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 soccer ball history is in fact the history of soccer. When referring to the soccer ball history you should distinguish between some stages or ages in which changes in the soccer ball occurred. Thus we can talk about early ball history, the balls in the 1800s, balls in the 1900s, and modern models.
Early soccer ball history goes back to the times before Christ. Kicking a round object for fun was surely a pastime to many cultures. Indians in South America are known to have used a light elasticized ball, which is amazing since rubber started being produced only a few thousand years later. The early soccer balls consisted of different items from animal and human skulls to cow or pig bladders and stitched 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 also had a game which involved carrying and kicking 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 qualified as part of the soccer ball history, also mention the use of animal bladders or skulls to play games similar to modern soccer. An instance of the use of an animal bladder ball is presented in the legend about the ‘game’ between two villages. An entire village used to kick a skull along a path to a nearby village 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 noticed that covering the bladder with leather would maintain the shape better and longer.
The soccer ball history of the 1800s was marked by the 1836 patenting of vulcanized rubber by Charles Goodyear. In 1855 the same Charles Goodyear designed and then built the first vulcanized rubber soccer balls. In 1862 H.J. Lindon developed one of the first inflatable bladders for soccer balls. Although he is the father of the rugby ball too, he did not patent the idea at the time because of the preference for the round ball. 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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Tags: history, league, soccer, soccer_ball, sport