Where Football Explains the World Tackles

by Alex Bellos

  The advantages of solar power are that sunlight is free and the panels create no fumes or waste gases when they are used. The disadvantage is that it needs to be sunny! Sunny countries have lots of solar panels. The largest single “farm” of solar panels is in India and covers an area about the size of 6,500 football pitches.

  Other renewable sources of energy are:

  WORKSHEET 2: PESTICIDES

  In order to grow as much food as possible, farmers often use chemicals on their crops. Fertilizers help the crops grow and pesticides kill weeds and bugs that might eat the crops. The same is true of a football pitch. To get perfect luscious green grass, most grounds teams will also use fertilizers and pesticides.

  But many fertilizers and pesticides contain chemicals that are harmful to humans and animals. Pesticides can kill insects such as bees, which are important to the environment. And, when the chemicals enter the soil, they don’t just stay there. They get washed into rivers and may ultimately end up in the ocean, where they can harm fish. Traces can even be found in drinking water.

  At Forest Green, the grounds team don’t use pesticides and they only use fertilizers that are not harmful to humans and animals. These three options are all on the menu:

  WORKSHEET 3: SAVING WATER

  A guiding principle of Forest Green is that you should never waste resources. Waste not, want not! That’s why they collect their own rainwater. Some is saved from the stadium roof and some from sloping drains below the pitch, which flow into groundsman Adam Witchell’s water tank. When full, the water tank can hold up to 73,500 litres, which is enough water to fill over 600 bathtubs.

  Adam aims to collect enough rainwater for free so that he can water the pitch using the club’s own reserves without ever switching on the water tap. Last season he almost managed it. The only time he turned on the tap was during a summer heatwave.

  At Football School, we agree with Forest Green’s message of never wasting water. Most of us use a huge amount of water every day without realizing it. One way to cut down on water is to always take a shower, not a bath. Look how much water you save:

  WORKSHEET 4: EATING GREEN

  Fancy a meat pie at half-time? Sorry, you’re out of luck! At Forest Green, meat and fish are banned. Instead, hungry fans are offered a Q-Pie, which is made from Quorn, a well-known meat substitute that is made from a fungus.

  Meat is banned because of the effect that the meat industry is having on the planet. Farming animals uses a lot more land, feed, and water than farming the same amount of vegetables and grains. The high cost to the planet of eating meat has made some people decide to eat no meat products at all. People who don’t eat meat are vegetarians, and people who don’t eat meat or any other animal by-products, such as eggs and milk, are called vegans. Here are three international foods that vegans love:

  Cows are especially bad for the environment because of their burps! Cows belch a gas called methane, which, like carbon dioxide, makes the world get hotter. There are about 1.4 billion cows in the world, and the combined mega-burp of 1.4 billion cows is big, as well as stinky!

  WORKSHEET 5: POLLUTION

  Most cars use petrol, which, as well as pumping out carbon dioxide, also release dangerous chemicals into the air that can cause breathing problems in humans. This is known as air pollution.

  In the last few years, car companies have been designing cars that run on electricity, which creates no exhaust fumes at all. Some drivers already using electric cars are … the players of Forest Green Rovers, after a company gave each of them an electric car for six months.

  Electric cars are still more expensive than petrol cars, so less people drive them, but it is likely that this will change in the next ten years or so. In the near future, it’s predicted that most cars will be fume-free.

  Forest Green Rovers aren’t just petrol-free on the road, but on the pitch too. They use a self-driving lawnmower that uses GPS to work out where it’s going. It doesn’t run on petrol, like many stadium lawnmowers do, but instead on solar-powered electricity. If it bumps into an object, it will back up and mow somewhere else. It takes three days to mow the whole pitch and it will text the grounds team if it gets into trouble. We hope it uses an e-mow-ji!

  FOOTBALL SCHOOL GREEN GOALS

  To finish off our trip to Forest Green, we spoke to Dale Vince, the owner of Forest Green Rovers. “We care deeply about the environment and want to show that football can also care for the world around us,” he said.

  The club is helping to protect the planet by: recycling as much as they can, not putting harmful chemicals into the ground, limiting the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the air, and using renewable sources such as sunlight and rainwater. Often people use the word green to describe these types of environmentally friendly activity. FIFA has called Forest Green the greenest club in the world!

  Dale told us that the club can become even greener, which is why he wants to build a new stadium made almost entirely out of wood. Wood is a renewable material, since trees can be replanted, unlike concrete and steel. Go Dale, we be-leaf in you!

  This trip has taught us that we can all become greener. Here’s a checklist of green goals that can help the planet. What else can you add to the list?

