Over the next few weeks the Football World Cup is being played in Qatar. An estimated 1.2 million football fans from across the world will travel to Qatar to watch the matches live. A further 5 billion worldwide are expected to watch it on TV in their homes and football clubs. Football is a game in which two teams of 11 players, using any part of their bodies except their hands and arms, try to maneuver the ball into the opposing team’s goal. Only the goalkeeper is permitted to handle the ball and may do so only within the penalty area surrounding the goal. The team that scores the most goals wins. It is the world’s most popular ball game in numbers of participants and spectators. Statistics say that over 250 million people play the sport in over 200 nations.
However, football or something similar to it, is a very ancient game. One of the first mentions of a game like football is found in China from the second and third centuries BC. A game that resembles modern football was played and written about in a Chinese military manual. Similarly, the Japanese had a game similar to football about 600AD and was played by the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto. The Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games, some of which involved the use of the feet. The Roman game called the Harpastum is believed to have been adapted from a Greek team game called Episkyros. Harpastum is recognized as an early form of football by FIFA. An early reference to a ball game played in Britain comes from the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, and is attributed to Nennius, who describes a party of boys … playing at ball. Even King Henry IV of England has presented one of the earliest documented using the English word “football”, in 1409, when he issued a proclamation forbidding the levying of money for “foteball”.
While football continued to be played in various forms throughout Britain, it was the private schools which are widely credited with four key achievements in the creation of modern football disciplines. First of all, the evidence suggests that they turned it into an organized team sport, one side playing against another. Secondly, many early descriptions of football and references to it are recorded by people who had studied at these private schools. This written history in turn made it more popular. Thirdly, it was teachers, students, and former students from these schools who first codified football games, to enable matches to be played between schools as a competition. Finally, it was at English private schools that the distinction between “kicking” and “running” games first became clear. Through them football was clearly defined as a game played by two teams kicking the ball and the origin of modern football traces its roots to the UK.
The Bible doesn’t mention football but it does speak of sport and the competitiveness of the Greek games. The discipline that is required by the athlete to achieve the win, especially when running. The apostle Paul states in first Corinthians chapter 9 verse 24 ‘Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.’ He is comparing running a race to living your life and exhorts all to be disciplined like the athlete and to run well so as to win the race and the prize of eternal life. In Galatians chapter 5 verse 7 he repeats this thought saying ‘Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?’ People can start well but then obstacles can come across their paths but they are to overcome the problems, and should not let anything stop them. They should continue obeying the truth of the Bible and keep going on, keep running the race so as to win the prize. P. Pilgrim pilgrimway101@yahoo.com
