I need some help from those of you who know about the beginning of our game. I think it began in England, but what (or when) connection did it have to Germany? This is for a school project in German class and I need to know if Germany had anything to do with football in 1915 or before. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
They didnt, Germany was very big on gymastics and such stuff, but football.. no they almost didnt play it. At a latter time even Hitler ignored football and focused on the olympics and formule1 to promote the German empire. I could have written more but I have to run
A game similar to Football was played during the middle ages in england but was outlawed because the peasants were having too much fun.
I am sure that football was played in Germany before the first world war, but couldn't say immediately at what level. English professional teams did play some friendly games there around that time, but I think against amateur opposition. The most famous football game around that time was on Christmas Day 1914 when German and British soldiers played against each other during the First World War -at least this is the legend. In spite of what RutgerB says, Hitler did use football for propaganda purposes. The joint German - Austrian team (after the Anschluss) had a very high profile in Germany and played some famous matches. At least in England, the most famous was in 1938 (I think) where the English team was told to give a Nazi salute as part of the preliminaries. The game was at the Olympic Stadium, Berlin. They did so, under protest, and won the game 6-3. The Nazis also used football as a propaganda vehicle in occupied territory. Famously, they failed to beat the Kiev team FC Start - a book about this was recently published.
It depends on what you mean by "the game". There were versions of football played all over the world, over a very long period of time. The game of association football was founded in England (The Freemasons Tavern, Great Queen Street, London to be precise) in 1863, when a set of rules was formulated. Until then, different rules applied in different areas, even between clubs in the same area. Before a match, one set of rules had to be agreed on, or a compromise made. The oldest rugby club in England is Blackheath. They attended the 1863 meeting but wouldn't agree to the rules as it didn't allow "hacking" - kicking a player in the shins to make him release the ball.
You forget about the match played by the Allied POW's in WWII, in a game against the German National Team. It was played on a "neutral" ground in Paris. I believe the final score was 4-3, the winner scored by Pele. You can learn more about this game in the historical documentary called "Victory". It also featured archival footage of Sylvester Stallone and Michael Caine.
Er, let's try and be serious and help our friend UncleSam527. Do you want him to be thrown out of his school?
But it's true. Back in WWII Stallone inspired american kids to become the best goalkeepers of the world. Culminating of course with Brad Friedel's masterful performance Japan/Korea 2002.
I think in Simon Kuper's book, Football against the Enemy, there's piece on that game. The Germans apparently shot the winning Kiev team afterwards. It does also say that that there is a great deal of speculation that propoganda works both ways and the whole story is a myth.
A very rough form of a game can be traced back to the ancient Mayans. The use of arms was allowed, but not hands and the object of the game was to get a heavy leather ball through a small stone circle. The body was used as well as the feet and legs. The downside: the losing team was sacrificed.
These rules were based on the Cambridge Rules of 1846, although no records of these exist. The earliest set of rules are widely believed to have been created in 1862, by Mr. Tring of Uppingham school, and were entitled "The Simplest Game". 1. A goal is scored whenever the ball is forced through the goal and under the bar, except it be thown by hand. 2. Hands may be used only to stop the ball and place it on the ground before the feet. 3. Kicks must be aimed only at the ball. 4. A player may not kick the ball whilst in the air. 5. No tripping up or heel kicking allowed. 6. Whenever the ball is kicked beyond the side flags, it must be returned by the player who kicked it, from the spot it passed the flag line, in a straight line towards the middle of the ground. 7. When a ball is kicked behind the line of the goal, it shall be kicked off from that line by one of the side whose goal it is. 8. No player may stand within six paces of the kicker when he is kicking off. 9. A player is out of play immediately he is in front of the ball, and must return behind the ball as soon as possible. If the ball is kicked by his own side past a player, he may not touch or kick it, or advance, until one of theother side has first kicked it, or one of his own side has been able to kick it on a level with, or in front of him. 10. No charging allowed when a player is out of play; that is immediately the ball is behind him. You can actually see elements of all the various types of football (Rugby, Gaelic, American, Australian Rules and Association) in these rules.
From what I can gather, football spread to Germany in the 1870's. The first records of the Association rules in Germany date from 1870, in the ports of Hamburg and Bremen, having spread from England. An Oxford University XI toured Germany in 1875, and the first German translation of the rules took place in Hamburg in 1876. The DFB (German Football Association) was founded some time later in 1900.
I was watching a documentary that mentioned that match... I don't remember the details so I'll have to watch it again.
I've read in a few books that it started in China a long time ago...a few thousand years ago. But then again what they did was merely kick something around, can you call that football?
Well, there was a game called kemari that originated in Japan about 1,400 years ago - it wasn't really football, more like keep up. It was played by 8 players who stood in a circle and tried to keep the ball from hitting the ground.
This is quoted from The World Encyclopedia of Soccer, it's copyright is 1994... but anyways There's another 2 paragraphs, and then it goes on about Skipshady spoke about (Kemari)
The 'Cambridge Rules' were formulated as a result of disputes between the students (Boooo!) and the townsfolk (Hurrah!), who used to play each other on Parker's Piece near the centre of the city. There were constant interruptions for arguments about the rules, so a set of formalised rules were agreed, by which everyone would play a standardised game. To this day, football is a frequent and popular activity on Parker's Piece, which has a reasonable claim to being the home of modern football. A couple of years ago the BBC staged a 'reconstruction' game in which a load of players dressed up in costumes from the time and played a match to celebrate the anniversary of the codification of the game. With reference to the original question, I am fairly sure that most German clubs were founded after the game became popular in England, but some were certainly active before 1915 (Schalke 04? 1860 München?)
I am pretty sure that both Schalke and TSV 1860 Munchen - sorry, can't do umlauts - were founded as gymnastic associations and moved to football later. I will try and find out when they took up footie.
Is true. In the middle ages, peasants were given a beheaded Scotsmans head and a goal was scored when the opposing village managed to kick the head on to the other village's village green. The local lords and squires outlawed it when ITV digital refused to pay up on the scribe contract, as the peasants didn't subscribe the three groats a year to get the drawing of the game through their ariels. And then God created Sky Sports. Is true about the Scotsmans head and villiage greens though. The sport is about 400-500 years old.
While it has become surrounded by myth, I'm not sure that it is correct to say that the whole story is a myth. The book I was thinking of is "Dynamo" by Andy Dougan. He goes into a great deal of detail about line-ups, scorers, attendances etc. There is a review of the book on the Amazon web site: www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841153192 As I recall it, the players were not singled out and shot after their final match - against the Luftwaffe - but many did die during the war in manners similar to other civilians. The team is commemorated by a sculpture outside the Olympic Stadium in Kiev. In the book, Andy Dougan quotes from meetings with survivors from the team.