Zamalek There-is-OnlyOne.

zamalek lovers union 2005/2006

Notable players
Mido Has played for Ajax Amsterdam, Olympique Marseille, AS Roma, Tottenham Hotspur and Middlesbrough.
Ibrahim Hassan
Taha Basry
Farouk Gaafar A midfield king that held the Number 4 jersey when playing for Zamalek and formed the most feared Egyptian midfield trio of all-time which comprised of him, Taha Basry and Hassan Shahata.
Hassan Shahata The current Egyptian National Team manager, won the African Nations Cup 2006.
Hazem Emam is a famous Egyptian playmaker who won the Pepsi challenge for best soccer skills.[5]
Emmanuel Amuneke gained recognition at Sporting Lisbona and then Barcelona.
Rami Shaaban A current Swedish international that once played for Zamalek.
Shikabala
Hossam Hassan The most capped Egyptian player of all time as well as the 3rd most capped worldwide.
Amr Zaki
Nader El-Sayed
Ali Khalil
Ashraf Kasem, awarded the best Egyptian player 1992-93 as well as Arab footballer of the year in 1994. Won 12 titles with Zamalek.
Ahmed El-Kass, was the Egyptian Premier League's top goalscorer from 1991-1994 and scored a total of 107 goals in the Egyptian League with Zamalek, also won the Military World Cup in 1993 with Egypt.
Mohamed Latif, was the first professional in Egyptian history, playing for Rangers F.C. He was in the Egyptian side that reached the 1934 World Cup as well as the Olympic side at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Ayman Mansour won the Pan Arab Games Gold Medal 1992 as well as scoring the fastest goal in the history of the African Nations Cup - it was in 1994 against Gabon after 23 seconds.
Ismail Youssef was a starter in the Egyptian side that reached the 1990 World Cup and participated in 3 African Cups of Nations winning one. He was capped 97 times for the Egyptian National team and won 13 titles with Zamalek. Is the brother of defender Ibrahim Youssef.
Mohamed Salah El-Din Was voted as the best defender in Africa in 1980 and won a total of 7 titles with the Zamalek.
Magdy Tolba A dynamic midfielder who played for Egypt's big three, winning 6 titles with Zamalek and 5 titles with Al Ahly. Had successful stints at PAOK and Levski Sofia.
Hesham Yakan The defender was a starter in the 1990 Egyptian World Cup squad and won 10 titles with the White Knights.
Tarek Yehia The left-winger won the African Nations Cup in 1986, was awarded a bronze medal in the Mediterranean Games of 1983, as well as winning 8 titles with the all-whites of Zamalek.
Ibrahim Youssef He participated in the 1984 L.A Olympics as well as the African Nations' Cup the same year where he was voted the best defender of the tournament. He also won a bronze medal at the Mediterranean Games of 1983. He was voted as the best Egyptian player on 3 occasions (1981, 1984 and 1985) and won the award of 2nd best African player in 1984 and the 3rd best African player the following year. He also won the All Africa Games Gold Medal 1987.

Presidents of the Club
1-Merzbach (Founder) : (Belgium) 1911-1915
2-Bianchi (Belgium) : 1915-1917
3-Dr. Mohamed Badr : 1917-1919
4-Mohamed Heidar : 1923-1952
5-Mahmoud Shawki : 1952-1955
6-Abdel Hamid El-Shawarbi : 1955-1955
2nd Term -Mahmoud Shawki : 1955-1956
7-Abdel Latif Abou Regaila : 1956-1961
8-Elwi El-Gazzar : 1961-1962
9-Hassan Amer : 1962-1967
10-Mohamed Hassan Helmi : 1967-1971
11-Tawfik El-Kheshin : 1971-1972
2nd Term -Mohamed Hassan Helmi : 1974-1980
3rd Term -Mohamed Hassan Helmi : 1980-1984
2nd Term -Hassan Amer : 1984-1988
12-Hassan Aboul Fotouh : 1988-1990
13-Nour El-Dali : 1990-1992
14-Galal Ibrahim : 1992-1996
15-Dr. Kamal Darwish : 1996-2001
2nd Term -Dr. Kamal Darwish : 2001-2005
16-Mortada Mansour : 2005-2005
17-Morsi Atallah : 2005-2006.
18-Mortada Mansour : 2006-2006.
19-Raouff Gasser : 2006-2006.
20-Mamdouh Abaas : current

Domestic
Sultan Hussein Cup: 2
1921, 1922
Egyptian Cup: 20
1922, 1932, 1935, 1938, 1941, 1943, 1944, 1952, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1988, 1999, 2002,
Egyptian Premier League: 11
1960, 1964, 1965, 1978, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1993, 2001, 2003, 2004
Egyptian Super Cup: 2
2001, 2002
Cairo League: 10
1940, 1941, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1951, 1952, 1953,
International
Afro-Asian Cup: 2
1988, 1997,
CAF Champions League: 5
1984, 1986, 1993, 1996, 2002
CAF Super Cup: 2
1994, 1997,
African Cup Winners' Cup: 1
2000
Arab Club Championship: 1
2003
Saudi-Egyptian Super Cup: 1
2003

Club Honours
Zamalek have won a total of 57 Soccer Titles. While Al Ahly are by far the most crowned team on a domestic scale, Zamalek have won more African titles than any team in Egypt (13 titles) and more Arab titles than any other Egyptian side (5 titles).

