[gigdy]

Originally Posted by Chaos in 1983! Originally Posted by dani_d_mas ^^^ basically Football for everyone but the americans I'd say exaclty...I really don't get why they call American Football Football..I mean the only time they touch the ball with their feet is in a field goal or the kickoff...

I'll just give you the short version. Basically, football has been around in some form or another for 100s of years. The British are the people who really embraced the sport. At the time, the game was played with a round ball and only feet were used. Then, in the 1800s (I think, it might have been earlier) a school in England (or thereabouts) named Rugby changed the rules and started carrying the ball and running with it. This split the sport into two games that they called Rugby Football and Association Football. The word Soccer is derived from the word "asSOCiation". When the game migrated to the US, the Rugby version became the more popular sport. People started playing it in college, sort of like an intramural sport. Then, some colleges wanted to play each other. When they got together they realized that they all had slightly different rules. So the officials sat down to write down rules everyone could agree on. Thus, our Gridiron Football was evolved! From Football (or Soccer) -> Rugby -> Gridiron. You can say that Soccer is Gridiron's grandpa!

"Soccer" was originally called "association football" during the formation of the Football Association in England in the 1860s. This was to maintain a distinction from the other football game being organised in England at the same time based on the handling codes, whilst Association Football conformed to the dribbling codes. The other football came to be known as "rugby" football, named after the Rugby School in England, where it is said that a certain young student, William Webb Ellis, picked up the ball in his hands during an association football match and ran with it over the goal line. Master Ellis asked his teacher, who was refereeing, if that was a goal. The reply was, "No, but it was a jolly good 'try'", which is where one of the rugby scoring terms comes from. Rugby Union was formally organised by 1871, but suffered another split by 1893 when Rugby League was formed. I digress. Near the end of 1863, Charles Wreford-Brown, who later became a notable official of the Football Association, was asked by some friends at Oxford whether he cared to join them for a game of "rugger" (rugby). He is said to have refused, preferring instead to go for a game of "soccer" - a play on the word "association". The name caught on. English public schoolboys love to nickname things, then as much as now. The tendency is to add "er" to the end of many words. Rugby [Union] Football became "rugby", and then "rugger". Association Football was better know as "assoccer" and naturally evolved into "soccer" which is much easier for a schoolboy to say... Therefore, the word "soccer" has been used in the mother country of all football-type games since at least the mid-19th century. The word "football", however, was more descriptive of the game (i.e. kicking a ball with the feet!) and was the term more frequently used. The British exported the game, so naturally the word "football" was the name mostly used all over the world. In recent decades it has been noted that the word "soccer" is apparently increasing in usage. The word "football" still appears in formal designations, however, in for example, Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). The word "soccer" is more commonly used in several countries around the world that play other forms of football. When Australians say "football", they mean Australian Rules football instead [Well in southern states they do, in the north they mean Rugby League]. The Irish have Gaelic football. In the USA and Canada, of course, there is Gridiron football. Rugby Union, Rugby League, Australian Rules, Gaelic, American and Canadian football all owe their roots to Association football. With the exception of Gaelic Football, they all use an ovoid shaped ball. None is as popular around the world as Association football. "Football" is the world standard name for "soccer". I always used the word "football" (and still do, wherever I can). The word "soccer", however, is engrained into the origins of the modern game of association football as much as any other aspect of The Game much of the world enjoys today. Finally, it must be remembered that British football, both association and rugby, had been organised in the 19th century by people in the upper echelons of the English educational system, from "exotic" schools, colleges and universities as Harrow, Eton, Oxford and Cambridge, just for starters. As I stated earler, students of the Victorian era, as much as now, loved nicknames and "soccer" and "rugger" were the accepted everyday names for those people. These were sports for gentlemen. When the games were taken up by those less fortunate enough to have received the higher (and more expensive) levels of education the game of soccer became very popular with the masses. Rugger, less so. As the rules became increasingly divergent between the two sports, soccer became the people's sport and rugger remained more of a "gentleman's" game. Ever heard the phrase, "Soccer is a gentleman's game played by ruffians and Rugby is a ruffian's game played by gentlemen"? So "soccer" was a fanciful, gentleman's name for the sport. The mere, common man started to call it "football" for the obvious reason that it's a game about a ball kicked with the foot. The game, and the word, was exported by British workers, students and merchant and naval seamen all over the world in the latter 19th and early 20th century... and the name, and the game, blossomed.

there u go.