The founding of the Football Association
In mid-19th-century England ball games were played a thousand different ways. Every school, every university and every club had its own rules: in some you could pick the ball up and run with it, in others not; in some you could kick an opponent in the shins, in others it was banned. When two teams wanted to play each other, they first had to agree on what game they were going to play.
The idea of Ebenezer Cobb Morley, a solicitor who played for Barnes, was simple: create an association to set a single set of rules, as already existed in cricket.
It took six meetings, until December. The big clash was over two things: whether you could run with the ball in your hands, and whether you could kick an opponent to stop him, what was known as hacking. Blackheath defended both and, when the majority voted against, walked out of the association.
Those who stayed published the first Laws of the Game in December 1863. Those who left carried on playing their way and, years later, founded their own body: the Rugby Football Union, in 1871.
That first rulebook was very different from today's. There was no crossbar, no referee on the pitch, no penalties, and the number of players was not fixed. All of that came over the following decades. But that meeting in a tavern produced the name the game still goes by: association football, which in student slang was shortened to soccer.
That football is an English invention of the 19th century.
That what the English did was codify it, not invent it. Ball games played with the feet had existed for centuries across half the world: cuju in China, calcio in Florence, or the matches between whole villages in England itself. The contribution of 1863 was agreeing on a common set of rules, and that is what allowed the game to spread around the world as we know it.
Another 48 internationally known footballers were born on this day. We do not list them for the sake of it: only those with a story to tell make it here.
Every day of the year has its story. Highlighted days are already out: click to see who was born or what happened on that date. The faded ones go live on their day, at midnight (Spain time). 40 published.
Football almanac · Elopi23
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Nothing from this month is out yet. One goes live each day, on its own date.
Nothing from this month is out yet. One goes live each day, on its own date.
Nothing from this month is out yet. One goes live each day, on its own date.
Nothing from this month is out yet. One goes live each day, on its own date.
Nothing from this month is out yet. One goes live each day, on its own date.
Nothing from this month is out yet. One goes live each day, on its own date.
★ published · ✎ written, waiting for their day · the red circle is today
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Dates, clubs, individual awards and photos come from Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, under free licences, and update themselves. Ages are not written anywhere: they are calculated the moment you open the page, so this page always shows the right age, this year and twenty years from now. If any of these players signs for another club or wins an award, their profile picks it up on its own. What is written by hand is the story and the judgement: who the day belongs to, and why.