Managers (coaches)
1982-83:Vasovicz (Yugoslavia)+ Mahmoud Saad
1983-84:Mahmoud Abouregaila + Ahmed Rifaat
1984-85:Mahmoud Abouregaila + Ahmed Rifaat
Ahmed Rifaat
1985-86:Ninkovicz (Yugoslavia) + Zaki Othman
Hassan Shehata
Parker (England) + Mahmoud Saad
1986-87:Parker (England) + Mahmoud Saad
Essam Baheeg + Farouk Gaafar
1987-88:Essam Baheeg + Mahmoud Saad
1988-89:Zaki Othman + Farouk Gaafar
Zaki Othman
Hamada El-Sharkawi
1989-90:Carlos (Brazil)
1990-91:Mahmoud Abouregaila
1991-92:Dave Mackay (Scotland) + Farouk Gaafar
1992-93:Dave Mackay (Scotland) + Farouk Gaafar
1993-94:Dave Mackay (Scotland) + Farouk Gaafar
Mahmoud El-Gohary + Mahmoud Saad
1994-95:Reidl (Austria) + Mahmoud Saad.
Taha Basry + Hassan Shehata.
Hassan Shehata.
1995-96:Werner Olk (Germany) + Farouk Gaafar
Ahmed Rifaat + Farouk Gaafar
1996-97:Werner Olk (Germany) + Mahmoud Saad
Werner Olk (Germany) + Mahmoud Abouregaila
Werner Olk (Germany) + Mahmoud Saad
Farouk El-Sayed + Ahmed Abdel Halim
1997-98:Ruud Krol (Holland) + Farouk El-Sayed
1998-99:Ruud Krol (Holland) + Farouk El-Sayed
Ruud Krol (Holland) + Ismail Youssef
Farouk Gaafar + Nabil Nosair
Mahmoud Abouregaila + Ahmed Moustafa
1999-2000:Mahmoud Abouregaila + Ibrahim Youssef
Helmi Toulan + Ashraf Quasem / Ahmed Ramzy
Otto Pfister (Germany) + Helmi Toulan / Ashraf Quasem / Ahmed Ramzy
2000-01:Otto Pfister (Germany) + Helmi Toulan / Ashraf Quasem / Ahmed Ramzy
2001-02:Otto Pfister (Germany) + Helmi Toulan / Ashraf Quasem / Ahmed Ramzy
Otto Pfister (Germany) + Mahmoud Saad / Ahmed Ramzy / Essam Marei
2002-03:Carlos Roberto F. Cabral (Brazil) + Mahmoud Saad / Tarek Yehia / Ahmed Ramzy
Carlos Roberto.F.Cabral (Brazil) + Ahmed Rifaat / Ahmed Ramzy
2003-04:Nelo Vingada (Portugal) + Mahmoud El-Khawaga / Ayman Mansour
2004-05:Dragoslav Stepanovic (Germany) + Ibrahim Youssef / Gamal Abdullah / Hesham Yakan
Carlos Roberto F. Cabral (Brazil) + Ibrahim Youssef / Ahmed Ramzy / Samir Mohamed Ali
2005-06:Theo Bucker (Germany) + Ahmed Rifaat / Gamal Abdel Hamid / Essam Marei / Khaled El-Ghandour / Emad El-Mandouh
Farouk Gaafar + Gamal Abdel Hamid / Essam Marei / Khaled El-Ghandour / Emad El-Mandouh
Manuel Cajuda(Portugal)/Ahmed Ramzy
2006-07:Henri Michel (France) / Mahmoud Saad
Henri Michel (France) / Ayman Mansoor
Henri Michel (France)
2007-08:Ruud Krol (Holland)

2007-08 transfers
Zamalek bought several players before the 2007-08 season. These included bringing in highly rated international defenders Besheer El-Tabei, Karim Zekry and Mahmoud Fathalla, the captain of the Jordanian national team Khaled Saad, defensive midfielder Ahmed Magdy from Greece and Sherif Ashraf from the Al Ahly youth squad.

Current squad
Correct as of 20 July 2007
No. Position Player
1 GK Mohamed Abdel Monsef
2 DF Amr El-Safti
3 DF Osama Hassan
4 DF Wisam El-Abdy
5 DF Besheer El-Tabei
6 DF Ahmed Hossam
7 DF Ahmed Ghanem Soltan
8 MF Alaa Abdel-Ghany
9 FW Amr Zaki
10 FW Gamal Hamza
11 MF Mohamed Aboul Ela
12 MF Magdy Atwa
13 DF Tarek El-Sayed
14 MF Hazem Emam
15 DF Karim Zekry
16 GK Abdel Wahed Al Sayed
No. Position Player
17 FW Mostafa Gaafar
18 FW Shikabala
20 MF Tamer Abdel Hamid
21 DF Emad El-Sayed
22 MF Ahmed Magdy
23 GK Wael Zenga
24 FW Abdel Halim Ali
26 MF Ahmed Abdel-Raouf
27 DF Mohamed Ibrahim
28 DF Mahmoud Fathalla
29 DF Yamen Ben Zekry
30 MF Khaled Saad
32 FW Sherif Ashraf


(note: no more than 3 foreign players are allowed on any side in the Egyptian Premier League)

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOls

Zamalek Goals

Team colours
White Knights fans see the traditional white kit with 2 red stripes as a good luck omen since the periods of greatest successes for the White Castle came when they were wearing their traditional trademark kit. Currently they are not wearing the traditional kit and have not been wearing it since 2004 which also happens to be the last time they won a title. Many fans are actually requesting the return of that kit.

