A game of soccer played in Bloomington, Indiana, 1996. The offensive player (in red) has sprinted past two defenders (in white) and is about to either attempt to score or pass it across the field to a teammate (not pictured) in front of the goal. In the background, a goalie stands ready to try and intercept any scoring attempt.
18 November 2021
The sport known as football throughout most of the world is dubbed soccer in North America, where the word is used to differentiate the game from American-style football. In Britain and elsewhere, soccer is also occasionally used, but its use is rarer.
Soccer is a variation on Association football. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, two styles of football dominated, rugby football and Association football, the latter played professionally under the aegis of the Football Association, which codified the game’s rules. To differentiate the two styles, first university students then the population at large began to call them rugby or rugger and soccer. Eventually, as Association football achieved dominance, it became simply football in the UK, except when a term was needed to differentiate from rugby, in which case soccer would be used.
Varieties of football have been played since antiquity, but the modern game of Association football can be traced to 1863 and the founding of the Football Association in London. The term Association football appears by 1866, when it is used a name for the type of ball used in the game. From a 17 November 1866 advertisement in Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle:
FOOTBALLS and the LAWS.—JOHN LILLYWHITE has now ON VIEW a very large STOCK of the Rugby and Association FOOTBALLS, which are warranted to be of the best manufacture. The Association Laws (published by authority) price 6d, per post 7d; on cardboard for the use in the pavillion 1s, per post is 2d.
I have found a use of Association football referring to the game itself from 1871, although I’m sure antedatings can be found. It’s in a version of the rules of the game published in the United States that year. The rulebook, edited by Charles Alcock, the head of the Football Association, was intended to proselytize the game to American universities:
I will merely therefore remark that to play with the feet is the main object of Association Football. Hands should not and must not be used. Difficult at first it may seem, but the abolition of handling and patting the ball will be found in every sense conducive to a better and more scientific game.
Soccer, spelled socker, appears by 1885, at first in school slang. From a letter published in the Oldhallian, the journal of the Old Hall School, Wellington, Shropshire from December 1885 about the game as it is played at Oxford University:
The ’Varsity played Aston Villa and were beaten after a very exciting game; this was pre-eminently the most important “Socker” game played in Oxford this term.
Another early use of socker is from the Boys’ Own Paper of 6 April 1889:
In ’Varsity patois Rugby is yclept “Rugger,” while Association has for its synonym “Socker.”
The soccer spelling is in place by 1891.
Sources:
Advertisement. Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (London), 17 November 1866, 2. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals.
Alcock, Charles W., ed. The Book of Rules of the Game of Foot Ball, as Adopted and Played by the English Football Associations. New York: Peck and Snyder, 1871, 13. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Letter. The Oldhallian, 5.6, December 1885, 171. Google Books.
“Our Open Column. Football at Oxford.” The Boys’ Own Paper (London), 6 April 1889, 431. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2016, modified March 2021, s.v. soccer, n.; second edition, 1989, s.v. association, n.
Photo credit: Rick Dikeman, 1996. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.