Kick off! Way back when Record breakers There is no one starting point for football. The game we In 1995, Brazilian Ghanaian-born football know today developed from several different pastimes striker Ronaldo’s ex-wife star Ferdie Adoboe is ake a patch of grass, 22 players and a leather bag involving some sort of ball and some sort of goal. Milene Domingues the holder of the world Tpumped full of air and, hey presto, you have the In Ancient China, for instance, people played a game smashed the world record for the most most exciting and popular team sport on the planet. called tsu chu. They had to kick and push a stuffed record for ‘keepy-uppy’. touches of a football animal skin ball through 10m-tall bamboo goal posts. She kept a football off the in 30 seconds whilst Football, soccer, calcio, fussball – whatever you call ground continuously using keeping it in the air. the game, it is one that is followed by Native Americans Calcio was played in her legs, head and body He managed 141 touches played a game called the 16th century in for an amazing nine on the US TV show millions upon millions of people. pasuckuakohowog, which Italy, but only by posh hours and six minutes. Today in August 2003. means ‘they gather to aristocrats and popes. On 9 April, 1938, the BBC screened the Nigerian player Rashidi Yekini celebrating play ball with the foot’. It involved teams of 27 The world-record for the world's first live television pictures a goal in the 1994 World Cup It was reported that the men. Goals were scored longest throw-in is of a football match – an international game was played on a by throwing the ball over held, not by a World between England and Scotland. 1.6km-long pitch with a certain spot on the Cup star, but by There were fewer than 20,000 goals up to 800m wide! edge of the pitch. English defender TV sets in the country. Dave Challinor. While In 17th-century Britain, football was played by big mobs playing for Tranmere in The final of the 2002 World Cup and was often violent. Many towns banned it and, in 2000, he threw the ball was watched on TV by an estimated 1660, a footballer in Scarborough was put in the stocks. 46.34m – almost half the 1,100,000,000 people – almost length of a pitch! q a sixth of the world’s population. A game called aqsaqtuk was played on ice by the Inuit Interest in the game is huge all over using a ball stuffed with Dave Challinor the world. In one of Brazil’s early grass, moss and animal hair. takes a throw-in 2002 World Cup matches against Belgium, prison warders on the t Charles Wreford-Brown is Indonesian island of Sumatra were believed to be the first person so busy watching the game that to use the word soccer as an 48 prisoners managed to escape! abbreviation for association Not all of them were recaptured either. football, in the 1880s. He later played for England and In 1967, both sides in the civil war became vice-president of the in Nigeria called a 48-hour ceasefire. Charles Wreford-Brown English Football Association. This was so that the great Brazilian striker Pelé could play Fame game in an exhibition match in Nigeria’s Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is famous as the author of Philosopher and author Albert Camus played in goal capital city, Lagos. the Sherlock Holmes stories. It is less known that he for Algeria in the 1920s. He once wrote, ‘All I know most played football under the name AC Smith in the 1880s. surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football.’ It doesn’t matter how old or young He was goalkeeper for the English club Portsmouth FC. you are, you can still enjoy watching Singer Rod Stewart signed as an apprentice at English club and playing the game. Mexico’s Enrique The garage band So Solid Crew’s Harvey was a Brentford in 1960, but never quite made the grade. Alcocer joined the Reforma Athletic Club youth team player for Chelsea and, in 2003, joined in 1952. He was still playing for the the non-league side AFC Wimbledon. West Indies cricketer Sir Vivian Richards played football club in 2003 at the age of 79! as a young man – he even played for Antigua and Spanish singer Julio Iglesias was a goalkeeper for Barbuda in a qualifying match for the 1974 World Cup. In 2003, Gabriela Ferreira became a Real Madrid, but his career was cut short by a car football commentator on Brazilian accident in 1963. While in hospital, he was given As a schoolboy, the late pope, John Paul II, played in 4 radio – she was ten years old! a guitar by a nurse, and the rest is musical history. goal for a team in his home town of Wadowice in Poland. 