Links with other clubs

A montage of Zamalek fans before the Cairo derby. (The top-left picture is before the Zamalek-Faisaly (Jordan) game.)
Ismaily, a club situated in Ismaileya, in the North Coast of Egypt, didn't have a stadium to train in since their stadium required renovation in the early 1960s. The Ismaili Board of Directors sent an official request to Al Ahly club asking if they could share their training stadium (Mokhtar El-Tetsh Stadium). Al Ahly refused, which infuriated Ismaili S.C forcing them to ask Zamalek. Zamalek allowed Ismaili to train with Zamalek players on Mit Okba Stadium which was the beginning of the links between the two sets of fans.
Some El-Masry fans are seen to be "allies" with White Castle fans. Tersana fans are regarded as Zamalek supporters as well (and vice-versa) due to the fact that the two used to share the training stadium and also because of their close geographic location; they are the only two Egyptian clubs to hail from Giza. It is common to see Zamalek banners and flags at Ismaili, El Masry and Tersana games (and vice-versa). In the south of Egypt, support for Al Ahly or Zamalek is not entirely clear where cities like Aswan have more Zamalek supporters, whereas El Minia, for example, have more Al Ahly fans. In Cairo, districts like Mohandessin, Dokki, 6th of October, Sheikh Zayed and of course Zamalek have a large number of Zamalek fans. They also have a small following in Alexandria where about 15% of the city are known to support Zamalek.

Supporters
It is widely believed that Zamalek is the club of choice of Egyptian free-thinkers, those who have a propensity for supporting the underdog, and Egypt's aristocratic class. Zamalek have been known to have a large following, being second only to Al Ahly in fan support. Zamalek fans have been largely known as a club supported by aristocrats and the upper class, whereas Al Ahly have traditionally been supported by the working class. Nowadays, these stereotypes exist to a lesser degree since Al Ahly now have some rich and influential fans, and Zamalek have now been gaining large support from lower-class areas as well.
Recently fans have been seen to protest against Ahmad Shobair and other members of the Egyptian FA due to decisions that Shobair and co. have made including the suspension of Shikabala and Ahmed Ghanem Sultan from the national team. They were suspended for "not co-operating with their team mates" during the African Olympics 2007 in Algeria. Another decision that has invoked the ire of fans was the large fine given to Amr Zaki for allegedly insulting an opponent. Shikabala has been fined and suspended by the Egyptian FA as well as the Zamalek board due to his violent reactions to taunts during the 100th Cairo derby.
Zamalek fans have two nicknames for the Red Devils of Al Ahly which are Al Gahly, literally the ignorants, and Hala, a woman's name which sounds similar to Ahly.

History
The history of the club goes back to 1911 when it was founded by the Belgian gentleman Merzbach as a rival to the British founded club Al-Ahly. It was administrated mostly - as was the case at that time in Egyptian football - by foreign expatriates. The first football team in the club was formed in 1913. The team took part in domestic competitions along with Al-Ahly, Al Seka AlHadid club, British army teams and school and college teams.
However at this time, an Egyptian player who had just returned from his studies in Cambridge, UK, named Hussien Hegazy established his own squad, that was named "Hegazy's Eleven" and started to rally with the British Army teams at that time. One of the British teams was a team named "Stanley's Team", that was formed by a British man named Stanley and was made up of a group of British soldiers who were stationed in Egypt. Both teams met twice, and in both matches, Hegazy's Eleven won. Excited by their symbolic resistance to the British, both Egyptian clubs Al-Ahly and Al-Zamalek sought to bring member's of "Hegazy's Eleven" to their squads. Hegazy joined Al-Ahly, while the rest of his team mates joined Al-Zamalek. In 1919, Hegazy joined Al-Zamalek and the team became the most powerful team in Egyptian soccer at that time. He later rejoined Al-Ahly in 1924.
In 1916, the idea of establishing a league in the sultanate of Egypt at that time, where Egyptian teams plays with teams from the allies' military clubs, including the British was getting more developed. Al-Zamalek was the first and only Egyptian club to participate in 1916. In 1917 Al-Ahly followed Zamalek's footsteps and took part. Both Al-Zamalek and Al-Ahly also agreed on creating their own two-game competition, the first was on 9 October 1917, which Al-Zamalek lost at home 0&ndash1, and the second was on 2 March 1917 which Al-Zamalek won on Al-Ahly's turf 1–0.
A Belgian Lawyer and former judge in the "Mixed Courts" named Merzbach became the first President of the club under the name "The Diverse Club" or "Mokhtalat". It is believed the club got this name due to the fact that the club promoted diversity and was a place where Europeans and Egyptians meet to socialize and practice sports. Some also say that the club was initially built for the Belgian community in face of the British existence.
In 1930, the club's 60 member board met and decided to expel the foreign members of the club. Al-Zamalek continued its glory days, winning many titles. The most impressive result was winning against Al-Ahly 6–0.[3] The club changed its name from Al-Mokhtalat to "Farouk". After the 1952 Revolution, the club name was changed to "Al-Zamalek".
In recent years the club has seen success in sveral national competitions. The success on the field is in contrast to financial worries off the pitch. In 2004 their financial worries were highlighted after the government’s central auditing agency, along with the youth ministry, accused the club of tax evasion in. The state demanded that the club pay some E£14 million in taxes on several player-transfer deals signed in 2000 and 2001.[4]

Name Changes
Kasr El-Nil : (1911-1913)
Al-Mokhtalat Club : (1913-1941)
Farouk Club : (1941-1952)
Nadi Al Zamalek : since 1952

