Some would say soccer is the most popular game in the world; we are not sure about that, but it is definitely one of the oldest. The history of soccer goes along, evidently, with the soccer ball history. When referring to the soccer ball history you should distinguish between some stages or ages in which changes in the soccer ball occurred. Thus there are the early ball history, the balls in the 1800s, balls in the 1900s, and the modern times.
Early soccer ball history goes back to the times before Christ. Kicking a round object for fun was surely a pastime to many cultures. South American Indians were among the first to use a form of elastic ball that pre-dated the use of rubber, discovered a thousand years later. The early soccer balls consisted of different items from animal and human skulls to pig or cow bladders and wrapped up cloth. Between 255 BC and 220 AD, the Chinese played ‘tsu chu’ using animal-skin balls dribbled through gaps in a net stretched between two poles. Ancient Romans and Greeks played a game which involved kicking and carrying a ball, whereas in certain ancient Egyptian rites are said to have had similarities with soccer.
Pre-medieval and medieval legends and stories that can be considered as part of the soccer ball history, also talk about bladders and skulls used for game playing. There is a story about people in two villages playing with a ball. An entire village ran and kicked a ball with the purpose of getting it into the other village’s square. The other village would in turn try to kick the skull to the first village’s square. In medieval times they used the bladders from animals killed for winter sustenance. They used to inflate them and then try to keep the ‘ball’ in the air by using their hands or feet. In time people improvements to the shape and strength of the ball were brought by covering it with leather.
The soccer ball history of the 1800s bears the influence of the introduction of vulcanized rubber, Charles Goodyear’s invention. In 1855 the same Charles Goodyear managed to create the first vulcanized rubber soccer balls. In 1862 H.J. Lindon came up with one of the first inflatable bladders for soccer balls. He is also credited to have invented the rugby ball; however he did not patent the idea for it as, in those days, the round ball was preferred for being more easily used. By the 1900s the soccer ball history had entered on a different path, bringing these entertainment objects a lot closer to what they are today.
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