Soccer is maybe the most popular sport in the world. The history of soccer goes along, evidently, with the soccer ball history. When talking about soccer ball history you should distinguish between some stages or ages in which changes in the soccer ball occurred. Thus there are the early ball history, the balls in the 1800s, balls in the 1900s, and the modern times.

Early soccer ball history starts before the birth of Christ. It is known that people have liked kicking either a ball or something similar to one, since the beginnings of times. Indians in South America are known to have used a light elasticized ball, which is amazing since rubber started being produced only a few thousand years later. The early soccer balls consisted of different items from animal and human skulls to cow or pig bladders and stitched up cloth. The Chinese used to play a game that involved dribbling a ball through gaps in a net spread between two poles, and this happened as early as 255BC. Ancient Greeks and Romans also had a game which involved carrying and kicking a ball, whereas in certain ancient Egyptian rites soccer similarities have been discovered.

Pre-medieval and medieval stories and legends that can be qualified as part of the soccer ball history, also talk about bladders and skulls used for game playing. There is a story about people in two villages playing with a ball. An entire village ran and kicked a ball with the purpose of getting it into the other village’s square. The other villagers will make similar attempts. In medieval times they used the bladders from animals killed for winter sustenance. They used to inflate them and then try to keep the ‘ball’ in the air by using their hands or feet. In time people improvements to the shape and strength of the ball were brought by covering it with leather.

The soccer ball history of the 1800s bears the influence of the introduction of vulcanized rubber, Charles Goodyear’s invention. In 1855 the same Charles Goodyear managed to create the first vulcanized rubber soccer balls. In 1862 H.J. Lindon developed one of the first inflatable bladders for soccer balls. Although he is the father of the rugby ball too, he did not patent the idea at the time because of the preference for the round ball. By the 1900s the soccer ball history had entered on a different path, bringing these entertainment objects a lot closer to what they are today.