American football is one of the most popular games on the planet, attracting a massive audience, advertising, and bets in online casinos or playing casino games online.
In Egypt, the great pyramids were still being built, wild tribes roamed across Europe, Stonehenge was considered a recent construction on the British Isles, and in America, they were already playing ball. More precisely, with a ball.
In 1985, in Paso de la Amada, on the territory of modern Mexico, archaeologists discovered a field almost identical in length and width to modern football fields. Scientists determined it to be 3,600 years old and speculated that it was built specifically for some kind of game. It turned out that it was constructed by the builders of the Mokaya people (translated as the "corn people"), ancestors of the Maya and Olmecs. In Mexico, scientists also discovered a figurine depicting a ballplayer, followed by an actual rubber ball, and the hypothesis became a theory. When it was found that there were many such fields in Mexico, there was no doubt. Ancient Mesoamerican peoples indeed held sporting competitions similar to football matches.
However, the rules of that game were quite different from modern ones. It was not allowed to touch the ball with hands or feet below the knee. It was pushed with the hips, abdomen, back, and buttocks. Later, rings were embedded in the walls through which the ball had to be thrown. Besides entertainment, the game also had a ritual meaning - scientists associate it with the cycle of the planet Venus, with concepts of the circle of life, death, and resurrection.
The stakes in decisive matches were high. The captain of the losing team would immediately, publicly, have his head cut off. The leader of the winning team became a national hero, and if particularly lucky, even a chief. A later, Aztec version of this game called "tlahtli" was encountered by the conquistadors who arrived to plunder the New World in 1519. The Aztecs were progressive players - they were already allowed to kick the ball with their feet. By the way, since the times of the Olmecs, players used leather headgear that were eerily similar to American football helmets from the 1930s.
Unfortunately, the Spanish conquistadors did not like the game, nor did the Aztecs themselves. The great civilization was destroyed, and many, many years later, football had to be imported to the American continent from across the ocean. Thanks to Cortes!
ANCIENT FOOTBALL
Ancient Egyptians, in 2500 BCE, preferred to play ball in the nude. However, girls played separately, and boys separately. But it was not forbidden to watch games of the opposite sex. Judging from the drawing in the tomb of Beni-Hasan, acrobatic elements were welcomed, and the game itself consisted of passing the ball from hand to hand. The Egyptian culture did not leave us more detailed descriptions of this amusement.
Interestingly, the game of football existed since the times of Sparta and Rome. In that form of football, they played to train soldiers for combat. On a marble relief, now stored in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, a footballer is depicted. Otherwise, a young man holding the ball on his knee cannot be called. Unlike the Egyptian ball, which was a bundle of flaxen threads, the Greek ball depicted in the picture was inflatable, made from a pig's gallbladder covered with skin. However, the Greeks had several types of balls. Some, stuffed with wool, did not bounce off the ground. But it was these balls that were used in the Greek game phaininda, which through many centuries led to the emergence of rugby, and consequently, American football.
The modern schematic of the Greek game, reconstructed by modern scholars, suspiciously resembles modern football tactical diagrams. They played phaininda, or as the Romans later called it, harpastum, on a grassy field, or even in the mud, because falling on stone platforms even in ancient times hurt. But it was not yet rugby - the ball had to be defended and kept on one's side of the field, while the opponent tried to steal it by any means, up to laying the ball holder on the ground with his ear. It was believed that in this way, not only strength and endurance were trained, but also tactical thinking. Therefore, harpastum was popular among Roman legionaries. Ordinary citizens also loved this game, and in ancient Rome, balls were kicked right on the streets. Cicero describes one of the cases of ancient football hooliganism. A man who entered a barber shop to shave was killed by a ball that accidentally flew in from the street.
The case was considered in a Roman court for a long time. When the Romans captured England, they brought this game with them. The locals - the Britons - eagerly learned this game, and even in 217 CE, in the city of Derby, they defeated a team of Roman legionaries. Probably, offended by their opponents, or rather, due to the complete collapse of power in the Roman Empire, the legions left the British Isles. The local inhabitants forgot about harpastum, and then the Middle Ages came.
