Soccer Kicks Back
Soccer has to be one of the original sports games every played by people. I can just imagine
cave dwellers kicking around the old soccer ball. Or maybe it was a soccer rock? A soccer coconut perhaps? Its got to be one of the simplest
form of sports play imaginable. I mean, really, I kick the ball this way and you try to kick the ball that way. Whether the ball (coconut?)
goes more this way or more that way determines the winner. While it may be easy for me to imagine soccer being kicked around by a bunch of
caveman sports enthusiasts, the earliest official record of soccer by played was in China about 3000 years ago.
Wow, thats like 750 World Cups, if anyone was keeping track.
Soccer is also kind of bizarre, in that its one of the few sports I can think of where you use
your head for more than just strategizing. You actually can use your head to make contact with the ball. Imagine trying that in football
(American) or hockey for that matter. Nothing link deflecting a slap shot with the forehead for a game winning goal. Stitches dont hurt that
much. Those soccer guys are kinda funny that way. But the ultimate head shot in soccer was a little more bizarre. Gruesome actually.
Apparently in more medieval times, the head of a defeated Dannish prince was used as the ball by early day soccer hooligans in the east of
England. Yuck. Think Id be shopping for some new soccer shoes after that match. Its a wonder soccer ever caught on with the Danes after a
defeat like that one.
As with many games these days, soccer had its origins on the battlefield. Rival towns would
play soccer against each other, with little or no rules, and massive sized teams. Violent, bloody games, with hundreds of people kicking,
punching, tripping in an attempt to win the soccer match. Sounds kind of like today, except today, that sounds like a more apt description of
the fans instead of the players.
You think its tough being a soccer referee today, imagine a few hundred years ago. At least
today, they keep the fans and referees separated. As time went on, and the local authorities realized that banning soccer wasnt going to
work, more civilized soccer fans brought rules and order to the game of soccer. Not everyone agreed, and there were some splinter groups that
went off and formed derivatives of the game. Rugby was one.
So today we have the modern game of soccer that we even allow our children to play. A far
reach from the early beginnings of the sport. Perhaps an analogy can be drawn between soccer and many new forms of expression. In the
beginning, things can be a bloody mess, but a few thousand years of civility and anything can be reduced to childs play.
By: Chris Campbell
For more on soccer visit http://www.soccerplaylive.com or read other soccerarticles at http://foolishmumbles.com/category/soccer/
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