Tim is a very curious Tadpole, and so the other day when Bertie was trying to kick a piece of round slime about, he asked what was the purpose of soccer…

As it happens, the most popular game in the world has a long and interesting history.

We present a short history for kids of the game that some people call Soccer, but which Bertie and his friends call “footie”.

You might also be interested in these external links:

• The Essential History of Soccer
• Fifa World Cup 2006
• A Short History of football for Kids
• BBC Football World Cup 2006 (watch the matches live on the net).

Read on for our

A History of Soccer for Kids

Hello everybody. My name is Natasha, and I’m dropping by to tell you the true storynory of the history of Soccer, or the game which Bertie and his pond life friends call “footie”.

As you probably know, Bertie the frog used to be a handsome prince - and in those days he was the top goal scorer on the Palace team. But now he’s a frog, he doesn’t find it so easy to kick a ball, because his legs are too bendy - but at least he’s better than his friend Tim the Tadpole, who hasn’t got any legs at all, and can only do headers.

Tim is a very curious Tadpole, and so the other day when Bertie was trying to kick a piece of round slime around, he asked what was the purpose of soccer.

“Why?” boomed Bertie. “If you didn’t have football what would we watch on TV?”

“But didn’t it start before TV,” said Tim.

“Er, well, maybe,” said Bertie, starting to wonder what life was like before TV was invented. “Maybe Natasha knows.”

And indeed I do, but only because I went and asked the Palace Teacher who knows all about everything.

Football, like Cricket, came from England. Some historians think that the game goes all the way back to time of the ancient Romans, who lived a long time ago and spoke Latin, and who once conquered Britain.

Some people think that the Celts, who lived in England at the time, used to play football to celebrate each time they won a battle against the Romans - which didn’t happen very often. The England Football team has continued to this day with the tradition of noble defeats.

After the Romans left, football became more and more popular. In the year 1477, a law was passed banning it, because it distracted boys from practising with bows and arrows. But they soon found that not even the law can stop a boy kicking a ball.

But it wasn’t much like the football we watch today. It was really just a disorganised game, with groups of boys kicking a ball from side to side.

In fact, modern football emerged in the nineteenth century at British schools such as Eton and Rugby and Charterhouse.

The trouble was, all the schools developed slightly different rules. At some, you could pick up the ball with your hands.. At others that was considered to be cheating. Indeed, that is where the idea of half-time came from. Often, the first half would be played to one set of rules, and the second half to the another.

It was all very confusing. Then in 1863, which is an awfully long time ago, there was a meeting in London , the capital of Britain. At the meeting The Rule Book of Association Football was drawn up.

There were only 13 rules, which makes it easy-peasy to understand. There are 11 people on each team, and you have to try and kick the ball through the other team’s goal. Nobody is allowed to touch the ball with their hands except for the goalie.

If you push someone over, you get in trouble. Of course Bertie never pushed anybody - except when the Referee wasn’t looking.

And that is the true storynory of where football comes from. Except some people call it soccer — which is short for ‘As-soc-iation’ from that very first rule book written nearly 150 years ago.

I’ll be back soon with another story. And don’t forget, you can hear all of Bertie’s stories at www.storynory.com. So tell all your friends to drop by too.

.Until then, from me Natasha…bye bye.

Download Where Easter Eggs Come From
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This morning on the Pond, Little Tim, who is a very curious tadpole, looked out of the green water and spotted a rabbit hopping around the Vegetable patch.

Hey, Bertie, Tim called out excitedly, Is that The Easter Bunny?

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The sighting of a rabbit by the pond leads Tim to ask a question of great interest to many of our listeners - where do Easter Eggs come from?

This short history of Easter Eggs is the first of our True Storynories. We hope that you will enjoy Tim’s Lessons as much as our fairy tales and poems.

Read by Natasha Lee Lewis. Duration 6.25

And now for something slightly different. What are your favourite stories? Hugh, who is a friend of Bertie and Natasha, visited the Downs Church of England Primary School in the South East of England to find out what the favourite stories of the children there are, and to report back to Bertie. He was helped by Lucy who is one of the DJs on the the fabulous podcast made by the School, Downs FM. The picture shows some of the children in Year Six making their podcast under the guidance of their teacher, Mark Warner. You may also be interested to watch the Downs FM TV show, staring various puppets.

Bertie and Storynory are interested in collaborating with Schools around the world. One of the things you can do is to send us your artwork, which we will post to our gallery (scroll down the page to find it). We may also let you upload directly to our Flickr blog. If you would like to do this, or if you have any other ideas for collaboration, drop Bertie a line. Bertie@storynory.com.

Introduced by Natasha Lee Lewis. Duration 4 minutes.