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The savage nature of this form of football was not much appreciated by rulers and Royalty took all possible steps to stop these games. King Edward III of England, passed laws in 1331 to stop game, he was followed by King James I of Scotland in 1424. The Queens were not far behind, rather, had a more strict approach. Queen Elizabeth I of England, enacted laws that could sentence a football player to jail for a week followed by penancing in a church.
However, in spite of all their best efforts and intentions they could not stop game. It was too popular among masses and they loved game.
The first approach to regularize and give a civilized form to this game was taken by famous Eton College of England in 1815 when they established a set of rules for games. These rules were accepted by other schools, colleges and universities. Later, in 1848, these rules were further standardized and a new version was adopted by all schools, college and universities. This new set of rules was known as Cambridge Rules.
At this stage, there were actually two set of rules that were being followed in this game. Some organizations preferred to follow rules of Rugby School, that allowed tripping, kicking and carrying ball, whereas Cambridge rules prohibited all this methods.
In October, 1863, The Football Association was formed, when eleven London schools and clubs came together to establish a single set of rules to administer any football match that were to be played among them. On 8 December 1863, Association Football and Rugby Football finally split onto two different organizations.
In 1869, these rules were further amended to exclude any handling of ball beyond scope of acceptability and that created foundation for modern day sports mania—SOCCER !
Ray Smith, by profession a marketing expert is also an authentic source of sports information. A sports enthusiast and self-motivated researcher, he is always updated with the latest happenings in the sports world. Live scores, league tables, fixtures and updated statistics available at http://www.goalslive.com