THE BEGINNING
November 6, 1869
Princeton played Rutgers University in a football match whose rules were approximately those promulgated by the Football Association at the time of its foundation in London, six years earlier – you still could stop the ball with your hands, but the ball was round, and primarily you kicked it. This is recognized as the beginning of inter-collegiate football in our country.
Soon Columbia University and Yale University organized football teams, becoming the Ivy League of football and decided that the game they would play would be soccer. There was no running with the ball. – But, in 1876 when the Big Five (Rutgers, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, and Harvard) formed the American Intercollegiate Football Association, Yale and Harvard convinced the other three schools to adopt as the official form of football, a game that was more like rugby, rushing, ball-carrying game. Meanwhile in England, from the two types of football, football(soccer) gained the popularity.
In 1884
the American Football Association was founded, the first such body to be established outside Britain. There had been squabbling almost from the first in the counsels of American soccer. The New York clubs protested at the League schedule and withdrew to form their own body, the American Amateur Football Association- AAFA. At the congress held by FIFA in 1908, in conjunction with the Stockholm Olympics, both American associations sent representatives. At this, the newer body, the AAFA, changed its name to the United States Football Association, co-opted all but the professional clubs, that later joined it, when FIFA accepted their membership in 1913.
April 5, 1913
United States of America Foot Ball Association, today as U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF), was formed by Soccer leaders at Astor House Hotel in New York, NY. The organization has been known by three different names: the U.S. of America Foot Ball Association (1913-1944), U.S. Soccer Football Association (1945-1973) and U.S. Soccer Federation (1974-present). – U.S. Soccer was one of the world’s first organizations to be affiliated with FIFA, soccer’s world governing body.
Sources
USSF — www.ussoccer.com
Soccer The Way Pros Play, by Robert Herbin, Jean Phillipe Rehacker
World Cup USA’94 by Glen Phillips and Tim Oldham
