Travelling across the world and meeting different people taught me about how football and sport in general can help you to assimilate in a new group and break the ice quickly to make that first connection easier. I would like to share this trick with other CS travelers as you simply cannot escape this small talk about sport in those countries where they live by sport, in my post I will talk about England and it's favourite sport - football.  

I will start from sharing my football experience. So when I decided I want to try it, I googled How do I book football match ticket in England? Came across this wonderful platform www.football-trips.com which explains every steps you need to take to get to the stadium and the one you like! 

To choose the best ticket & price I used www.footballticketscompare.com. The reason why I share this because I've come across few other sites that didn't look trustworthy and didn't provide any guarantee they will deliver the tickets. For newbies it's essential to get the first experience right, hence I save your time and hassle by sharing it. 

So, now I'm going to tell you why I chose England for my football trip. It won't be a surprise for you that England is known as a founder of football. Would like to show off with a stories about how it was originally started, here is a shortcut for you. Until the middle of the 19th century, English football had practically no rules, and the players arranged a mass fist fight on the field. Football often became a cause of outrage, and the authorities introduced serious ball penalties and even prison sentences for a few days. Interesting? Carry on reading!

Modern football fans, if they were in an English village around 1920s on a match between two rural communities, would be pretty surprised by what they saw. Especially after a few broad-shouldered thugs, in obvious drunkenness, having grabbed by the arms and legs of the frail bumpkin from the "team" of the rival, swung it and with a provocative laugh threw it out of the playing field. Although where these limits came to an end (or began), it would also be difficult to disassemble. And then - a good-natured fat man grabbing a big bearded man in the throat with his grasping hands, evidently intending to strangle him. Or there, on the right, a group of ragamuffins mutuses feet with another group of the same ragamuffins. And in the middle of the field in the meantime a pile-small was formed, from the depths of which a tall, lean man suddenly jumped out, kicking an oval object in front of him. Such was football in those days: a tumultuous mess, generously saturated with mood-raising drinks.

Well, it's not only English people have been fond of football. I've dig deep to see what other legends are our there about where the football is actually coming from. 

It is said that the team games with the ball were practiced by the inhabitants of Mesoamerica (the territory from modern southern Mexico to the north of Costa Rica) 3,400 years ago. And in the action there was a religious grain: a ball made from the juice of rubber trees, symbolized the sun - its life-giving energy. And it is possible that the matches were arranged between groups of prisoners of war, where the losers - were sacrificed to the gods. Read it on wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame 

Football, of course, was common among the Chinese (where without the Celestial Empire). There is an opinion that already in the 2nd century BC they often chased a ball made of animal skin, folded in such a way that the ball turned out.

The Egyptians used seeds wrapped in linen cloth for this fun. And the Greeks used hair instead of seeds (no, not human, it's the Greeks - culture). From Hellenes, football went to the Romans, who, as befits valiant wars, practiced tactics and strategy with the help of this game. It is reported that the teams they had located in four lines: attackers, midfielders, defenders and goalkeepers - all as on the battlefield.

Thanks for reading so far, this isn't the end. Follow my blog to read the second half of the story. Bone voyage!