Soccer Ball History

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 history of soccer goes along, evidently, with the soccer ball history. When referring to the soccer ball history you should distinguish between some stages or ages in which changes in the soccer ball occurred. Thus there are the 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 pig or cow bladders and wrapped 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 soccer similarities have been discovered.

Pre-medieval and medieval legends and stories that can be considered as part of the soccer ball history, also talk about bladders and skulls used for game playing. There is a story about people in two villages playing with a ball. 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. Once inflated they would try to keep the ‘ball’ in the air by by means of both feet and hands. 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 with a prototype for the first inflatable soccer ball bladders. 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 already enjoyed the use of stronger rubber balls that could withstand heavier and heavier pressure.

Sent by: Junior Golf Bags.