Premier League fixture 07/08

Monday, 11 February 2008
Arsenal v Blackburn, 20:00

Saturday, 23 February 2008
Birmingham v Arsenal, 12:45
Fulham v West Ham, 15:00
Liverpool v Middlesbrough, 15:00
Newcastle v Man Utd, 17:15
Portsmouth v Sunderland, 15:00
Wigan v Derby, 15:00

Sunday, 24 February 2008
Blackburn v Bolton, 15:00
Reading v Aston Villa, 12:30

Monday, 25 February 2008
Man City v Everton, 20:00

Saturday, 01 March 2008
Arsenal v Aston Villa, 15:00
Birmingham v Tottenham, 15:00
Derby v Sunderland, 15:00
Fulham v Man Utd, 15:00
Man City v Wigan, 15:00
Middlesbrough v Reading, 15:00
Newcastle v Blackburn, 15:00
West Ham v Chelsea, 15:00

Sunday, 02 March 2008
Bolton v Liverpool, 13:30
Everton v Portsmouth, 16:00

Wednesday, 05 March 2008
Liverpool v West Ham, 20:00

Saturday, 08 March 2008
Aston Villa v Middlesbrough, 15:00
Blackburn v Fulham, 15:00
Chelsea v Derby, 15:00
Liverpool v Newcastle, 15:00
Portsmouth v Birmingham, 15:00
Reading v Man City, 15:00
Sunderland v Everton, 15:00
Tottenham v West Ham, 15:00

Sunday, 09 March 2008
Man Utd v Bolton, 13:30
Wigan v Arsenal, 16:00

Saturday, 15 March 2008
Arsenal v Middlesbrough, 15:00
Derby v Man Utd, 15:00
Liverpool v Reading, 15:00
Portsmouth v Aston Villa, 15:00
Sunderland v Chelsea, 15:00
West Ham v Blackburn, 15:00
Wigan v Bolton, 15:00

Sunday, 16 March 2008
Fulham v Everton, 13:30
Man City v Tottenham, 16:00

Monday, 17 March 2008
Birmingham v Newcastle, 20:00


Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Tottenham v Chelsea, 20:00

Saturday, 22 March 2008
Aston Villa v Sunderland, 15:00
Blackburn v Wigan, 15:00
Bolton v Man City, 15:00
Everton v West Ham, 15:00
Middlesbrough v Derby, 15:00
Newcastle v Fulham, 15:00
Reading v Birmingham, 15:00
Tottenham v Portsmouth, 15:00


Sunday, 23 March 2008
Chelsea v Arsenal, 16:00
Man Utd v Liverpool, 13:30

Saturday, 29 March 2008
Birmingham v Man City, 15:00
Bolton v Arsenal, 15:00
Derby v Fulham, 15:00
Portsmouth v Wigan, 15:00
Reading v Blackburn, 15:00
Sunderland v West Ham, 15:00

Sunday, 30 March 2008
Liverpool v Everton, 16:00
Man Utd v Aston Villa, 13:30
Tottenham v Newcastle, 15:00

Monday, 31 March 2008
Chelsea v Middlesbrough, 20:00

Saturday, 05 April 2008
Arsenal v Liverpool, 15:00
Aston Villa v Bolton, 15:00
Blackburn v Tottenham, 15:00
Fulham v Sunderland, 15:00
Man City v Chelsea, 15:00
Middlesbrough v Man Utd, 15:00
Newcastle v Reading, 15:00
West Ham v Portsmouth, 15:00
Wigan v Birmingham, 15:00

Sunday, 06 April 2008
Everton v Derby, 15:00

Saturday, 12 April 2008
Birmingham v Everton, 15:00
Bolton v West Ham, 15:00
Chelsea v Wigan, 15:00
Derby v Aston Villa, 15:00
Liverpool v Blackburn, 15:00
Man Utd v Arsenal, 15:00
Portsmouth v Newcastle, 15:00
Reading v Fulham, 15:00
Sunderland v Man City, 15:00
Tottenham v Middlesbrough, 15:00


Saturday, 19 April 2008
Arsenal v Reading, 15:00
Blackburn v Man Utd, 15:00
Everton v Chelsea, 15:00
Fulham v Liverpool, 15:00
Man City v Portsmouth, 15:00
Middlesbrough v Bolton, 15:00
Newcastle v Sunderland, 15:00
West Ham v Derby, 15:00
Wigan v Tottenham, 15:00

Sunday, 20 April 2008
Aston Villa v Birmingham, 12:00

Saturday, 26 April 2008
Birmingham v Liverpool, 15:00
Chelsea v Man Utd, 15:00
Derby v Arsenal, 15:00
Everton v Aston Villa, 15:00
Man City v Fulham, 15:00
Portsmouth v Blackburn, 15:00
Sunderland v Middlesbrough, 15:00
Tottenham v Bolton, 15:00
West Ham v Newcastle, 15:00
Wigan v Reading, 15:00

