history of football

Football began to develop in the 1800s. Football was originally a combination of soccer and rugby.

In 1874, the first game resembling present-day football was played. The game was between Harvard and McGill College. As we said, at this time, they played football like soccer and rugby.  Harvard wanted to play the game like soccer, and McGill wanted to play the game like rugby. So you can see there was a lot of confusion. They decided to play two games. One game was played like rugby and the other game was played like soccer.

After the two games, Harvard agreed that McGill's way (like rugby) was better. They liked it so much that they decided to introduce the sport to other Eastern colleges. And that was how college football began.

The first NFL (National Football League) game was played on August 31, 1895 between a team from Latrobe, PA and a team from Jeannette. Jeannette lost 12-0. It wasn't really until the 1950s though that the NFL earned its popularity.