1.1 FOOTBALL 1 The house system is a traditional feature of schools in the UK. The school is divided into units called houses and each student is allocated to one house at the moment of enrolment. Houses may compete with one another at sports, thus providing a focus for group loyalty. The word is pronounced / s k (r)/. ONLINE RESOURCES Women s football county: contea graduate: laureato public school: scuola privata (nel Regno Unito) tournament: torneo 12 TO PLAY Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do. Pel THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL The origins of modern football Modern football originated in Britain in the 19th century; however, records show that a very similar game was already played even before the Middle Ages. In the first decades of 1800s, football was introduced as a game for competitions among houses of the most prestigious public schools in England, such as Winchester, Charterhouse, and Eton. Around 1843, the University of Cambridge started to establish the rules of the game, which were initially spread all over the country by the Cambridge graduates who played in the first English football clubs. In 1863, some clubs from London and the surrounding counties founded the Football Association, or FA; thanks to their work, the rules of football were finally printed. The first competitions The Football Association started organising football competitions in 1871. The following year, a match between two national teams, England and Scotland, followed by 4,000 people, was played for the first time. In 1883, the first international tournament took place among four national teams: England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. International games involving European countries outside the British Isles would begin only in the 20th century. The first professional clubs The spread of football and the rise of people s interest in this game led to the development of professional football clubs; the oldest one is Notts County, which was formed in Nottingham in 1862 and still exists today. British teams were dominant for a long time until some clubs from Eastern Europe appeared to contend supremacy. The evolution of football from a nonprofessional to a professional game enabled clubs to start selling tickets for the matches in the 1880s. Women were excluded from taking part in football games until the late 19th century; the first official women s game took place in Inverness, Scotland, in 1888. Football or soccer ? Football is the word most commonly used to indicate this game. However, in the United States and Canada, it is commonly called soccer to distinguish it from American football. Sometimes the expression association football is used, but it is rather formal and not very common.