Saturday, 03 May 2008
Arsenal v Everton, 15:00
Aston Villa v Wigan, 15:00
Blackburn v Derby, 15:00
Bolton v Sunderland, 15:00
Fulham v Birmingham, 15:00
Liverpool v Man City, 15:00
Man Utd v West Ham, 15:00
Middlesbrough v Portsmouth, 15:00
Newcastle v Chelsea, 15:00
Reading v Tottenham, 15:00

Sunday, 11 May 2008
Birmingham v Blackburn, 15:00
Chelsea v Bolton, 15:00
Derby v Reading, 15:00
Everton v Newcastle, 15:00
Middlesbrough v Man City, 15:00
Portsmouth v Fulham, 15:00
Sunderland v Arsenal, 15:00
Tottenham v Liverpool, 15:00
West Ham v Aston Villa, 15:00
Wigan v Man Utd, 15:00

English Premier League

The Premier League (officially known as the Barclays Premier League for sponsorship reasons, colloquially known as The Premiership), is an English professional league for football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. The Premier League is currently contested by 20 clubs, operating a system of promotion and relegation with The Football League. Seasons run from August to May, with teams playing 38 games each.

The competition formed as the FA Premier League on 20 February 1992 and the first games were played on 15 August that year, following the decision of clubs in the Football League First Division to break away from The Football League to take advantage of a lucrative television rights deal; The Football League had served as England and Wales' primary football competition since 1888. Since then, the Premier League has become the world's most watched sporting league and the most lucrative football league, with cumulative club revenues of around £1.4 billion. The league is a corporation with the 20 clubs acting as shareholders.

A total of 40 clubs have competed in the Premier League, but only four have won the title: Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers, Arsenal, and Chelsea. The current Premier League champions are Manchester United, who won their ninth title in the 2006–07 season, the most of any Premier League team.

UEFA Cup

The UEFA Cup (also known as European Cup 3, CE3 or C3) is a football competition for European club teams, organized by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). It is the second most important international competition for European football clubs, after the UEFA Champions League. Clubs qualify for the UEFA Cup based on their performance in national leagues and cup competitions.

It began in 1971 and replaced the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. In 1999 the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was abolished and merged with the UEFA Cup. While the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup is considered a pre-cursor to the UEFA Cup for records purposes, this does not apply to the Cup Winners' Cup.

Sevilla FC are the current holders of the UEFA Cup, having won the competition for the second year in a row. The 2007 UEFA Cup Final took place at Hampden Park in Glasgow, Scotland, on 16 May 2007. They beat fellow Spaniards RCD Espanyol on penalties.

The final for the 2007-08 season will be played at the City of Manchester Stadium, home of English Premier League side Manchester City.

UEFA Champions League

The UEFA Champions League is a seasonal club football competition organised by one of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 1955 for the most successful football clubs in Europe. The prize, the European Champion Clubs' Cup, is considered the most prestigious club trophy in the sport.

The UEFA Champions League is separate from the less prestigious UEFA Cup and the defunct Cup Winners' Cup.

The tournament consists of several stages. In the present format it begins in mid-July with three preliminary knockout qualifying rounds. The 16 surviving teams join 16 seeded teams in a group stage. Eight group winners and eight runners-up enter the final knockout rounds, which end with the final match in May.

The current holders of the UEFA Champions League trophy are AC Milan, who beat Liverpool FC 2-1 at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece on 23 May 2007.

Moscow will host its first European Cup final for the 2007-08 season.

FIFA World Rankings

Top 30 Rankings as of January 2008

Rank Team Points Federation
1 Argentina 1523 CONMEBOL
2 Brazil 1502 CONMEBOL
3 Italy 1498 UEFA
4 Spain 1349 UEFA
5 Germany 1305 UEFA
6 Czech Republic 1290 UEFA
7 France 1243 UEFA
8 Portugal 1241 UEFA
9 Netherlands 1170 UEFA
10 Croatia 1129 UEFA
11 Greece 1114 UEFA
12 England 1113 UEFA
13 Romania 1088 UEFA
14 Scotland 990 UEFA
15 Mexico 982 CONCACAF
16 Turkey 924 UEFA
17 Colombia 905 CONMEBOL
18 Bulgaria 881 UEFA
19 Nigeria 879 CAF
20 USA 876 CONCACAF
21 Paraguay 873 CONMEBOL
22 Sweden 864 UEFA
23 Poland 862 UEFA
24 Russia 861 UEFA
25 Cameroon 853 CAF
26 Israel 852 UEFA
27 Serbia 844 UEFA
28 Uruguay 831 CONMEBOL
29 Norway 827 UEFA
30 Ukraine 824 UEFA

FIFA World Cup

The FIFA World Cup, sometimes called the Football World Cup or the Soccer World Cup, but usually referred to simply as the World Cup, is an international football competition contested by the men's national football teams of the member nations of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946, due to World War II.