Zamalek

Zamalek Sporting Club (Arabic: is one of Egypt's best sports clubs. The club was established in 1911 under the name of "Kasr El-Nil" and is currently based in Giza (a suburb of Cairo), Egypt. It promotes numerous different sports for all ages. The most famous part of Zamalek Sporting Club is the football team known as just Zamalek. It is a leading club side in Egyptian, Arabian and African football. The team is the most crowned African teams with 5 Champions Leagues, 3 African Super Cups and 2 Afro-Asian Cups, a record not matched by any other club in Africa. Zamalek is the 1st African-Asian club to top the FIFA World Club Ranking (Feb, 2003). The team's trademark look is two horizontal red stripes on a white shirt.
The club has a fierce rivalry with its Cairo rival Al-Ahly. Derby matches between teams of the two clubs are so fierce that foreign referees are always asked to officiate them. The biggest result of these derbies was in 1944 when Zamalek defeated Al-Ahly 6-0 in the Egyptian Cup final.

Today

Use of the word "football" in English-speaking countries
Further information: Football (word)
The word "football", when used in reference to a specific game can mean any one of those described above. Because of this, much friendly controversy has occurred over the term football, primarily because it is used in different ways in different parts of the English-speaking world. Most often, the word "football" is used to refer to the code of football that is considered dominant within a particular region. So, effectively, what the word "football" means usually depends on where one says it.
The name "soccer" (or "soccer football") was originally a slang abbreviation of association football and is now the prevailing term in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand where other codes of football are dominant.
Of the 45 national FIFA affiliates in which English is an official or primary language, only three (Canada, Samoa and the United States) actually use "soccer" in their organizations' official names, while the rest use football (although the Samoan Federation actually uses both). However, in some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, use of the word "football" by soccer bodies is a recent change and has been controversial.

The globalisation of Association football
Main article: History of FIFA
The need for a single body to oversee Association football had become apparent by the beginning of the 20th century, with the increasing popularity of international fixtures. The English Football Association had chaired many discussions on setting up an international body, but was perceived as making no progress. It fell to associations from seven other European countries: France, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, to form an international association. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded in Paris on May 21, 1904. Its first president was Robert Guérin. The French name and acronym has remained, even outside French-speaking countries.

The reform of American football
Both forms of rugby and American football were noted at the time for serious injuries, as well as the deaths of a significant number of players. By the early 20th century in the USA, this had resulted in national controversy and American football was banned by a number of colleges. Consequently, a series of meetings was held by 19 colleges in 1905–06. This occurred reputedly at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt. He was considered a fancier of the game, but he threatened to ban it unless the rules were modified to reduce the numbers of deaths and disabilities. The meetings are now considered to be the origin of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
One proposed change was a widening of the playing field. However, Harvard University had just built a concrete stadium and therefore objected to widening, instead proposing legalisation of the forward pass. The report of the meetings introduced many restrictions on tackling and two more divergences from rugby: the forward pass and the banning of mass formation plays. The changes did not immediately have the desired effect, and 33 American football players were killed during 1908 alone. However, the number of deaths and injuries did gradually decline.

Further divergence of the two rugby codes
Rugby league rules diverged significantly from rugby union in 1906, with the reduction of the team from 15 to 13 players. In 1907, a New Zealand professional rugby team toured Australia and Britain, receiving an enthusiastic response, and professional rugby leagues were launched in Australia the following year. However, the rules of professional games varied from one country to another, and negotiations between various national bodies were required to fix the exact rules for each international match. This situation endured until 1948, when at the instigation of the French league, the Rugby League International Federation (RLIF) was formed at a meeting in Bordeaux.
During the second half of 20th century, the rules changed further. In 1966, rugby league officials borrowed the American football concept of downs: a team could retain possession of the ball for no more than four tackles. The maximum number of tackles was later increased to six (in 1971), and in rugby league this became known as the six tackle rule.
With the advent of full-time professionals in the early 1990s, and the consequent speeding up of the game, the five metre off-side distance between the two teams became 10 metres, and the replacement rule was superseded by various interchange rules, among other changes.
The laws of rugby union also changed significantly during the 20th century. In particular, goals from marks were abolished, kicks directly into touch from outside the 22 metre line were penalised, new laws were put in place to determine who had possession following an inconclusive ruck or maul, and the lifting of players in line-outs was legalised.
In 1995, rugby union became an "open" game, that is one which allowed professional players. Although the original dispute between the two codes has now disappeared — and despite the fact that officials from both forms of rugby football have sometimes mentioned the possibility of re-unification — the rules of both codes and their culture have diverged to such an extent that such an event is unlikely in the foreseeable future.

