On the other hand of football
The Entire world is waiting for this year’s European Championships in France. Supporters are buying scarves, salesmen are counting money and gamblers are waiting to lose their money. But why exactly, this very simple sport, is so popular ?
England is the homeland of football. I have to say it. They eat inedible breakfasts and drink tea even during preparing coffee, but know how to spend their free time.
People in The Middle Ages didn’t have Facebook, but nearly everybody had their own cow. And once, men from two villages, didn’t know what to do in their free time. They killed a few cows, ate them, their wives went for shopping or something like that. So the guys decided to cut out the bladder from a cow and started to kick it. This was the most natural football in history. Without FIFA, corruption and never-ending commercials. They hadn’t had any rules and one day someone from a different village visited our players. He thought that this was fantastic and after few years people from great area of Great Britain were breaking their teeth on a ball.
Firstly, everyone was playing a different version everywhere. The school in Charterhouse had a very small garden without a place to kick the ball. So they banned kicking, invented the speciality of forthcoming players like Messi, Ronaldo or Maradona – dribbling. In Uppingham, “city” as big as London (in view from space), football was made obligatory in school. It had to teach youngsters “man rivalry” and new rules were added. Especially one surprised people and was about obligating teams to have the same number of players.
In every culture there are a lot of people who want to experiment. These people prepared for us nuclear bombs, latex clothes and what’s now more important – rugby. In some schools teachers wanted to widen their young players development and ordered them to run with the ball in their hands. The problem came up when all of these guys went from different schools to the same universities. Everybody knew different rules, some of them had earlier played only rugby. The party started.
John Lennon published his “Working Class Hero” in 1970, but class problems existed before this song. In the nineteenth century politicians decided to create a football competitions for workers. They had one day a week when they were working only half of their normal hours. Firstly Wednesday, later it was Saturday. So you now know why all league matches are played these two days.
After these times football was already popular in every part of the world. In 1914, the year when World War started, England was hiring soldiers not by factories or other workplaces, but by football teams. English travellers brought it to their colonies and also to different countries which have even more trophies than England (for example Argentina).
The first international friendly took place in 1872. England won 5:2 against Scotland, so the famous Braveheart would still have been still angry. FIFA was created in 1904 in Paris. Then everything started to be so serious and too commercial. Even though, you can still come together with your friends, buy a cow, cut out her bladder, have fun.
