[Mudcat]

I have the impression that soccer is originally England's game and has spread from those roots. Is that right?

[pjesnik24]

possible, but Croats brought it to perfection!

U BOJ U BOJ ZA NAROD SVOJ!

[Mudcat]

U BOJ U BOJ ZA NAROD SVOJ!

You can say that again!

[Lucas]

I guess: "Fight, Fight for your nation"

[tacomax]

I have the impression that soccer is originally England's game and has spread from those roots. Is that right?

England invented just about everything. Don't you forget it.

[Willie Bee]

England invented just about everything. Don't you forget it.

This post set me on a cyber journey to find out about all of the wonderful English inventions. As it turns out, I needn't venture past the first site that came up at google under the search 'English inventions" and had a blog entry from this very day. An excerpt below. Enjoy.


http://exultationsanddifficulties.blogspot.com/2004/06/great-english-inventions.html

The English invented meat and they invented everything else with any kind of value in the world. For example, tins to keep biscuits in, pen holders, Sellotape, trees, fridge magnets, music, New York School poetry, and shampoo that smells of strawberries. In 1857 the troops in Africa were getting a little hungry and they were fed up with eating small dark native huts, and turned their attention to the small dark natives. Within hours they had invented roast beef, chops, mince, and turkey. They proceeded to export their new invention all over the world, except to those big wet places: the oceans. Then they invented fish. And wow, with all those spectacular minds, with all the wonderful things the English can do, it’s so ironic that I had to go to America to be set straight, to find Love. Americans invented stealing people's hearts although it’s a popular belief that cannibal Englishmen did this first. But the English invented irony. It was a few days after they invented iron. The word was first used as an adjective: "That thing is very irony". Did I mention how the English also invented adjectives? But some people, Americans mainly, think we have not yet invented modesty. We have invented modesty, actually, but we don't use everything we invent. Some things we give to others. We also invented generosity. But Americans invented Botox and will live forever and out-invent all the English and look damn good doing it. Being superficial always wins. But the English invented "poetic daring". Never forget that.

[tacomax]

Good stuff, WB. That brought a tear to my eye.

[Willie Bee]

Got quite a chuckle out that piece myself, taco. Very cleverly written. E-mailed it to a lass from the north there in Dundee who really fits that old SNL routine "If it's not Scottish, it's crrrrrrrrap!" to a T; everything was either invented within a few miles of Dundee or by someone who was born within a few miles of Dundee. Sure it will be all over that part o' the old country by this time tomorrow.

[Mudcat]

Are you guys going to make me do actual research and figure this out for myself?

[tacomax]

England invented football, rugby (from which American and Canadian football originated), cricket, tennis, rounders (from which baseball originated). England also invented tins to keep biscuits in.

England didn't invent basketball but since it's a sack of cack sport then who really cares?

[Willie Bee]

Are you guys going to make me do actual research and figure this out for myself?

Here you go, Mudder...

http://www.soccerhall.org/history/world_soccer_origins.htm

The following is brief synopsis of the world origins of the sport of soccer.

Egypt and the Near East
Historians have suggested that fertility rites in ancient Egypt and religious ceremonies in the ancient Near East may have been linked to the development of the game.

Alaska and Canada
The Eskimos played aqsaqtuk or soccer on ice. Balls were stuffed with grass, caribou hair, and moss. One legend tells of two villages playing against each other with goals ten miles apart. There is no known date of origin.

Mexico and Central America
The creation of the rubber ball occurred in Mexico and Central America. These people played games on a recessed court shaped like a capital "I". The court was 40-50 feet long with vertical walls several feet high. In the middle of each wall was a mounted stone or wooden ring and the object was to project the hard rubber ball through the ring.

United States of America
In the early 1600s, the American Indians played a game called pasuckuakohowog, meaning "they gather to play ball with the foot." Beaches, a half mile wide with goals 1 mile apart, served as playing fields for as many as 1000 people at a time. Games were rough and often resulted in broken bones, but no one could be identified because players disguised themselves with ornaments and war paint making retaliation close to impossible. It was common for games to be carried over from one day to the next, with a celebratory feast following the conclusion of the match.

China and the Far East
The earliest mention researchers have found of a soccer-like game states that balls made of animal skin were kicked through a gap in a net stretched between poles 30 feet high. Records indicate that tsu chu was played as a part of the Emperor's birthday celebration. The Chinese also played some form of the game to train soldiers during the Ts'in Dynasty (255 BC-206 BC). According to records, tsu chu was also played extensively during the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD).

Pacific Islands
Pacific Island inhabitants were early to develop games using hands and feet. They used coconuts, oranges and pig bladders as balls.

England
One story speaks of using an enemy's skull as a ball; another tells of a village defeating a Roman team and running them out of town in 217 AD. Nonetheless, the history of the game in England during the 5th-11th centuries is vague. By the 12th century, the game had become a violent mob sport with no rules and any sort of behavior condoned, which later earned a succession of royal bans. Regardless of the bans, the sport grew in popularity. Formal rules of today's game were adopted in England in 1863