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This month, the 23rd World Cup kicks off – for the first time featuring 48 competing teams and being hosted across three countries (the US, Canada and Mexico). We take this moment to revisit Dr Ariel Hessayon’s updated article about the history of the beautiful game – from violent peasants, to multi-million pound megastars.

In Britain, the first post-Roman literary reference to a ball may be a ninth century chronicler’s remark that at Maes Elledi in the region of Glywysing (Glamorgan), ‘boys were playing ball’. Archaeological evidence from Winchester and London indicates that from roughly the tenth to mid-twelfth centuries balls were small and could be caught in the palm of a hand. They were made by sewing shaped pieces of leather around a core of tightly packed moss and somewhat resembled modern tennis balls. Before the end of the thirteenth century ball games were being played throughout northern Europe; notably 'sollen' in Flanders, 'soule' in Brittany, 'kolven' in the Netherlands, 'keatsen' in Friesland and 'pärkspel' in Gotland. Indeed, several medieval illuminated manuscripts – mostly of continental origin – show that various ball games were popular at this time.

Around 1174 the cleric William fitz Stephen noted that on Shrove Tuesday – i.e. the last day before Lent – after lunch the youth of London would go out beyond the city walls into the fields to play ‘the famous game of ball’. The scholars of each school had their own ball, while the followers of each trade [apprentices?] had theirs. This passage has been much debated. It probably refers not to football, as has occasionally been suggested, but to a form of handball.

Whether or not participants used their feet as well as hands, ball games – which sometimes also used bats – required no specialised equipment and were thus open to all social classes.  As such, they were quite unlike expensive courtly pursuits such as jousting, hunting and hawking. It is also worth noting that the innovation of a goal (usually a prominent local landmark) may have derived from the chivalric ‘passage of arms’ – that is a military exercise in which a group of knights attempted to defend the gate of a castle or town from attack.

Mob football

The earliest unambiguous reference to football in England dates from Cornwall in 1302.  Here, in the tithing of Blisland [a tithing was a small administrative unit], a man called Andrew de Ros died after being tripped and knocked unconscious while ‘playing football’. The perpetrator ran away and had his goods confiscated.

A dozen years later, about April 1314, a proclamation for preserving the peace in London was issued during the mayoralty of Nicholas de Farndone.  This was at a moment when Edward II could ill-afford domestic civil disorder given that Robert the Bruce was seizing settlements and castles in Scotland (Edward’s army would suffer a heavy defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn two months later).  The proclamation itself highlighted the ‘great disturbance in the City, because of the rowdy striking of great footballs in the crush of the people, from which many evils perchance may arise’. Accordingly, football was banned within the city on pain of imprisonment. The original French also makes clear that football was being played on the streets of London rather than in open ground outside the walls.

That football could lead to serious injury or death is borne out by the records. In 1321, for example, one player died from wound sustained after accidentally running onto a sheathed knife. Then in 1373 eight men were brought to the Mayor’s court of London to answer a charge that they, together with others:

"with force and arms, to wit, swords and knives, made an assembly, under colour of playing with a football, in order to assault others, occasion disputes, and perpetuate other evil deeds against the peace in Sopers Lane, Cheap and Cordwainer Street."

Whether these men were guilty of using a football match as cover for instigating a riot in the streets of London or whether this contest got out of hand resulting in the assault of non-participants is difficult to establish. But the charge clearly links football with violence. Moreover, this match took place on Shrove Tuesday. This is important because it is the earliest known example of football played on that day, and one of very few recorded instances before the Reformation.

Moving north, there are several examples of ball games in county Durham, Northumberland, and Yorkshire. Thus during a football match at Pontefract on Shrove Tuesday 1477 one Leonard Metcalf accidentally hit Robert Pilkington with his ball. Pilkington drew his dagger, prompting Metcalf to apologise. Metcalf then attempted to resume his game, at which point Pilkington knifed him in the heart. Pilkington had also set fire to a chapel and stolen cattle, for all which crimes he was sentenced to hang. Nonetheless, he was reprieved after claiming benefit of clergy.

Yet despite a succession of royal proclamations promoting archery and a statute of 1409-10 forbidding labourers and servants from "playing at the Balls", this "common, undignified, and worthless" game remained ever popular.

Football was also entertaining; a spectator sport in the making. The dangers of the game though, remained. Civic authorities in 17th-century London, Manchester, Grimsby and Clitheroe banned football playing in the streets, fearing broken windows and tumults.

They were not being alarmist, as a riot instigated by football players in the fens only a few months before the outbreak of the First English Civil War demonstrated. Another disturbance became a prelude to the Second Civil War: unhappy that Christmas had been abolished, rioters at Canterbury used a football match to attract an unruly crowd to their cause.

