How football and rugby began :)

As far back as 2500 BC the Chinese played  kicking game called "tsu chu". Similar games were played by the Romans and North American Indians. In England in medieval times "mob football" was very popular. In 1583, Phillip Stubbs said about players:

"Sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometimes their legs, sometimes their arms"

By the 19th century, with the help of English public schools, the game had become less violent. Each school had different rules for playing the game. On the playing fields of Eton the ball was kicked high and long. At Rugby School the boys caught and ran with ball. Problems arose when boys from the different schools went to the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge and wanted to continue playing. This is from the description of a match played in Cambridge in 1848:

"The result was chaos, as every man played the rules he was accustomed to at his school"

It became common to play half a match by one side's rules, the second half by the other's. That's how half-time appeared. But this wasn't good enough for the university men. They decided to change the rules once and for all.
On Monday October 26 1863, they met and by the end of the day they formed the Football Association and a "Book of Laws". The sticking point was whether a player could pick up the ball and run with it or not, and this wasn't decided until December 8. From this decision the games of both football and rugby were born.

Enjoy! :)