A little less than a year ago, I became a soccer referee. Since then, I have refereed all ages from ten up to adult, in club games and high school. I love the beautiful game, but I didn’t really know where it came from. After doing a little research, I found this short history. The full text of the book is available for free online here.
It covers from the beginnings of football in the mid-nineteenth century in England through the mid-twentieth century. The focus is on the early part of the history, the first fifty to seventy years. When I picked up the book, I knew about the relationship between soccer (or association football) and rugby football. But I didn’t know much about how those games evolved separately into all the varieties we have now like American football, Canadian football, and Australian Rules football. This book is a great introduction to the development and relationships between all those football rules.
The writing, however, was not the best. It might be a cultural thing. This book was written and published originally in England. Regardless, I found much of the writing stilted and some of the sentence construction would just yank me out of the narrative. That said, the stories and information, including the extensive notes and bibliography, are so valuable I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in any variety of football.
My rating: 3.5/5