  Re-use plastic bottles

  Recycle all paper

  Walk or cycle instead of using a car

  Turn the TV off after Match of the Day

  WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH

  Cristiano Ronaldo scored both goals when Real Madrid beat Sporting Gijón in the Spanish league in November 2016 – but some people thought he looked like total rubbish! The reason? Real Madrid were wearing shirts made from plastic rubbish that had been found on the coast around the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean. They had the message “For the oceans” on the neck of the shirt. The team were highlighting an important cause: when you throw plastic away it can end up in the ocean, where it can kill marine animals. It can cause problems for humans too: if we eat fish that has swallowed plastic, we could become ill as a result. A solution: make sure you recycle your plastic bags and bottles, don’t throw them in the bin!

  SCHOOL TRIP QUIZ

  1. What piece of equipment turns sunlight into electricity?

  a) Sunglasses

  b) Sun hat

  c) Sun cream

  d) Solar panels

  2. One of the biggest surges in demand for electricity in UK history occurred immediately after England lost a penalty shoot-out to West Germany in the 1990 World Cup semi-final. Why?

  a) About a million people put the kettle on to make a cup of tea.

  b) About a million people put the toaster on to have marmalade on toast.

  c) About a million people phoned each other to commiserate.

  d) About a million people turned up the TV volume to maximum when the BBC played the national anthem.

  3. If we keep on using plastic at the same rate as we do now, which one of these will come true?

  a) By 2020, all football stadiums will be made of plastic.

  b) By 2030, we will drive in plastic cars.

  c) By 2040, we will be born with plastic heads.

  d) By 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

  4. Which striker claimed he started scoring more goals after he turned vegetarian?

  a) Harry Kane

  b) Romelu Lukaku

  c) Sergio Aguero

  d) Neymar

  5. Which of the following is a recommended way to save energy?

  a) Turn out the lights when you leave a room

  b) Eat more bananas

  c) Wear underpants on your head

  d) Sleep all day

  This lesson we’re going back in time: way back to Sheffield in the 1850s, when two smart people had an idea that changed the world. Can you guess what it is? It has brought joy and sometimes sadness to millions of people all over the world. Nope, it’s not Football School. But without these two pals, Football School might not exist.

&nbs
p; Let’s step into the time machine!

  WHERE IT BALL BEGAN

  One sunny day in the summer of 1857, two friends went for a walk in the countryside just outside the city of Sheffield in the north of England. William Prest, a wine merchant aged 25, and Nathaniel Creswick, a lawyer aged 26, were both athletic and loved sports.

  On this particular walk, they chatted about two of the most popular sports of that time: fencing and cricket. They also talked about a new sport, football, which was being played at schools such as Eton and universities such as Cambridge. Each school had their own version of the rules of football, and before every match, the captains would agree on the rules for that particular game. But imagine playing a game when every time you play, the rules would change slightly – confusing!

  The friends decided that football would be a good sport for the people of Sheffield if only there were some organized rules that every team could follow. So they wrote to all the schools to find out their rules. “What a lot of different rules we received,” said Creswick. There wasn’t even a defined length of time for matches. “We generally played until it was dark,” wrote one school.

  The friends took the best suggestions and started to write down a version of the rules they were both happy with. A few months later, on 24 October 1857, they founded Sheffield Football Club, the first football club in the world. The club’s purpose was to get people together to play football over the winter months when no one was playing cricket.

  In 1859, Prest and Creswick finalized their rulebook, which they handed out to all members of their new club. Here are some of the rules:

  GOLDEN RULES

  The Sheffield FC rulebook from 1859 is the foundation of the game as we know it today. Only once there were written-down rules that everyone agreed on, could football grow from schools and universities to become a national – and then a global – sport.

  Some of the rules have changed since 1859, such as the ones about pushing the ball with the hands or wearing flannel caps, but, even so, the Sheffield FC rulebook was a landmark moment in footballing history. It set the future course for the game, most notably because, even though the ball could be pushed and hit by the hands, holding the ball with the hands was forbidden. Until this point, catching the ball with the hands was a key part of the rules followed by Cambridge University. Football historian Andy Dixon told us that without the Sheffield rules, the game we love today might look more similar to rugby, where holding the ball is allowed. Handball, ref!

  LIGHTS, HEADERS, ACTION!

  William Prest and Nathaniel Creswick were pioneers. The word pioneer was originally used for soldiers who marched ahead of their regiment to prepare the way, but is now used for people who are the first to explore new regions or introduce new ideas. And did those pals like to innovate! As well as devising a rulebook, other important elements of the game were first introduced by Sheffield FC:

  Headers

  In 1866, Sheffield FC played London City at an away game at Battersea Park. The London team could not stop laughing when the visitors used their heads to pass the ball to each other in the air. It was not forbidden in the rules, but it was the first time any team had used headers. This was also the first game to be played for an agreed 90 minutes.

  Floodlights

  Two Sheffield FC players captained the sides in the first match played under floodlights, in 1878 at Bramall Lane.

  Derby match

  Sheffield FC played Hallam FC on Boxing Day 1860 and the fixture, which is still played today, is football’s oldest derby match.

