Part I
Kicking Off
In this part . . .
To break you in gently to the great game of association football, this part provides an introduction to the game, covering how it began, and what it is all about. Those of you who are new to football receive a comprehensive rundown of the whys and wherefores of the game right here.
In this part of the book, I describe how football has become the most widely played and watched team sport on the globe. I explain the basic aims of football, the pitch on which the game is played, and, last but not least, what gear you need to have to play it.
Chapter 1
Welcome to Planet Football
In This Chapter
Football: a simple game enjoyed the world over
The basic aims and rules
Playing and watching
Some reasons why people love football so much
Association Football is the most popular sport in the world. Depending on where you hail from, you may know it as football, footy, soccer, fitba, fĂtbol, calcio, futebol, voetbol, le foot, foci, sakka or bong da, but the game remains the same: two teams of 11 players, each one trying to kick a spherical ball into a goal more times than the other.
Football is fiendishly addictive, whether you watch or compete. Across the planet more supporters and spectators follow the professional game than any other sport, and at grass-roots level more amateur participants enjoy the game than any other athletic pastime.
Football arouses passion in spectators and players like no other game in the world â and perhaps like nothing else known to humankind. It has done so ever since some English rule-makers formalised the pastime of kicking a ball around into a sport during the late 1850s and early 1860s. (Thatâs 150 years and counting and itâs still getting more popular by the day.) But why have billions of men and women, boys and girls, adults and children been enthralled by this simplest of sports for such a long time? What makes football so special?
Football: the Simplest Game
John Charles Thring was bang on the money when, in 1862, he wrote a set of draft rules for the game that later became known as âAssociation Footballâ. With the sport yet to be christened, Thring decided to entitle his rules The Simplest Game.
Thringâs rules were tweaked before being ratified by the newly founded Football Association the following year, but the new sport of Association Football remained âthe simplest gameâ. Because no game â with the possible exception of running in a straight line, and thatâs not really a game, is it? â is less complicated than football.
The basic aim: it really is that simple!
The object of the game is simple: for a team of 11 players to guide a ball into a goal and do it more times than the opposition team can manage.
Thatâs it!
So why is football so popular?
Pop psychologists have written more words attempting to explain why football is so popular than on any other subject (except organised religion, maybe, although some supporters will tell you thatâs pretty much the same thing).
The truth is, nobodyâs ever been able to quite put their finger on why the game is so popular, so Iâm not going to pretend to give you a definitive answer. There simply isnât one. The best I can do is offer you the following three suggestions:
Its simplicity makes it readily accessible. You only have to watch a couple of minutesâ worth of action to work out what the teams are trying to do.
Goals have a rarity value and are at a premium. Cricket involves scoring hundreds of runs and a tennis player might win a point every 30 seconds. But you can watch 90 minutes of football and not see a single goal scored by either team. So when you do see one, the excitement is palpable.
The teams belong to the people. Despite its public-school origins, organised football quickly became a working-class sport, a release from the tedium of everyday life. Results really began to matter. Following a team became tribal, with a sense of belonging and a commitment to a cause.
Having said that, thousands of other, better reasons may exist. After youâve watched a few matches, or played a few games, youâll no doubt have a few theories of your own. Actually, thatâs another great thing about football: everyoneâs got an opinion about it.
Where do people play footie?
Everywhere, basically. The game, in a very basic form, is thought to have started out in China over 2,000 years ago, with the ancient Greeks, the Romans and indigenous Australians playing variations on a theme over the centuries.
It wasnât until the mid-1800s that the game as you know it today developed in England, but by 1900 it had spread all over Europe and to South America. Fast-forward another 110 years and every country and continent in the world is now playing the game. That includes the United States of America, a country that held out for so long but is now slowly falling for its charms, with major menâs and womenâs leagues now established Stateside.
Explaining a Few Rules
So how does this team of 11 players actually go about playing the game and scoring these elusive goals? I go into further detail about the laws of the game in Chapter 4, but first hereâs a brief overview of how you play a football game.
The pitch
You usually play football on grass, occasionally on artificial surfaces, but always on a pitch no bigger than 73 metres (80 yards) wide and 110 metres (120 yards) long. Figure 1-1 shows you how the pitch looks.
Each end of the pitch has a goal, comprising two upright posts 7.3 metres (24 feet) apart and 2.43 metres (8 feet) high, topped with a horizontal crossbar. One team tries to score in one goal and the other team tries to score in the other goal. While both teams are trying to score they also try to stop the other team scori...
