The phrase ‘play ball’ probably arose from our natural instinct to kick anything we find lying on the ground, be it paper, plastic or a rubber ball. In the old days, people even kicked heads in for fun. The Chinese of the Ch’in and Dan dynasties invented animal skin balls between 255 B.C. C. and 220 d. C., which slid between two posts through holes in the nets. The ancient Egyptians performed rituals that resembled a soccer ball, and the Greeks and Romans also played similar games.
Even the South American Indians knew the use of a light springy ball. During pre-medieval times, the people of an entire town began kicking around a skull in another town’s square, as a favorite pastime. The pig’s bladder was inflated and used for play. Therefore, the shape and size of the ball depended on the pig’s bladder, so the trajectory of the ball when kicked could not be predicted. This slow kicking habit saw the evolution of the first rubber ball in 1855, when Charles Goodyear, after patenting vulcanized rubber, made the first rubber ball, which is now on display at the National Football Hall of Fame in Oneonta. , New York, USA.
In 1862, HJ Lindon invented the first inflatable rubber bladders for balls. The following year, the newly created football association established the rules of the game. In 1872, it was agreed that the ball would be “spherical with a circumference of 27 or 28 inches” and weigh between 13 and 15 ounces, which exists even today in the FIFA rule book. In 1937 the weight was increased to 14 to 16 oz. According to the Encyclopedia of Association Football, which was first published in 1956, the ball must be spherical with an outer covering of leather or other approved materials, while size and weight have remained constant to date.
The founding of the English Football League in 1888 gave a boost to the mass production of soccer balls, with Miter and Thomlinson of Glasgow being the first two companies to start manufacturing. Maintaining the ball’s shape was imperative, so good quality leather covers were made from the cow’s rump. The 20th century brought changes to the design, as interlocking panels replaced the large leather sections that were joined on the north and south sides of the ball.
The color of the soccer ball in the 1950s was usually orange so that it would be visible while playing in the snow. In 1951 the first cue ball with spotlights was played. In the 1980s, leather was totally replaced by synthetic material. This 32-panel black and white soccer ball is the brainchild of Richard Buckminster Fuller, consisting of 20 hexagonal and 12 pentagonal surfaces. This soccer ball was first marketed by Select in Denmark in the 1950s and the first official soccer ball of the FIFA world cup: the Adidas Telstar was used at the World Cup in Mexico in 1970.