The Football Association

The first football international, Scotland versus England. Once kept by the Rugby Football Union as an early example of rugby football.
Main article: History of The Football Association
During the early 1860s, there were increasing attempts in England to unify and reconcile the various public school games. In 1862, J. C. Thring, who had been one of the driving forces behind the original Cambridge Rules, was a master at Uppingham School and he issued his own rules of what he called "The Simplest Game" (these are also known as the Uppingham Rules). In early October 1863 another new revised version of the Cambridge Rules was drawn up by a seven member committee representing former pupils from Harrow, Shrewsbury, Eton, Rugby, Marlborough and Westminster.
At the Freemason's Tavern, Great Queen Street, London on the evening of October 26, 1863, representatives of several football clubs in the London Metropolitan area met for the inaugural meeting of The Football Association (FA). The aim of the Association was to establish a single unifying code and regulate the playing of the game among its members. Following the first meeting, the public schools were invited were sent to join the association. All of them declined, except Charterhouse and Uppingham. In total, six meetings of the FA were held between October and December 1863. After the third meeting, a draft set of rules were published. However, at the beginning of the fourth meeting, attention was drawn to the recently-published Cambridge Rules of 1863. The Cambridge rules differed from the draft FA rules in two significant areas; namely running with (carrying) the ball and hacking (kicking opposing players in the shins). The two contentious FA rules were as follows:
IX. A player shall be entitled to run with the ball towards his adversaries' goal if he makes a fair catch, or catches the ball on the first bound; but in case of a fair catch, if he makes his mark [to take a free kick] he shall not run.
X. If any player shall run with the ball towards his adversaries' goal, any player on the opposite side shall be at liberty to charge, hold, trip or hack him, or to wrest the ball from him, but no player shall be held and hacked at the same time.
At the fifth meeting it was proposed that these two rules be removed. Most of the delegates supported this, but F. W. Campbell, the representative from Blackheath and the first FA treasurer, objected. He said: "hacking is the true football". However, the motion to ban hacking was carried and Blackheath withdrew from the FA. After the final meeting on 8 December, the FA published the "Laws of Football", the first comprehensive set of rules for the game later known as football (later known in some countries as soccer).
The first FA rules still contained elements that are no longer part of association football, but which are still recognisable in other games (most notably Australian football): for instance, a player could make a fair catch and claim a mark, which entitled him to a free kick, and; if a player touched the ball behind the opponents' goal line, his side was entitled to a free kick at goal, from 15 yards in front of the goal line.

Cambridge rules
Main article: Cambridge rules
In 1848, at Cambridge University, Mr. H. de Winton and Mr. J.C. Thring, who were both formerly at Shrewsbury School, called a meeting at Trinity College, Cambridge with 12 other representatives from Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury. An eight-hour meeting produced what amounted to the first set of modern rules, known as the Cambridge rules. No copy of these rules now exists, but a revised version from circa 1856 is held in the library of Shrewsbury School. The rules clearly favour the kicking game. Handling was only allowed for a player to take a clean catch entitling them to a free kick and there was a primitive offside rule, disallowing players from "loitering" around the opponents' goal. The Cambridge rules were not widely adopted outside English public schools and universities (but it was arguably the most significant influence on the Football Association committee members responsible for formulating the rules of Association football).

The first modern balls
Main article: football (ball)

Richard Lindon (seen in 1880) is believed to have invented the first footballs with rubber bladders.
In Europe, early footballs were made out of animal bladders, more specifically pig's bladders, which were inflated. Later leather coverings were introduced to allow the ball to keep their shape.[21] However, in 1851, Richard Lindon and William Gilbert, both shoemakers from the town of Rugby (near the school), exhibited both round and oval-shaped balls at the Great Exhibition in London. Richard Lindon's wife is said to have died due to lung disease caused by blowing up pig's bladders.[22] Lindon also won medals for the invention of the "Rubber inflatable Bladder" and the "Brass Hand Pump".
In 1855, the U.S. inventor Charles Goodyear — who had patented vulcanized rubber — exhibited a spherical football, with an exterior of vulcanized rubber panels, at the Paris Exhibition Universelle. The ball was to prove popular in early forms of football in the U.S.A.[23]

Sheffield rules
Main article: Sheffield rules
By the late 1850s, many football clubs had been formed throughout the English-speaking world, to play various codes of football.
Sheffield Football Club, founded in 1857 in the English city of Sheffield, by former Harrow School pupils Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest, was later recognised as the world's oldest club playing association football. However, the club initially played its own code of football: the Sheffield rules. There were some similarities to the Cambridge rules, but players were allowed to push or hit the ball with their hands, and there was no offside rule at all, so that players known as kick throughs could be permanently positioned near the opponents' goal. The code spread to a number of clubs in the area and was popular until the 1870s.

Australian rules

An Australian rules football match at the Richmond Paddock, Melbourne, in 1866. (A wood engraving by Robert Bruce.)
Main article: Australian rules football
The invention of Australian rules football is usually attributed to Tom Wills, who published a letter in Bell's Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle, on July 10, 1858, calling for a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during winter.[24] (Official sources which include Wills' cousin, H.C.A. Harrison, as a founder of the code are now generally believed to be incorrect.)
Wills had been educated in England, at Rugby School and had played cricket for Cambridge University. The extent to which he was influenced by the various British and Irish football games is a matter of controversy, but there were similarities between some of them and his game. Australian football also has some similarities to the Australian Aboriginal game of Marn Grook (see above), which he reportedly witnessed as a child in western Victoria.
On July 31, 1858, Wills and people responding to his letter met and experimented with various forms of football.[25] On August 7, Wills umpired a game between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College, which took place under modified Rugby School rules.[26]
Melbourne Football Club was also founded on August 7, and is the oldest surviving Australian football club, but the rules it used during its first season are unknown. On May 17, 1859, at the Parade Hotel, East Melbourne, members of the club drew up the first set of laws for Australian rules football. The drafters included Wills, W.J. Hammersley, J.B. Thompson and Thomas Smith. Although their code also had pronounced similarities to the Sheffield rules, most notably in the absence of an offside rule, it is not known if they were influenced by it. A free kick was awarded for a mark (clean catch). Running while holding the ball was allowed and although it was not specified in the rules, a rugby ball was used. The club shared many members with the Melbourne Cricket Club, which was based at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and cricket ovals — which vary in size and are much larger than the fields used in other forms of football — became the standard playing field for Australian rules. The 1859 rules did not include some elements which would soon become important to the game, such as the requirement to bounce the ball while running.
Australian rules is sometimes said to be the first form of football to be codified but, as was the case in all kinds of football at the time, there was no official body supporting the rules, and play varied from one club to another. By 1866, however, several other clubs in the Colony of Victoria had agreed to play an updated version of the Melbourne FC rules, which were later known as "Victorian Rules" and "Australasian Rules". The formal name of the code later became Australian rules football (and, more recently, Australian football). By the end of the 19th century, the code had spread to the other Australian colonies and other parts of the world. However, rugby football would remain more popular in New South Wales and Queensland.

