The Reason some Call It ‘Soccer’ Is All England’s Fault

One of the best known differences between British and American English is the fact that the sport known as football in Great Britain is usually called soccer in the United States. Because the sport originated in England, it is often assumed that soccer is an Americanism. In fact, the word is thoroughly British in origin. So why is it that Americans not to mention Canadians, Australians and others are inclined to use the word than Britain are?

Although football type games have been around for centuries, the sport we know today is often said to have begun in 1863, when England’s newly formed football association wrote down a set of rules.

At the time it was the mostly played game in the country, but it wasn’t the only game. Rugby football named after an English boarding school was a variation that allowed players to carry and run with the ball to advance it toward the goal. The game played under the Football Association’s rules thus became known as association football.

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Inevitably, the names would be shortened. Linguistically creative students at the University of Oxford in the 1880s distinguished between the sports of rugger (rugby football) and assoccer (association football). The latter term was further shortened to soccer (sometimes spelled socker), and the name quickly spread beyond the campus. However, soccer never became much more than a nickname in Great Britain. By the 20th century, rugby football was more commonly called rugby, while association football had earned the right to be known as just plain football.

Meanwhile, in the United States, a sport emerged in the late 19th century that borrowed elements of both rugby and association football. Before long, it had proved more popular than either of them. In full, it was known as gridiron football, but most people never bothered with the first word. As a result, American association-football players increasingly adopted soccer to refer to their sport. The United States Football Association, which had formed in the 1910s as the official organizing body of American soccer, changed its name to the United States Soccer Football Association in 1945, and it later dispensed with the Football altogether. No longer just a nickname, soccer had stuck.

Other countries where the word soccer is common include those that, like the United States, have competing forms of football. For instance, Canada has its own version of gridiron football, Ireland is home to Gaelic football, and Australia is mad about Australian rules football which is derived from rugby. The sport was at first an entertainment for the British working class. Unprecedented amounts of spectators, up to 30,000, would see the big matches in the late 19th century. The game would soon expand by British peoples who travelled to other parts of the world. Especially in South America and India would the interest in football become big.