Apr 13, 2008 14:19
For as long as I can remember (which is admittedly not too far with my bad memory), I've had at least one friend who attempts a verbal de-pantsing of my beloved NFL by reminding me that it isn't real football (the game of soccer, to those of you readers who may be from Mars). These false euro-snobs seem to embrace every possible chance to debunk my favorite game due to it's name alone based simply on what the rest of the world calls it.
Well, I did a little research and found that we Americans have as much right to use the term football for our sport as anybody else does. Turns out that back in 1863 in London, the first of several meetings began in an attempt to make a set of universal rules for the widely varying game that was called "Football". These meetings led to a split in the group which resulted in one group forming Association Football (which remains the official name, with Football and Soccer both being slang names originally used by the English) and the other group calling itself Rugby Football. Around the same time, american colleges were embracing Rugby Football and within a decade or so made a few rule changes and dropped the "rugby" portion or the name and Football as we know it came into a recognizable existence.
To put it simply, next time somebody tries to tell you that American Football isn't real football, feel free to tell them that the can shove it where the sun doesn't shine because we can trace the evolution of our sport back to before the same blasted conference where they attempted to unify the rules. We can't help it if the rest of the world is too lazy to call Soccer by it's proper name of "Association Football" instead of simply Football.
Pardon me, I need to get back to my mock draft board. I need to see who my beloved Chicago Bears should be picking for my beloved Football.
Grunt.
football