5 Fan-atics Madcap merchandise In 1999, Italian club In the 2002 World When Italian club Inter Fiorentina sold cans of air Cup, Japanese player Milan signed Ronaldo in ithout fans, football Fanatical fans taken from its stadium. Tsuneyasu Miyamoto wore 1997, fake replica shirts Wwould lack passion There were three ‘flavours’: a black mask to protect his bearing his name and his and noise. Fans give a game Jan van Kook was a fan of Dutch side Feyenoord. For the Air of the Terraces, Essence broken nose. Fans copied favourite number 9 went 1998/99 season he bought two season tickets. One was for of Victory and Dressing- their hero by wearing on sale. But the club gave its colour and excitement. him and the other was for his dog Bo! room Atmosphere. identical masks to watch Ronaldo number 10, and Many fans help the club or Japan’s matches. q then cashed in on sales of During the 2000 European Championships, Dutch police arrested the official replica shirts. team they love, not just by a fan who had painted his entire rented house orange, paying to watch and cheering the colours of the Dutch team. them on, but also by In 2000, Bulgarian Martin Zdravkov had his court application to volunteering to help out. change his name to Manchester United turned down. Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, Japan English club Shrewsbury Town’s Ebby Kleinrensing, a Pedro Gatica cycled all the way ground is next to the River Severn. German fan of English side from his home in Buenos Aires, Before retiring in 1986, Fred Davies Nottingham Forest, flies from Argentina, to Mexico to see Celebrity selection Dusseldorf in Germany to Argentina play in the 1986 used to fish out all the balls that were attend every Nottingham World Cup. That’s a straight Italian side Juventus can count on the actor Omar Sharif, kicked out of the ground into the river. Forest game. It costs him line journey of more than the opera singer Luciano Pavarotti and the American In one season he fished out 130! £15,000 a season. In 2000, 7,300km. Unfortunately, he NBA basketball star Kobe Bryant among its celebrity fans. he got engaged to Heike couldn’t get a ticket to the Manchester City has the Gallagher brothers from Boca Junior supporters at La Bombonera stadium, Atkinson on the Forest pitch game and, while trying to the band Oasis, while Chelsea has the film maker Buenos Aires, Argentina in front of 20,000 fans. get in, had his bike stolen. Lord Attenborough, the actor Sir Michael Caine and the Canadian singer Bryan Adams. Here are a few more celebrity fans: CELEBRITY TEAM Arnold Schwarzeneggar AK Graz (Austria) Elton John Watford (England) Plácido Domingo Real Madrid (Spain) Michael Schumacher Cologne (Germany) Amir Khan Bolton Wanderers (England) Gordon Brown MP Raith Rovers (Scotland) Bjorn Borg Hammarby (Sweden) Nelson Mandela, South Africa Make some noise The Rapid Quarter Hour is a routine performed by fans of Austrian club The Mexican wave, where people cheer and stand Rapid Vienna. For the last 15 minutes of up and down one after another around the stadium, every game, all the supporters perform is so-called because it became popular at the 1986 fast hand clapping for up to 15 minutes. World Cup, held in Mexico. Hungarian scientist Dr Tamas No one is quite sure when or why it started, Vicsek has measured the average speed of a Mexican but it has been going on for decades. wave at 20 seats or 12m per second. Afghanistan fans wishing to cheer and clap their Brazil fans planned a noisy ‘welcome’ for their team, team on when it re-entered international competition after it crashed out of the 1966 World Cup. The side’s in 1998 were in for a shock. The ruling Taliban manager, Vicente Feola, was so nervous that he government declared that ‘onlookers will not 6 stayed in Europe for a month before returning home! be permitted to clap.’ Shhhhhhhh. 7 Mad managers Record breakers MOST INTERNATIONAL MATCHES IN CHARGE 276 Bora Milutinovic (Mexico, Costa Rica, In Colombia, Gabriel Ochoa William Struth holds the record USA, Nigeria, China, Honduras) Uribe won four league titles as a for managing one club to the 172 Francisco Maturana (Colombia, he best managers and coaches can be In a 1999 Spanish league match, Badajoz’s goalkeeper with the Millonarios most league championships. He Ecuador, Costa Rica, Peru) Tcrucial to soccer success. But, with fans Sabino Santos was about to score when the club, the first of which was won 18 titles with Scottish club 167 Josef ‘Sepp’ Herberger (Germany, and the media complaining when the team Leganés manager, Enrique Martin, tackled in 1949.