1、冀教版（一起）三年级英语下册拓展资料Unit 3 Lesson 21History of Football 足球运动的历史Football, outdoor game, played by two opposing teams with a ball of various types, usually an inflated bladder or rubber bag in a leather or rubber cover, spherical or ellipsoidal in shape. The object of the game is to score points by carr
2、ying the ball across the goal line of the opponents, or by kicking the ball through or over the goal of the opponents. The principal types of football played today are American football; association football, or Soccer; Canadian football; Australian football; Gaelic football; and Rugby football. Tou
3、ch football is an informal variation of the game, with any number of players and using any kind of field. Instead of being tackled, the ball carrier is stopped by being touched. Football is a game of antiquity, known to many peoples. The ancient Greeks played a form of football known as harpaston, a
4、nd the Romans played a similar game, harpastum. In medieval times a form of football known as calico flourished in Italy. Natives of Polynesia are known to have played a variety of the game with a football made of bamboo fibers, and the Inuit played a form of football with a leather ball filled with
5、 moss. Most modern versions of football, however, originated in England, where a form of the game was known in the 12th century. In subsequent centuries football became so popular that various English monarchs, including Edward II and Henry VI, forbade the game on the theory that it took interest aw
6、ay from the military sport of archery. Nevertheless, football grew steadily in popularity. At the beginning of the 19th century several types of the game permitting players to kick the ball but not carry it were being played at various English schools, including Eton, Harrow, and Rugby. The modifica
7、tion of the game that permits carrying the ball was first introduced at Rugby in 1823 when one schoolboy disregarded the established rules, tucked the ball under his arm, and dashed across the goal of the opponents. Thereafter numerous football clubs sprang up in England, some playing the kicking ga
8、me, others the ball-carrying game. In 1863 a number of clubs devoted to the kicking game met in London, organized the London Football Association, and adopted a code of uniform rules; this type of game was henceforth known as association football, and later soccer, a word derived from association. I
9、n 1871 a group devoted to the ball-carrying game organized the Rugby Football Union and adopted the rules then in vogue at Rugby School; that form of the game thereafter was known as rugby football. The two organizations still exist, and each exercises control over its respective game. Football was
10、first played in Australia about the middle of the 19th century, based on rugby, soccer, and Gaelic football. Australian Rules football (as it is officially called) is a fast-paced game, played on an oval field with teams of 18 players. The ball cannot be thrown but can be caught; overhand catching,
11、known as high marking, and long kicking are the two distinctive features of the game. In the United States, a form of football using a blown-up bladder was played in the colony of Virginia in 1609. In 1820 students at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) participated in a soccer like
12、 game, called ball own, in which they advanced the ball by punching it with their fists. Intercollegiate competition began on November 6, 1869, with a game between Rutgers and Princeton. The game, however, resembled soccer more than modern-day American football. Columbia, Cornell, and other eastern
13、U.S. colleges soon after sent representative teams into intercollegiate competition. Harvard, preferring to use its own rules, abstained from this competition. In 1874 Harvard met McGill University of Montreal, Canada, in a match played under the rugby like rules of the Canadians. The Harvard player
14、s, impressed, altered their own rules accordingly. Harvard and Yale played a football game for the first time on November 13, 1875, using Harvards rules. The following year, representatives of Harvard, Yale, and Columbia answered an invitation from Princeton football representatives to attend a parl
15、ey at Springfield, Massachusetts. The result of the convention included a new set of football rules and the formation of the Intercollegiate Football Association. Although the rugbylike rules of Harvard again prevailed, certain soccer rules were incorporated. The resulting combination of rugby and s
16、occer became popular, and as time went on the rules were constantly changed until a new game evolved. The Intercollegiate Football Association was dissolved in 1894, and in the same year a rules committee, dominated by the Yale graduate and football pioneer Walter Chauncey Camp, was formed by the influential eastern schools. In 1905 an independent association of colleges also formed a rules committee; the two committees soon merged, and since that time American collegiate football has been governed by them. The first professional football game in the United States was played in 1895.
