be 100% accurate on everything I say in my articles. I personally get a little tired of all the “fact” websites out there that have 1000s of “facts” of which half of them or so are completely not true.
Check out my link on the “Factoids” part of the “Bonus Factoids”. I’ve written an article concerning this. Honestly though, mostly at this point, my keeping it “factoids” instead of “facts” is out of stubbornness.
Great post! Thanks for that… I’m not sure I can believe we (English) came up with soccer… all those years I have been calling everyone that calls it soccer a fool, when in fact they are just wana be toffs
Maybe I need to change my blog title now!
Actually, forget everything that I just said as I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about.
Daven
Your information is wrong on at least one count. the word “try” in rugby comes from the original way to score points in rugby, which was by crossing the line with the ball in hand allowed you a “try” to kick for goals.
@Joel: Yep, that is why I called that story a legend. Seemed like one of those nice stories that is popularly believed and paraded about as fact, but has nothing to do with the way it actually happened. Another similar one like this is that Abner Doubleday sat down one day and invented baseball; note: he didn’t invent it and probably didn’t even have anything whatsoever to do with the sport. The actual history and eventual establishment of the sport was much more complicated and, frankly, much more interesting. hmmm. I should write and article on that one. As an avid baseball fan and a fact nazi, that one has always bothered me.
In rugby, a “try” is so called because originally a try did not score any points, it allowed you to “try” for a kick between the posts.
Rugby Football -> Rugby
Charterhouse Football -> Football
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charterhouse_School#Origins_of_Football
Did you know, the first FA cup final was between two school?
Seems like someone has a stick up their arse
We call it Football now, so I still don’t care.
You can only use your feet, most of the world calls it football with this in mind. Nobody outside of america calls American Football “football” so “soccer” should be called football. Rename your boring sport if it’s such an issue.
I, the author of the longer post by this screen name, did not write the post as follows:
John Savage Tomakin says:
June 24, 2010 at 5:33 am
Actually, forget everything that I just said as I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about.
Some other clever monkey stole my screen name to do that.
BTW, all the “facts” presented in my post are commonly availible from sources ranging from the encyclopeadias such as Britanica and Wikipeadia to the numerous books on football and history I read as a boy in England over 42 years ago to the acclaimed book and BBCTV series, The Story of English. All conjecture is mine based on a logical extrapolation of the “facts” provided.
It sounds like there’s a fundamental misunderstanding in why English football fans object to football being called soccer. It isn’t because the term isn’t used in England, it’s because it’s an upper class term. That’s why the average fan doesn’t like it.
By the way it isn’t really true to say rugby didn’t take off well with the lower classes. At an early stage rugby split into two games, Rugby Union and Rugby League. The point of disagreement was wether players with jobs could be compensated for taking unpaid time off work to play. Rugby Union was strictly amateur (until very recently) and upper class, Rugby League had professionals and, particularly in some parts of Northern England, is a major working class game.
Today I found out that “factoid” used to mean: “Something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised esp. to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition.”
Call it whatever you like, its still a boring game played by sissies. (If you disagree with me, Ill fall on the ground and grab my knee and cry like a little girl until you get a yellow card)
Someone please send this article to John Cleese. He just made a short video ranting about American football, and postulating where we came up with the word.
Actually it couldn’t have been known at first as start stop rugby with padding as there was no padding. Padding was gradually added because so many young men were being killed playing American Football.
Rugby features no pads because it features few hard hits. Players can’t get up to full speed and with no forward pass there are very few blind-side hits like in American Football.
See the sources. I did. The online etymology one for football, at the end is talking about the first usage in 1881 of Football for the “American start-stop rugby with padding” game and not Association Football. Just look at the context and it’s clear.
“The U.S. style (known to some in England as “stop-start rugby with padding”) evolved gradually 19c.; the first true collegiate game is considered to have been played Nov. 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers, at Rutgers, but the rules there were more like soccer. A rematch at Princeton Nov. 13, with the home team’s rules, was true U.S. football. The earliest recorded application of the word football to this is from 1881.”
So if soccer is a shortening from “Association Football”, why don’t we pronounce it “sosh-er”?
Because it’s not “assoshiation”.
Doesn’t matter what you say, Brits will find something to QQ about. It’s in their nature to be complainers.
John Savage,
Let me guess…hmm you never played the sport,never have been popular and therefore turned to looking up ‘big’ words in the dictionary and belittle anyone who doesn’t speak the ‘King’s English’. You have so many sentences that do not make sense. Do you know what a run on sentence is? You cut up the yanks, but you are so proud of your English language. Did you invent the language? A rose by any other rose is still a rose. Still upset that the yanks beat you in the World Cup? You stated that <"Basically, the more people that use it over a larger area the more it’s legitamacy as a definition of an English word." Therefore in your words the word 'soccer' would be ther proper term used by yanks. The article about the word soccer was not meant to get your knickers in a knot, just to show that perhaps, the term came from an Englishmen. Your writing is beyond boring. Ever here of a comma or short stop or pause, or what every your pompous dictionary says? I am English and your comments embarrass me. My grandfather faught with 'yanks's in WWII and as the old joke goes, if it wasn't for the yanks and Canadians you would be speaking German. Americans are descendents of England(not all but many) so in essence you are cutting up your hereitage. Language changes over time. I am so sure that Portsmouth is pronounced 'Portsmiff' and in London 'three' is 'free'. I travel to America a lto and other countries and blokes like you are the reason people can be anti 'English'. I bet your dictionary is spelled' DICK-tionary!
Oh yeah in America they don’t call it ‘American football’ just like here in England we do not call them ,’ English muffins’. Savage, your name is quite fitting, you ever been outside of a library mate? Get a life man. Go on.
In the 1950s, 1960s and even the 1970s the term ‘soccer’ was regularly used throughout England. The term was often used in annual publications such as
http://www.footballheaven.net/acatalog/George_Bests_Soccer_Annual_No4.html
or
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0304928941/unitedmanchester
which advertises Bobby Charlton’s “This Game of Soccer”.
Its only the recent, ‘johnny-come-lately’s’ to the game who haven’t got a clue who criticise the yanks about their use of the term soccer.
Its pronounced “Football” you bunch of retards.