In the 18th century, the rules we now recognise on the pitch today, began to emerge. At one match it was determined that "two men will not be allowed to engage one only". Similarly, at a game played at Ditchingham in 1741, there were judges whose job was to settle "all differences that may arise."

By the late 18th century, members of the aristocracy, keen to have a healthy work force, began organising matches - often in concert with local publicans. Prizes in the form of hats were provided for the winners (losers tended to receive stockings).

Public school rules

From the late 18th century and through into the 19th century, increased concern for public order, tighter labour discipline, the enclosure of land and migration to the cities led to an erosion of popular customs. Football was not immune from these changes.

Though the game continued to be played in highly publicised contests, traditional football was in decline. At the same time the public schools, where hitherto football had been regarded as ungentlemanly and "fit only for butcher boys", began to codify the rules of their ball games.

At Rugby, written rules that permitted players to carry ball were set down in 1845. Eton followed suit in 1849 with rules that, in deliberate contrast to Rugby, forbade Etonians from handling the ball. At the universities, undergraduates brought with them the rules favoured by their public schools.

After some attempts to reconcile the various codes Cambridge produced a revised code in 1863 which made no mention of handling the ball. These Cambridge rules were to form the basis of the code eventually adopted by the Football Association established later that year.

Passion and professionalism

The growth of Association Football in the late 19th century was remarkable. Amateur clubs sometimes linked to firms or churches, but more often reflecting neighbourhood loyalties, mushroomed in the industrial towns and cities of the north (in the 1880s Liverpool alone had more than one hundred).

Many teams built their grounds among factories and the worker's houses, cementing the support of their local communities. By the early 20th century many of the largest cities had two major teams and the often intense local rivalry between these clubs was regularly played out before hordes of excited, partisan spectators that represented the largest regular gatherings in peace-time.

The sectarian-fuelled passions of the 50,000 or more who regularly witnessed the New Year's Day clashes between Celtic and Rangers found an outlet in 1909 when 6,000 fans rioted following a draw between the two teams; 54 policemen were injured, the ground damaged and virtually every street-lamp in the vicinity of the stadium destroyed.

The fierce competitiveness that drove teams towards league and cup glory accelerated the professionalisation of football. Hungry for success on the pitch, teams began to recruit players from far and wide to realise their ambitions. Victorious teams, like the side that won the cup for Tottenham Hotspur in 1901, often contained no local players. Yet supporters continued to identify with the individuals that wore their team colours.

Professional football players were perceived as working-class heroes and were paid accordingly: in 1931 the maximum annual salary of a professional footballer (including unofficial bonuses) was probably nearly £400, a figure far higher than the average industrial wage. Transfer fees were also forever on the increase.

In the 1930s football was still seen as cheap entertainment, but it was also big business, providing growing employment opportunities. Demand for news had created sports papers like the Saturday afternoon Pink 'Un and Green 'Un. Demand for food and drink benefited the catering trade. Demand for cigarettes led to the cult of the cigarette card made famous by John Player and Son. And the demand for gambling spawned pools companies like Littlewoods and Vernons.

There was also advertising; the FA Cup finalists of 1934 promoted flannel trousers, Shredded Wheat and shoe-polish. By the eve of the World War II, The Times could describe football as "something like a national industry".

The golden age?

In the post-war era we have witnessed an ever-widening gulf between rich and poor clubs, where success for the elite is no longer measured by performance on the pitch but by performance on the stock exchange.

Clubs now recruit managers from outside the UK and buy players of every nationality. In their wake have come team doctors, dieticians, sports psychologists and publicists. Players are now celebrities with agents and personal assistants. The best earn more in a week than the prime minister does in a year – and more in six weeks than a nurse will make in a lifetime of service with the NHS.

The spectacle we watch and read about daily is sold to us with an ever-increasing sophistication that maximises a brand loyalty unparallelled on the high street.

Financial Fair Play has proved to be toothless. Hardly a surprise, perhaps, given the high-stakes nature of the game.

So what now? No salary caps and unlimited transfer fees mean that in England nothing has prevented the richest clubs from buying not only the best established players but also many unproven kids – stars in the making who aren't yet old enough to vote. And if the best indicator of where a team will finish is its annual wage bill – occasional managerial brilliance and incompetence excepted – things might get a little too predictable for fans already forced to shell out more to watch a game than they ever have before.

This article was originally published on ¿Û¿Û´«Ã½ News and has been updated with the new earliest record of football. A longer version is available on Dr Hessayon's .