Quote ="Panda92"Initially the game 'football' was a game played with both hands or feet using an inflated pigs bladder. You scored by getting it into the goals at the end, and the game only finished when this had happened. There were some rules, but generally it was no-hold-barred, so it could be quite violent.
In the coming years, it was phased out of the public playing it and became a game primarily being played in schools. Over time each school developed their own rules, and the first rules of Rugby came from Rugby school. Then from then on you know how it progressed, up until the Northern Rugby Union (league) was created. IIRC.'"
there was a TV series on book that changed the world, One of them was the association football book of rules.
That made a common set of rules so that teams didn't play a game of two halves where there were different rules for each half.