why the name football?

[Ferrykoek]

``soccer`` is played with your foot.. hench the official word Football.. so why do you call American football football. when you mostly carry it with your hands....
couldn`t you just keep the original word Rugby?

[BktBallRef]

First, why does it matter?

Second, no one on this forum was alive when the game was invented, therefore, I'm sure that none of us had anything to do with naming the game, football.

Third, soccer was referred to as association football and rugby was referred to as rugby football. American football was derived from a combination of the two, so what's wrong with simply calling it football? It's not rugby and it's not soccer, so it would have been wrong to call it either of those names.

Fourth, why am I even replying to this post?

[ABoselli]

Basketball is played with your hands, so why isn't it called handball? If it's because you have to put the ball in the basket to score, why isn't soccer called goalball?

Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway? Why is a fly called a fly but a fish isn't called a swim?

Life's great ponderables.

[JugglingReferee]

Originally posted by Ferrykoek
``soccer`` is played with your foot.. hench the official word Football.. so why do you call American football football. when you mostly carry it with your hands....
couldn`t you just keep the original word Rugby?

I'm actually researching the history of football for a website and when I'm done, I will post the link here.

Keep in mind that football is football in North America, not just America. In fact, from what I've learned so far, football in Canada pre-dates football in the US.

[bianconero]

I'm european too, fond of both Footballs. Football (US) is called so because of the length of the ball (one foot). that's all.

when I watch a game a don't care about the name if it's Juventus vs Milan it's a football game in Torino with two half of 45mins and a round ball and when watching Rams vs Eagles the game takes place in Phily and last 60 mins with TD fumbles and FG.
so don't care about the name and just enjoy the gameS

ps: even if i recognize (us)football deserve the name "football" i don't think (eur) football deserve the word soccer (it sounds like sucker). What would you mind if europeans would call the superball a "Foccer" Game ?

I understand from my old history professor that since American football was derived from both rugby and soccer, it was called football here. He even mentioned at one time, that football was actually called Gridiron football because of the yard lines. BTW, this old professor of mine was a good old boy Navy WW2 vet with an unique style of wearing Hawaiian shirts every day, and walking with a cane. Also, when I visited New Zealand in 1992, they referred our game as Gridiron. The women actually swoon over ya when you mention you're a Gridiron player!

[ABoselli]

like the song goes...

"You've got to be a football hero to get a date with a beautiful girl...."

[SeanWest]

Just to confuse the issue a little more...

In Australia, where I grew up, "football" is Rugby League (though it could be Aussie Rules if you lived in another part of the country).

European "football" is usually called "soccer".

And our American version of "football", if they talk about it at all, is often referred to as "gridiron".

-Sean---

Geee Sean! You would have loved the professor I was talking about. I was about the only one in the class who could keep up with his football history talk that day, since I was the only one that was actually majoring in history or even interested in the sport for that matter. The rest were only taking the class for their general ed requirements and/or had no interest in sports other than knowing that the balls are different shaped, and minor idiotic details that we zebras cough and laugh at since we know deeper stuff!!!

[Dommer1]

AFAIK, when the game reached the US, the "version" of football that came over, was the type of football being favored at Rugby. At that time in the UK, the sport football was being played in two different versions. But it was "football" that came over to the US, not rugby, as it was not called "rugby" yet. In then evolved on its own and is now, as we know, very different from rugby, which is what it turned into in the UK.

Did that make any sense?

[Rick KY]

While not an expert on the origins of soccer, it is also called association football. Across the world there are several games called football, including Rugby, Aussie Rules, American, and Soccer. Soccer also translates into futbol in Spanish. Calling any of these game football is therefore acceptable.

[Bluefoot]

American football earned the nickname "Gridiron" because, in addition to the lines across the width of the field every five yards, as they exist now, there also used to be lines that extended the entire length of the field, which created a criss-cross pattern, which resembled a waffle gridiron, hence the name. This other set of lines existed for the purpose of governing scrimmage plays. Yale's Walter Camp (the Father of American Football) set the pair of hashmarks within the field of play, which eliminated the need for the lengthy lines.

[Dommer1]

Someone has read "The Anatomy of a Game" I believe. ;-)