142.Foot Ball

Football is the name given to a number of different team sports. The most popular of these are Association Football (also known as soccer), American football, Rugby football, Australian Rules football, Gaelic football, and Canadian football.All of these games involve scoring points with a round or ellipsoid ball (itself called a football), by moving the ball into, onto or over, a goal area or line defended by the opposing team. Many of the modern games have their origins in England, but — since ancient times — many peoples around the world have played games which involved kicking and/or carrying a ball

The object of all football games is to advance the ball by kicking, running with, or passing and catching, either to the opponent's end of the field where points or goals can be scored by, depending on the game, putting the ball across the goal line between posts and under a crossbar, putting the ball between upright posts (and possibly over a crossbar), or advancing the ball across the opponent's goal line while maintaining possession of the ball.

In all football games, the winning team is the one that has the most points or goals when a specified length of time has elapsed.Documented evidence of what is possibly the oldest organised activity resembling football can be found in a Chinese military manual written during the Han Dynasty in about 2nd century BC. It describes a practice known as which involved kicking a leather ball through a hole in a piece of silk cloth strung between two 30 foot poles. It was not a game as such but more of a spectacle for the amusement of the Emperor and it may have been performed as long as 3000 years ago.

Another ball-kicking game of Far Eastern origin that may have been influenced by tsu chu is "kemari" which is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about 600AD. In kemari several individuals stand in a circle and kick a ball to each other, trying not to let the ball drop to the ground (much like keepie uppie). The game survived through many years but appears to have died out sometime before the mid 19th century. In 1903 in a bid to restore ancient traditions the game was revived and it can now be seen played for the benefit of tourists at a number of festivals.