MIDDLE AGES
In the Middle Ages, the ball game took on a rough character. The Roman Empire collapsed, but it metastasized into newly formed states of Germanic tribes. Active, but unfortunately, completely uneducated barbarians perceived the refined ancient game in their own way. As historians claim, in medieval Britain, the almost forgotten game of harpastum was revived in a new form called Fute bali. The first "fute-bali" ball was the head of a Viking leader defeated by the English (what can we say, football has worthy roots). Some sources casually add that this Viking was a Dane.
When there was no suitable Viking head at hand, English peasants took the same old good pig's bladder, stuffed it with dried peas, and covered it with pig skin. Then, on an appropriate holiday, for example, during Maslenitsa, matches were played - village against village. Both men and women participated. Although the word "played" here is not quite fitting. One of the names for this wild medieval football was "melee," which can be loosely translated as "general scuffle" or "mass brawl." The goal was to kick or drive the ball into the opponent's territory with your feet. During one game, which lasted the whole day, there were many injuries. In sources, there is mention of at least one case where a player, accidentally killing his opponent in the struggle for the ball, received papal absolution. Similarly, in cities, they enjoyed themselves - they kicked the ball right on the streets.
By the 11th century, this type of kicking game became so popular in Britain that King Richard II prohibited this type of sport because it took too much time away from archery skills for the players. But football continued to develop, even though it was practically prohibited by all subsequent English kings.
The first mention of a football match in medieval chronicles dates back to the year 1175. A certain monk named William Fitzstephen recorded in his "History of London" - "they play ball in wide open spaces." Wide open spaces at that time were usually market squares. During the match, the raging crowd smashed market stalls and small shops to bits, which is why shopkeepers vehemently disliked such football. They complained to the city administration, and in the year 1314, King Edward II prohibited football by his decree. The decree stated - "under penalty of imprisonment, do not play football in the city."
What appealed to medieval footballers was that they couldn't care less about royal and parliamentary decrees. In the 17th century, the game infiltrated the courtiers, and the struggle against the "football of the masses" ended in favor of the masses. However, peasants moved on foot during their football amusements, while aristocrats did so on horseback - running by themselves was beneath them.
By the beginning of the 19th century, players were no longer running through the streets, they played on designated fields, agreeing that touching the ball with hands was not allowed. Soon, unified rules for the game were supposed to be established in colleges, but a misfortune occurred - rugby emerged.
RUGBY
When on April 7th, 1823, in the county of Yorkshire, on the field of the Rugby School, sixteen-year-old William Webb Ellis, during a football match, grabbed the ball with his hands and ran towards the opponent's town, half of the audience shouted: "This is not allowed! It doesn't count!" while the other half said "YES!" In one moment, the English sports community divided into fans of soccer-style football and rugby-style football. The lad who broke the established rules entered history, a monument was erected in his honor, and a plaque was hung on the walls of his school - "let this board remind of the glorious deed of William Webb Ellis, the first to dare to break the rules, grab the ball with his hands and run with it. Thus, the game of rugby was born in 1823."
However, the plaque and monument were unveiled later, because disputes over whether playing football with hands was permissible or not continued for exactly forty years. Passions heated up, the conflict of respected gentlemen approached the stage of physical confrontation, and then, on October 26th, 1863, in the London tavern "The Freemasons Arms" after a few pints of beer, the only reasonable decision was made - to divide one game into two. The name "football" - remained for the one where the ball was kicked, and the new variety of the game was decided to be named after the city where it originated.
Soccer-style football developed in a civilized manner, federations were formed, rules were supplemented, but not changed. However, the younger brother of football, as is fitting for a younger brother, could not find his place in life. There were no common rules in rugby. At first, 20 people from each team would go out onto the field, then their number was reduced to 15. They also couldn't agree on the scoring system. Disputes in the rugby world continue to this day, but this is not so important from the perspective of the history of American football. What is important is that exactly 6 years and eleven days after the respectable gentlemen drank beer and divided football in the London tavern "The Freemasons Arms," overseas they resolved this issue in their own way.