The first clubs
Main article: Oldest football clubs
During this period, the Rugby school rules appear to have spread at least as far, perhaps further, than the other schools' codes. For example, two clubs which claim to be the world's first and/or oldest football club, in the sense of a club which is not part of a school or university, are strongholds of rugby football: the Barnes Club, said to have been founded in 1839, and Guy's Hospital Football Club, in 1843. Neither date nor the variety of football played is well-documented, but such claims nevertheless allude to the popularity of rugby before other modern codes emerged.
In 1845, three boys at Rugby school were tasked with codifying the rules then being used at the school. These were the first set of written rules (or code) for any form of football.[20] This further assisted the spread of the Rugby game. For instance, Dublin University Football Club — founded at Trinity College, Dublin in 1854 and later famous as a bastion of the Rugby School game — is the world's oldest documented football club in any code.

Establishment of modern codes

British public schools
Main article: British public school football games
While football continued to be played in various forms throughout Britain, its public schools (known as private schools in other countries) are widely credited with four key achievements in the creation of modern football codes. First of all, the evidence suggests that they were important in taking football away from its "mob" form and turning it into an organised team sport. Second, many early descriptions of football and references to it were recorded by people who had studied at these schools. Third, it was teachers, students and former students from these schools who first codified football games, to enable matches to be played between schools. Finally, it was at British public schools that the division between "kicking" and "running" (or "carrying") games first became clear.
The earliest evidence that games resembling football were being played at English public schools — mainly attended by boys from the upper, upper-middle and professional classes — comes from the Vulgaria by William Horman in 1519. Horman had been headmaster at Eton and Winchester colleges and his Latin textbook includes a translation exercise with the phrase "We wyll playe with a ball full of wynde".
Richard Mulcaster, a student at Eton College in the early 16th century and later headmaster at other English schools, has been described as “the greatest sixteenth Century advocate of football”.[16] Among his contributions are the earliest evidence of organised team football. Mulcaster's writings refer to teams ("sides" and "parties"), positions ("standings"), a referee ("judge over the parties") and a coach "(trayning maister)". Mulcaster's "footeball" had evolved from the disordered and violent forms of traditional football:
[s]ome smaller number with such overlooking, sorted into sides and standings, not meeting with their bodies so boisterously to trie their strength: nor shouldring or shuffing one an other so barbarously ... may use footeball for as much good to the body, by the chiefe use of the legges.
In 1633, David Wedderburn, a teacher from Aberdeen, mentioned elements of modern football games in a short Latin textbook called "Vocabula". Wedderburn refers to what has been translated into modern English as "keeping goal" and makes an allusion to passing the ball ("strike it here"). There is a reference to "get hold of the ball", suggesting that some handling was allowed. It is clear that the tackles allowed included the charging and holding of opposing players ("drive that man back").
A more detailed description of football is given in Francis Willughby's Book of Games, written in about 1660.[17] Willughby, who had studied at Sutton Coldfield School, is the first to describe goals and a distinct playing field: "a close that has a gate at either end. The gates are called Goals". His book includes a diagram illustrating a football field. He also mentions tactics ("leaving some of their best players to guard the goal"); scoring ("they that can strike the ball through their opponents' goal first win") and; the way teams were selected ("the players being equally divided according to their strength and nimbleness"). He is the first to describe a "law" of football: "they must not strike [an opponent's leg] higher than the ball".
English public schools also devised the first offside rules, during the late 18th century.[18] In the earliest manifestations of these rules, players were "off their side" if they simply stood between the ball and the goal which was their objective. Players were not allowed to pass the ball forward, either by foot or by hand. They could only dribble with their feet, or advance the ball in a scrum or similar formation. However, offside laws began to diverge and develop differently at the each school, as is shown by the rules of football from Winchester, Rugby, Harrow and Cheltenham, during in the period of 1810-1850.[19]
By the early 19th century, (before the Factory Act of 1850), most working class people in Britain had to work six days a week, often for over twelve hours a day. They had neither the time nor the inclination to engage in sport for recreation and, at the time, many children were part of the labour force. Feast day football played on the streets was in decline. Public school boys, who enjoyed some freedom from work, became the inventors of organised football games with formal codes of rules.
Football was adopted by a number of public schools as a way of encouraging competitiveness and keeping youths fit. Each school drafted its own rules, which varied widely between different schools and were changed over time with each new intake of pupils. Two schools of thought developed regarding rules. Some schools favoured a game in which the ball could be carried (as at Rugby, Marlborough and Cheltenham), while others preferred a game where kicking and dribbling the ball was promoted (as at Eton, Harrow, Westminster and Charterhouse). The division into these two camps was partly the result of circumstances in which the games were played. For example, Charterhouse and Westminster at the time had restricted playing areas; the boys were confined to playing their ball game within the school cloisters, making it difficult for them to adopt rough and tumble running games.

