Touchdown! The History of Football

Touchdown! The History of Football book cover — TOUCHDOWN THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL VIC KOVACs SCRABTREE Publishing Company www Crabtreebooks com

Touchdown! The History of Football — page 1 — LONL O Football as it's played today is a truly American game Its origins however are more British than you might think Tough Game Football type games go back at least as far as ancient Greece and Rome These games are the ancestors of soccer and rugby which evolved into football Historians believe that the games spread with the Roman empire especially in Britain By the eleventh century British boys were playing a tackling game using an inflated cow bladder as a ball These games were so rough that players could be seriously injured or even killed By the 1600s a soccer like game had developed Players could only touch the ball with their feet The big change that led to football came in 1823 at Rugby School in England when a n player named William Webb Ellis grabbed the ball and ran with it Within a few years running with the ball became an official part of rugby When Rugby School students went on to universities they took the game with

Touchdown! The History of Football — page 2 — This 1865 artwork shows Civil War Humble Beginnings The first games played in the United States were much closer to soccer and rugby As the game evolved different teams played by different rules causing widespread confusion soldiers playing football in camp This led to a series of conferences that attempted to make a consistent set of rules for everyone As play became more similar between teams the sport became more and more popular Today football is the most watched sport live and on television in the United States It has been reported as the country's most popular sport since 1985 Gridiron Playing Field The full name of America's most popular game is actually gridiron football This helps to separate it from soccer which other parts of the world usually refer to as football This unique name came from the appearance of the The grid pattern can be seen clearly original football fields which had lines in this 1910 postcard of the Syracuse that ran the length and width of the field University stadium This made it look like a checkerboard or a kind of grill used for cooking called a gridiron Even after the game got rid of the length lines the name stuck Today it can refer to both the sport itself or the field it's played

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