Soccer is maybe the most popular sport in the world. The history of soccer goes along, evidently, with the soccer ball history. When referring to the soccer ball history there are several periods to distinguish. Thus we can talk about early ball history, the balls in the 1800s, balls in the 1900s, and the modern times.
Early soccer ball history goes back to the times before Christ. Kicking a round object for fun was surely a pastime to many cultures. Indians in South America are known to have used a light elasticized ball, which is amazing since rubber started being produced only a few thousand years later. The early soccer balls consisted of different items from human and animal skulls to cow or pig bladders and wrapped up cloth. The Chinese used to play a game that involved dribbling a ball through gaps in a net spread between two poles, and this happened as early as 255BC. Ancient Romans and Greeks also had a game which involved carrying and kicking a ball, whereas in certain ancient Egyptian rites soccer similarities have been discovered.
Pre-medieval and medieval stories and legends that can be considered as part of the soccer ball history, also mention the use of animal bladders or skulls to play games similar to modern soccer. There is a story about people in two villages playing with a ball. An entire village used to kick a skull along a path to a nearby village square. The other village would in turn try to kick the skull to the first village’s square. In medieval times they used the bladders from animals killed for winter sustenance. Once inflated they would try to keep the ‘ball’ in the air by using their hands or feet. In time people noticed that covering the bladder with leather would maintain the shape better and longer.
The soccer ball history of the 1800s was marked by the 1836 patenting of vulcanized rubber by Charles Goodyear. In 1855 the same Charles Goodyear managed to create the first vulcanized rubber soccer balls. In 1862 H.J. Lindon developed one of the first inflatable bladders for soccer balls. He is also credited to have invented the rugby ball; however he did not patent the idea for it as, in those days, the round ball was preferred for being more easily used. By the 1900s the soccer ball history had already enjoyed the use of stronger rubber balls that could withstand heavier and heavier pressure.
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