Rugby School
William Webb Ellis, a pupil at Rugby School, is said to have "showed a fine disregard for the rules of football, as played in his time" by picking up the ball and running to the opponents' goal in 1823. This act is usually said to be the beginning of Rugby football, but there is little evidence that it occurred, and most sports historians believe the story to be apocryphal. Nevertheless, by 1841 (some sources say 1842), running with the ball had become acceptable at Rugby, as long as a player gathered the ball on the full or from a bounce, he was not offside and he did not pass the ball.
The boom in rail transport in Britain during the 1840s meant that people were able to travel further and with less inconvenience than they ever had before. Inter-school sporting competitions became possible. However, it was difficult for schools to play each other at football, as each school played by its own rules.
Apart from Rugby football, the public school codes have barely been played beyond the confines of each school's playing fields. However, many of them are still played at the schools which created them (see Surviving public school games below).

Official disapproval and attempts to ban football
Main article: Attempts to ban football games
Numerous attempts have been made to ban football games, particularly the most rowdy and disruptive forms. This was especially the case in England and in other parts of Europe, during the Middle Ages and early modern period. Between 1324 and 1667, football was banned in England alone by more than 30 royal and local laws. The need to repeatedly proclaim such laws demonstrated the difficulty in enforcing bans on popular games. King Edward II was so troubled by the unruliness of football in London that on April 13, 1314 he issued a proclamation banning it: "Forasmuch as there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls from which many evils may arise which God forbid; we command and forbid, on behalf of the King, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in the future."
The reasons for the ban by Edward III, on June 12, 1349, were explicit: football and other recreations distracted the populace from practicing archery, which was necessary for war.
By 1608, the local authorities in Manchester were complaining that: "With the ffotebale...[there] hath beene greate disorder in our towne of Manchester we are told, and glasse windowes broken yearlye and spoyled by a companie of lewd and disordered persons ..."[13] That same year, the word "football" was used disapprovingly by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's play King Lear contains the line: "Nor tripped neither, you base football player" (Act I, Scene 4). Shakespeare also mentions the game in A Comedy of Errors (Act II, Scene 1):
Am I so round with you as you with me,
That like a football you do spurn me thus?
You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither:
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.
"Spurn" literally means to kick away, thus implying that the game involved kicking a ball between players.
King James I of England's Book of Sports (1618) however, instructs Christians to play at football every Sunday afternoon after worship.[14] The book's aim appears to be an attempt to offset the strictness of the Puritans regarding the keeping of the Sabbath.

Calcio Fiorentino

An illustration of the Calcio Fiorentino field and starting positions, from a 1688 book by Pietro di Lorenzo Bini.
Main article: Calcio Fiorentino
In the 16th century, the city of Florence celebrated the period between Epiphany and Lent by playing a game which today is known as "calcio storico" ("historic kickball") in the Piazza della Novere or the Piazza Santa Croce. The young aristocrats of the city would dress up in fine silk costumes and embroil themselves in a violent form of football. For example, calcio players could punch, shoulder charge, and kick opponents. Blows below the belt were allowed. The game is said to have originated as a military training exercise. In 1580, Count Giovanni de' Bardi di Vernio wrote Discorso sopra 'l giuoco del Calcio Fiorentino. This is sometimes said to be the earliest code of rules for any football game. The game was not played after January 1739 (until it was revived in May 1930).

Medieval and early modern Europe
Further information: Medieval football
The Middle Ages saw a huge rise in popularity of annual Shrovetide football matches throughout Europe, particularly in England. The game played in England at this time may have arrived with the Roman occupation, but there is little evidence to indicate this. Reports of a game played in Brittany, Normandy, and Picardy, known as La Soule or Choule, suggest that some of these football games could have arrived in England as a result of the Norman Conquest.

An illustration of mob football.
These archaic forms of football, typically classified as "mob football", would be played between neighbouring towns and villages, involving an unlimited number of players on opposing teams, who would clash in a heaving mass of people struggling to drag an inflated pig's bladder by any means possible to markers at each end of a town (sometimes instead of markers, the teams would attempt to kick the bladder into the balcony of the opponents' church). There is no evidence to support the legend that these games in England evolved from a more ancient and bloody ritual of kicking the "Dane's head". Shrovetide games have survived into the modern era in a number of English towns (see below).
The first detailed description of football in England was given by William FitzStephen in about 1174-1183. He described the activities of London youths during the annual festival of Shrove Tuesday:
After lunch all the youth of the city go out into the fields to take part in a ball game. The students of each school have their own ball; the workers from each city craft are also carrying their balls. Older citizens, fathers, and wealthy citizens come on horseback to watch their juniors competing, and to relive their own youth vicariously: you can see their inner passions aroused as they watch the action and get caught up in the fun being had by the carefree adolescents.[4]
Most of the very early references to the game speak simply of "ball play" or "playing at ball". This reinforces the idea that the games played at the time did not necessarily involve a ball being kicked.
In 1314, Nicholas de Farndone, Lord Mayor of London issued a decree banning football (in the French used by the English upper classes at the time. A translation reads: "[f]orasmuch as there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large foot balls [rageries de grosses pelotes de pee] in the fields of the public from which many evils might arise which God forbid: we command and forbid on behalf of the king, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in the future." This is the earliest reference to football.
The earliest mention of a ball game that involves kicking was in 1321, in Shouldham, Norfolk: "[d]uring the game at ball as he kicked the ball, a lay friend of his... ran against him and wounded himself".[5]
In 1363, King Edward III of England issued a proclamation banning "...handball, football, or hockey; coursing and cock-fighting, or other such idle games", showing that "football" — whatever its exact form in this case — was being differentiated from games involving other parts of the body, such as handball.
King Henry IV of England gives the earliest documented use of the English word "football", in 1409, when he issued a proclamation forbidding the levying of money for "foteball".[6]
There is also an account in Latin from the end of the 15th century of football being played at Cawston, Nottinghamshire. This is the first description of a "kicking game" and the first description of dribbling: "[t]he game at which they had met for common recreation is called by some the foot-ball game. It is one in which young men, in country sport, propel a huge ball not by throwing it into the air but by striking it and rolling it along the ground, and that not with their hands but with their feet... kicking in opposite directions" The chronicler gives the earliest reference to a football field, stating that: "[t]he boundaries have been marked and the game had started.[7]
Other firsts in the mediæval and early modern eras:
"a football", in the sense of a ball rather than a game, was first mentioned in 1486.[8] This reference is in Dame Juliana Berners' Book of St Albans. It states: "a certain rounde instrument to play with ...it is an instrument for the foote and then it is calde in Latyn 'pila pedalis', a fotebal."[9]
a pair of football boots was ordered by King Henry VIII of England in 1526.[10]
women playing a form of football was in 1580, when Sir Philip Sidney described it in one of his poems: "[a] tyme there is for all, my mother often sayes, When she, with skirts tuckt very hy, with girles at football playes."[11]
the first references to goals are in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In 1584 and 1602 respectively, John Norden and Richard Carew referred to "goals" in Cornish hurling. Carew described how goals were made: "they pitch two bushes in the ground, some eight or ten foote asunder; and directly against them, ten or twelue [twelve] score off, other twayne in like distance, which they terme their Goales".[12] He is also the first to describe goalkeepers and passing of the ball between players.
the first direct reference to scoring a goal is in John Day's play The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (performed circa 1600; published 1659): "I'll play a gole at camp-ball" (an extremely violent variety of football, which was popular in East Anglia). Similarly in a poem in 1613, Michael Drayton refers to "when the Ball to throw, And drive it to the Gole, in squadrons forth they goe".

