现代足球起源地是在英格兰。传说在11世纪，英格兰与丹麦之间有过一场战争，战争结束后，英格兰人在清理战争废墟时发现一个丹麦入侵者的头骨，出于愤恨，他们便用脚去踢这个头骨，一群小孩见了便也来踢，不过他们发现头骨踢起来脚痛，于是用牛膀胱吹气来代替它——这就是现代足球的诞生。 [2]
12世纪初，英格兰开始有了足球赛。英国国王亨利四世提出最早的英语词汇foteball定义为足球 [3] ，比赛是娱乐活动，一年两次，一般在两个城市之间举行。主持人把球往空中一抛，比赛就算开始。双方就会一拥而上，大叫大喊，又踢又抱，哪一方能将球踢进对方的闹市区，哪一方就算胜利。如果球中途窜入居民屋里，人们也就一窝蜂的冲进去乱打乱踢，常常把屋里的东西砸得稀巴烂，房主只好自叹倒霉。路上行人碰到球滚来，就会遭受一场飞来的横祸。因此在当时，球赛一来，人们就得躲避灾难，关门闭户，一直到球赛结束，才恢复正常。这样的球赛遭到市民的强烈反对，英格兰政府便下了一道禁令：规定足球比赛要在空地上进行，进入闹市区者重罚，于是就出现了专门的足球场。到19世纪初期，足球运动在当时欧洲及拉美一些国家特别是在英格兰已经相当盛行。
football. Alternative form of foteball
foteball(Late Middle English) football (game played with a ball; ancestor of soccer, American football, and rugby)
foteball(Late Middle English) The ball that such a game is played with.
King Henry IV of England also presented one of the earliest documented uses of the English word "football", in 1409, when he issued a proclamation forbidding the levying of money for "foteball".
No foteball player be used or suffered within the City of London and the liberties thereof upon pain of imprisonment
In a similar vein, the first time we know of the word “foteball” being used is in a 1409 decree from Henry IV outlawing the levying of money to pay for the game. It must have caught on, however, for one brilliant case of early football’s prevalence is that we have evidence that King Henry VIII ordered a pair of football boots to be made
King Henry IV of England also presented one of the earliest documented uses of the English word "football", in 1409, when he issued a proclamation forbidding the levying of money for "foteball".[30][34] There is also an account in Latin from the end of the 15th century of football being played at Cawston