STL All Sports

Since the Greeks, and then the Greeks and the Romans, indulged in Olympic Games for many centuries, in which they featured the sports known to those times, it is rather strange that football-if it existed-never found its way to any Olympic program. Nor was it ever mentioned as a means of contest between the rival nations at any time. Beyond one nonchalant mention by a historian, it has no place in history.

It has been declared by the historian who "discovered" football in long-ago Greece that, after acceptance of the sport by the Romans, it was ruled out by Augustus Caesar, first emperor of Rome (63 B.C.-14 A.D.), as being too "gentle" a game to fit soldiers for war. Nowhere is such an edict officially credited to Augustus. It does not seem to be written anywhere in ancient history that warriors were trained for battle by indulgence in sport games. That's a modern procedure.

Therefore, the game credited to the Greeks, lacking anything more than passing mention by one historian, might have been a game of fancy-not fact.

The second mention given to football as an "ancient game" is by Dr. E. Norman Gardiner, in his volume "Athletics of the Ancient World," published by the Oxford University Press in England, in which he quotes the following from papers written, perhaps in the late 19th Century, by Prof. H.A. Giles:

"An old Chinese writer, speaking of the town of Lin-tzu, says there were none among its inhabitants who did not perform with pipes, or some string instrument, fight cocks, race dogs, or play football."

Since "football" comes from the English of "futeballe," the Chinese, if they ever did play football, had another word for it. What that word was escaped Professor Giles. The professor quoted the writings of a Chinese poet, in which the poet referred to the game as "football." Whether he actually called it "football," or by some Chinese name, which the professor translated into "football," is not clear.

It was stated by Professor Giles that the ball used was round, made of 8 pointed strips of leather, filled with hair, and that footballs, filled with air, were introduced in 500 A.D.