History

Early history

Kemari being played at the Tanzan Shrine, Sakurai, Japan.

Ancient games
Documented evidence of what is possibly the oldest activity resembling football can be found in a Chinese military manual written during the Warring States Period in about the 476 BC-221 BC. It describes a practice known as cuju, which involved kicking a leather ball through a hole in a piece of silk cloth strung between two 30-foot poles. This game later spread to Korea, where it was known as chuk-guk.
Another Asian ball-kicking game, which was influenced by cuju, is kemari. This is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about 600 AD. In kemari several people stand in a circle and kick a ball to each other, trying not to let the ball drop to the ground (much like keepie uppie). The game appears to have died out sometime before the mid-19th century. It was revived in 1903 and is now played at a number of festivals.
The Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games some of which involved the use of the feet. The Roman writer Cicero describes the case of a man who was killed whilst having a shave when a ball was kicked into a barber's shop. The Roman game harpastum is believed to have been adapted from a team game known as "επισκυρος" (episkyros) or pheninda that is mentioned by Greek playwright, Antiphanes (388-311BC) and later referred to by Clement of Alexandria. These games appears to have resembled rugby.

An illustration from the 1850s of Australian Aboriginal hunter gatherers. Children in the background are playing a football game, possibly Marn Grook.[2]
There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, and/or prehistoric ball games, played by indigenous peoples in many different parts of the world. For example, in 1586, men from a ship commanded by an English explorer named John Davis, went ashore to play a form of football with Inuit (Eskimo) people in Greenland.[3] There are later accounts of an Inuit game played on ice, called Aqsaqtuk. Each match began with two teams facing each other in parallel lines, before attempting to kick the ball through each other team's line and then at a goal. In 1610, William Strachey of the Jamestown settlement, Virginia recorded a game played by Native Americans, called Pahsaheman. In Victoria, Australia, indigenous people played a game called Marn Grook ("ball game"). An 1878 book by Robert Brough-Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, quotes a man called Richard Thomas as saying, in about 1841, that he had witnessed Aboriginal people playing the game: "Mr Thomas describes how the foremost player will drop kick a ball made from the skin of a possum and how other players leap into the air in order to catch it." It is widely believed that Marn Grook had an influence on the development of Australian rules football (see below).
Mesoamerican ballgames played with rubber balls are also well-documented as existing since before this time, but these had more similarities to basketball or volleyball, and since their influence on modern football games is minimal, most do not class them as football.
These games and others may well go far back into antiquity and may have influenced later football games. However, the main sources of modern football codes appear to lie in western Europe, especially England.

What is foot ball

Football is the name given to a number of different team sports. The most popular of these world-wide is association football (also known as soccer). The English word "football" is also applied to American football (also known as gridiron), Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, rugby football (rugby league and rugby union), and related games. Each of these codes (specific sets of rules, or the games defined by them) is referred to as "football".
These games involve:
a large spherical or prolate spheroid ball, which is itself called a football.
a team scoring goals and/or points, by moving the ball to an opposing team's end of the field and either into a goal area, or over a line.
the goal and/or line being defended by the opposing team.
players being required to move the ball mostly by kicking and — in some codes — carrying and/or passing the ball by hand.
goals and/or points resulting from players putting the ball between two goalposts.
offside rules, in most codes, restricting the movement of players.
in some codes, points are mostly scored by players carrying the ball across the goal line.
in most codes players scoring a goal must put the ball either under or over a crossbar between the goalposts.
players in some codes receiving a free kick after they take a mark/make a fair catch.
Peoples from around the world have played games which involved kicking and/or carrying a ball, since ancient times. However, most of the modern codes of football have their origins in England.

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