Early Football In New Zealand
Going back to 1862
Early Football In New Zealand
While doing some research on John Charles Thring, I came across a fascinating reference to football in New Zealand, of all places:
I’m not entirely sure how the rules at Christ’s College would have differed from Thring’s famous 1862 pamphlet on how to play football.
What I find interesting, though, is that the game of football had already been exported to the other side of the world as early as 1862. This, as you may know is before the formation of the Football Association at the behest of Ebenezer Cobb Morley. That didn’t take place until 1863.
When I do this research and compare it to modern games of football and American football, I get this feeling that the sports exist to scratch some sort of deep itch that we feel. It’s an exciting athletic contest, one that seems to attract fans from all cultures and all walks of life. And that, more than anything else, probably explains how this sport spread so quickly throughout the old British Empire long before the age of airplanes and mass communication.