  Throw-ins, corner kicks, half-time change of ends

  Thanks to Sheffield FC, the city became the national hub for football, home to about one third of the first one hundred clubs to play the game. Other Sheffield innovations included throw-ins, corner kicks and changing ends at half-time.

  SHEFFIELD OF DREAMS

  In order to understand why the first football club was founded in Sheffield, rather than anywhere else in Britain or the world, we need to consider how the world of work had been changing for the previous hundred years.

  In the 1750s, most working people made things using their hands. But by the 1850s, a new type of workplace had emerged: the factory. One of the most important things made in factories was the metal steel, which was used for railways, ships and machines. Sheffield became the world centre of steel production. It was located in an area rich in iron ore, which is the mineral that steel is made from. In 1850, 85 per cent of the steel made in the UK was from Sheffield, and it was exported all around the world. Sheffield – nicknamed the Steel City – became rich. Its wealth and industry turned Sheffield into a centre of innovation, just the sort of place where people wanted to try a new sport.

  LIGHT BULB MOMENTS

  In the mid-nineteenth century, many new ideas – not just organised football – changed the world. Here are some:

  DATE INVENTION INVENTOR

  1846 Sewing machine Elias Howe (USA)

  1876 Telephone Alexander Graham Bell (USA)

  1879 Light bulb Thomas Edison (USA)

  Life without football is now just as unthinkable as life without the sewing machine, telephone and light bulb.

  HOORAY FOR THE WEEKEND

  Another mid-nineteenth century invention was the weekend. Before the existence of factories, people in the UK generally worked six days a week, with only Sunday off. Factory workers in places such as Sheffield, however, were allowed Saturday afternoons off too. Football was able to grow because all of a sudden people had leisure time when they could play and watch the game.

  LOVE OF THE GAME

  Sheffield FC was an amateur club, meaning that they did not pay its players. They wanted them to play only for the love of the game. In the 1880s, however, some clubs in the city became professional, meaning that their players earned money.

  Sheffield FC’s decision to stay amateur meant that most of their best players went to play for other teams. For example, when Sheffield United decided to start paying their players in 1889, over half of the men who turned up for the first trial were from Sheffield FC! It was not long before Sheffield FC was eclipsed by the professional teams in the city, such as Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday.

  But while United and Wednesday might make more money and have more fans, they can never say they were the first team in Sheffield.

  THAT’S YOUR LOT

  Sheffield FC raised over £880,000 in 2011 after selling the original rulebook, which contained the printed Rules, Regulations, & Laws of the Sheffield Foot-Ball Club (as it was written then) from 1859. The buyer was anonymous. The chairman might have been hoping for a bit more money: the original document explaining the rules of basketball fetched £2.6 million at an auction in New York in 2010!

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

  Sheffield FC celebrated its 160th birthday in 2017. “Our founders created the team for the love of the game and we have worked hard to protect that,” said club chairman Richard Tims. “In essence, no matter what team you support, this club is your club’s great grandfather.”

  Today, the club has a men’s side that plays in English football’s eighth division, the Northern Premier League. It also fields another twenty teams across all age levels, including five women’s teams. These days the women overshadow the men when it comes to success on the pitch. The women’s first team was formed in 2003, starting in the bottom league. Sheffield FC Ladies kept winning and ended up with six promotions in the space of just eight seasons. In 2015, Sheffield FC Ladies beat Portsmouth 1– 0 in a play-off match to reach the top division, the Women’s Super League, for the first time in their history.

  OLDIES BUT GOLDIES

  Sheffield FC is the oldest club in the world. Here are some of the oldest clubs in other countries:

  CLUB DATE FORMED COUNTRY

  Wrexham 1864 Wales

  Queen’s Park 1867 Scotland

  St Gallen 1879 Switzerland

  Koninklijke 1879 Netherlands

  Clif
tonville 1879 Northern Ireland

  Royal Antwerp 1880 Belgium

  Hong Kong 1886 Hong Kong

  North Shore United 1886 New Zealand

  Germania 1888 Germany

  Recreativo de Huelva 1889 Spain

  Genoa 1893 Italy

  Le Havre 1894 France

  Rio Grande 1900 Brazil

  HISTORY QUIZ

  1. What product was Sheffield famous for making in the 1800s?

  a) Rubber

  b) Brass

  c) Steel

  d) Gold

  2. What name was given to the era from 1760–1840, in which the emergence of factories changed the world of work?

  a) Factory Gold Rush

  b) Industrial Revolution

  c) Turbine Transformation

  d) Mechanical Mutiny

  3. What cutlery-related nickname are Sheffield United known by?

  a) The Forks

  b) The Blades

  c) The Spoons

  d) The Gravy Boats

  4. What job did Alexander Graham Bell have when he invented the telephone?

  a) Electrician

  b) Monkey-trainer at Edinburgh Zoo

  c) Teacher at a school for deaf children

  d) Played in a travelling one-man band

  5. How did Sheffield Wednesday get their name?

  a) From an amateur cricket club, who only played matches on Wednesdays, then set up a football side.