Highlights In Soccer Ball History

Some would say soccer is the most popular game in the world; we are not sure about that, but it is definitely one of the oldest. Soccer ball history is in fact the history of soccer. 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 modern models.

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 were made of very peculiar materials from human and animal skulls to pig or cow 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 legends and stories that can be qualified 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 villagers will make similar attempts. In medieval times they used the bladders from animals killed for winter sustenance. They used to inflate them and then try to keep the ‘ball’ in the air by using their hands or feet. In time people improvements to the shape and strength of the ball were brought by covering it with leather.

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 came up with one of the first inflatable bladders for soccer balls. Although he is the father of the rugby ball too, he did not patent the idea at the time because of the preference for the round ball. By the 1900s the soccer ball history had entered on a different path, bringing these entertainment objects a lot closer to what they are today.