Interexcel asked me to write them an article. About anything. A paragraph will do.
I scratched my head, looking about for something to write about, prefereably up-to-date and IT related.
So I decided I want to write about the FIFA IT Backbone. Nothing. Nobody is handing out that information, presumably due to security considerations. Back to the drawing board. Then it struck me(hopefully I won’t have a bruise), I was forgetting the star of the show.
The very thing that millions of people have paid to see.
The very thing that holds our attention.
The soccer ball.
Without it, there is no world cup, no FIFA, no soccer!
The exact birth of the game (or equivalent) is lost in the mists of time, though the earliest reference I could find was 255BC (Ts’in Dynasty) in ancient China. Though the birth of the game was long before that.
The greeks, romans, aztecs and egyptians also had similar versions of the game, and all used, to a greater or lesser degree, the same thing tokick around.
The first soccer ball was, unsurprisingly, a severed human head. Indeed, in ancient medieval times a whole village would play against another village (seems like a good idea teams got limited to 11 players on the field then) and they would then try to kick the aforesaid head to the opposing village’s town square. However there were no referees back then, so fights were common place and just as entertaining as they are now.
From kicking around human head we progressed to kicking around pig bladders. I know, I’m disappointed too.
This was widely accepted, especially by those who were about to “be the ball” as coaches say now. This was used world wide until after 1000AD when the pig bladders were covered with leather for better shape retention.
In 1836, Charles Goodyear patented vulcanised rubber (which was an extremely enduring technology, for many older houses still have braided vulcanised rubber insulated wiring, much to an electrician’s lament) and 19 short years later, in the year 1855, the vulcanised soccer ball was invented. An original football from 1863 is still on display in the National soccer hall of fame in Oneonta, New York. This was an inflatable similar to a basketball.
The first rubber bladder for a football was invented in 1862 by H J Lindon. He also claimed to have invented the rugby ball, but never filed for patent.
Progress for soccer balls has been slow since, until the discovery of latex and other materials such as nylon, kevlar, synthetic leather, polyurethane and butyl. Nowadays the soccer ball is an intensely scientific object, with everything including amount of bounce carefully controlled and monitored. No longer just a fitting to see which pig’s bladder feels most comfortable to kick around.
And one more fun fact for you:
Adidas has been the official maker of FIFA Match Balls since 1970.