The Name of the Sport Soccer/Football

[RedRockRun]

This is a question which has been on my mind ever since I read a book called, "Good-bye to All That," by English poet and novelist Robert Graves, an auto-biographical work in which he devotes the first chapters to his childhood in the early 20th century, later and for the bulk of the novel detailing his experiences in the Great War. What I found puzzling was how in these early chapters where he talks about growing up in a male boarding school and speaking of sports (along with his general dislike of them) he mentions soccer and football separately.
I'd had it in my mind that American football splintered off from rugby and for no reason other than alleviating confusion, took the name 'soccer' to differentiate American and European football. Perhaps, I thought, that the football Graves speaks of was actually just rugby, but later in that chapter he also mentions rugby. I know for a fact that all three sports existed at this time, but American football was invented in America regardless of whether it was originally rugby or not. What sports is Graves talking about then? When speaking of football did he mean American football being played in Wimbledon? Also why the name 'soccer'? Was that originally a British name which migrated to America and stuck while the UK ended up conforming to the name 'football' like the rest of Europe?

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Not really sure. In Australia we call it soccer, because the term football is used for a couple of sports. For example in the state I live, Victoria, if I said "football" to someone they'd automatically think I was talking about AFL (Australian Rules Football). In the more Northern states if I said football (and they didn't know I was Victorian) they'd probably assume I was talking about NRL (National Rugby League), although they might query why I didn't say rugby. Soccer to us is the "round ball" game. FYI, I love soccer.

Incidentally, if I was speaking to an American I'd refer to the NFL as "gridiron" rather than football.

 

[Saelune]

Football as it is known started in 1869 according to Wikipedia. Robert Graves was born 1895, according to Wikipedia.

Football is older than Robert Graves by 26 years.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Does he mention soccer and football separately in the same sentence? It's not unusual to mix different names for the same things. Soccer was indeed a British name for Association Football, that has been massively overtaken by just football.

I remember in secondary school back in the early 90's when choosing which sport we'd be doing for the rest of term the choice was "Soccer or Rugby", but we all called it football. PE teacher probably just wanted to sound fancy.

Also, there were more types of football than just Rugby and Association Football, he could have been talking about one of them. Which school did he go to? a lot of public schools had their own version of the rules, he might have been referring to his schools home brand. I guess as time has gone on, because it's only Association Football and Rugby that are really a thing, people use Football because there isn't any need to differentiate.

 

[RedRockRun]

Football as it is known started in 1869 according to Wikipedia. Robert Graves was born 1895, according to Wikipedia.

Football is older than Robert Graves by 26 years.

Um okay? I said that I knew all three sports were already in existence during the events within the book.

Does he mention soccer and football separately in the same sentence? It's not unusual to mix different names for the same things. Soccer was indeed a British name for Association Football, that has been massively overtaken by just football.

I remember in secondary school back in the early 90's when choosing which sport we'd be doing for the rest of term the choice was "Soccer or Rugby", but we all called it football. PE teacher probably just wanted to sound fancy.

Also, there were more types of football than just Rugby and Association Football, he could have been talking about one of them. Which school did he go to? a lot of public schools had their own version of the rules, he might have been referring to his schools home brand. I guess as time has gone on, because it's only Association Football and Rugby that are really a thing, people use Football because there isn't any need to differentiate.

That's what I was talking about. He mentions football, rugby, and soccer separately when discussing how he never took to sports. I'm unsure as to whether the soccer to which he is referring is the soccer of today i.e. European football or something different, the same being true of when he mentions football. That makes me think that European football at that time was called soccer, and football as he calls it was some contact sport similar to rugby. As to where he went to school, at this point in the book I think it's King's College School in Wimbledon. From what I remember he doesn't make note of any regional rule differences either.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

That's what I was talking about. He mentions football, rugby, and soccer separately when discussing how he never took to sports. I'm unsure as to whether the soccer to which he is referring is the soccer of today i.e. European football or something different, the same being true of when he mentions football. That makes me think that European football at that time was called soccer, and football as he calls it was some contact sport similar to rugby. As to where he went to school, at this point in the book I think it's King's College School in Wimbledon. From what I remember he doesn't make note of any regional rule differences either.

Yes, Soccer of back then is today's current European football. Association Football, which is what we play now, shortened to "Soccer". Obviously there's going to be the odd rule change over the years, but nothing major.

Reading up on the guy, he was apparently a bit of a Celt affectionado, so he could have been referring to Gaelic football.

Kings College are definitely the type to have their own rules, not that I've ever heard them mentioned. Since he doesn't differentiate between football and soccer other than the name, I can see him not making a note of any regional rules differences.

 

[09philj]

Soccer is an -er slang term for association football that originated at Oxford university. In the same vein, they would call rugby football rugger. It's not uncommon in English to use a mixture of slang and correct terms for the same thing, although public schools (By which I mean private schools) would often have their own local variant of football at that time. It's quite possible that what Graves calls football is a version of the game that is unique to his school, or a small number of schools and universities.

 

[JohnBrindle]

You're all close.

Football is a more of a sporting category, a name for a class of sports. All played by teams with some form of ball.

Soccer, as many of you have said, is slang for Association Football. It describes a ruleset of football. The ruleset has essentially become a type of football, but it really refers to a ruleset (as the rules change all the time, take for instance the evolution of the offside rule, or recently the introduction of Video Action Replays) defined by an organization. Think of F-1 - this is a specification for the vehicles allowed in the races, which changes over time.

Rugby is another ruleset of football. That's why the league in England is called Rugby Football League, and many clubs are called, say, Spartans RFC (Rugby Football Club).

The same applies to Gaelic football, or Aussie Rules football, or American Football (The NFL is, in fact, a slightly different ruleset from NCAA, so you could argue there is more than one type of American football). And so on.

So, all soccer is football.

But all football isn't soccer. We brits just call it football because it's really the only version of the game in town.