| bobacob said: The creation of an official ruling body actually means very little, if you look up the a definition of rugby you will see it decends from football. The name football came first so it must mean that is the father surely? there were other rules added and just like any other game the rules changed over time. The fact that the rules change doesnt mean that footballs existence gets shifted back a few years. Football was first played(In england) by people in teams with a pitch in the 1600s before the first official football teams were created, which means that there were some rules in place before hand officially making it a sport. Just because amatuer and pro football teams were created after in 1800s (just like rugby) doesnt mean anything, i think the first official football team was sheffield wednesday or sheffield united about 1850. The oldest offical rugby club was formed around about 1840-50s. There were many other football teams that recorded scores before official teams, which means that rules must have been created. The oldest offical scoring of rugby was also later than football about 1860s whereas some london football clubs recorded scores and rules as early as 1600s( im remebering most of this from year 7 history :D i aced the test). But what does this all mean? absolutely nothing, All i know is football as a game has estanblished rules before rugby, so therefore it existed before rugby which cannot be denied. The official formation of documented leagues and rules can be debated until the cows come home and it means absolutely nothing. |
I couldn't disagree more. Before there were any set rules "football" wasn't like the football of today. It had many many rules that were similar to rugby as well.
Rugby went one way... allowing more carrying and use of the hands, assosiation went the other way to restrict carrying far more...
To claim that Rugby is different and assosiation league football is that same "football" that existed beforehand is nothing but revisionist history.
It seems like you need to do a bit more research on the history of football. There is a reason it's called Assosiation Football afterall... because it, just like rugby league football was an offshoot of it's origins. If you go back and read the history on it you'll see i'm right.
Both Rugby Football and Assosiation Football are forms of established rules for the game of football. It's ridiculious that you try to claim such a heritage as Assosiation Footballs alone.
Just calling it soccer is more appropriate then just calling it football because Soccer is an abreviation of Assosiation. Calling Rugby or American Football Football is no less aprorpriate in any case.