The tournament consists of two parts, the qualification phase and the final phase (officially called the World Cup Finals). The qualification phase, which currently take place over the three years preceding the Finals, is used to determine which teams qualify for the Finals. The current format of the Finals involves 32 teams competing for the title, at venues within the host nation (or nations) over a period of about a month. The World Cup Finals is the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world, with an estimated 715.1 million people watching the 2006 tournament final.

In the eighteen tournaments held, only seven nations have won the title. Brazil is the most successful World Cup team, having won the tournament five times. The current World Champions, Italy, follows with four titles, while Germany holds three. The other former champions are Uruguay (who won the inaugural tournament) and Argentina with two titles each, and England and France with one title each.

The most recent World Cup Finals were held in Germany, where Italy was crowned champions after beating France in the final. The next World Cup Finals will be held in South Africa, from June 11, 2010 to July 11, 2010, and the 2014 Finals will be held in Brazil.

Use of the word "football" in English-speaking countries

The word "football", when used in reference to a specific game can mean any one of those described above. Because of this, much friendly controversy has occurred over the term football, primarily because it is used in different ways in different parts of the English-speaking world. Most often, the word "football" is used to refer to the code of football that is considered dominant within a particular region. So, effectively, what the word "football" means usually depends on where one says it.

The name "soccer" (or "soccer football") was originally a slang abbreviation of association football and is now the prevailing term in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand where other codes of football are dominant.

Of the 45 national FIFA affiliates in which English is an official or primary language, only three (Canada, Samoa and the United States) actually use "soccer" in their organizations' official names, while the rest use football (although the Samoan Federation actually uses both). However, in some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, use of the word "football" by soccer bodies is a recent change and has been controversial. The governing body for Rugby Union in New Zealand changed its name from "New Zealand Rugby Football Union" to "New Zealand Rugby Union" in 2006.

The Football Association

During the early 1860s, there were increasing attempts in England to unify and reconcile the various public school games. In 1862, J. C. Thring, who had been one of the driving forces behind the original Cambridge Rules, was a master at Uppingham School and he issued his own rules of what he called "The Simplest Game" (these are also known as the Uppingham Rules). In early October 1863 another new revised version of the Cambridge Rules was drawn up by a seven member committee representing former pupils from Harrow, Shrewsbury, Eton, Rugby, Marlborough and Westminster.

At the Freemason's Tavern, Great Queen Street, London on the evening of October 26, 1863, representatives of several football clubs in the London Metropolitan area met for the inaugural meeting of The Football Association (FA). The aim of the Association was to establish a single unifying code and regulate the playing of the game among its members. Following the first meeting, the public schools were invited were sent to join the association. All of them declined, except Charterhouse and Uppingham. In total, six meetings of the FA were held between October and December 1863. After the third meeting, a draft set of rules were published. However, at the beginning of the fourth meeting, attention was drawn to the recently-published Cambridge Rules of 1863. The Cambridge rules differed from the draft FA rules in two significant areas; namely running with (carrying) the ball and hacking (kicking opposing players in the shins). The two contentious FA rules were as follows:

IX. A player shall be entitled to run with the ball towards his adversaries' goal if he makes a fair catch, or catches the ball on the first bound; but in case of a fair catch, if he makes his mark [to take a free kick] he shall not run.

X. If any player shall run with the ball towards his adversaries' goal, any player on the opposite side shall be at liberty to charge, hold, trip or hack him, or to wrest the ball from him, but no player shall be held and hacked at the same time.

At the fifth meeting it was proposed that these two rules be removed. Most of the delegates supported this, but F. W. Campbell, the representative from Blackheath and the first FA treasurer, objected. He said: "hacking is the true football". However, the motion to ban hacking was carried and Blackheath withdrew from the FA. After the final meeting on 8 December, the FA published the "Laws of Football", the first comprehensive set of rules for the game later known as football (later known in some countries as soccer).

The first FA rules still contained elements that are no longer part of association football, but which are still recognizable in other games (most notably Australian football): for instance, a player could make a fair catch and claim a mark, which entitled him to a free kick, and; if a player touched the ball behind the opponents' goal line, his side was entitled to a free kick at goal, from 15 yards in front of the goal line.

The first modern balls

In Europe, early footballs were made out of animal bladders, more specifically pig's bladders, which were inflated. Later leather coverings were introduced to allow the ball to keep their shape. However, in 1851, Richard Lindon and William Gilbert, both shoemakers from the town of Rugby (near the school), exhibited both round and oval-shaped balls at the Great Exhibition in London. Richard Lindon's wife is said to have died due to lung disease caused by blowing up pig's bladders. Lindon also won medals for the invention of the "Rubber inflatable Bladder" and the "Brass Hand Pump".

In 1855, the U.S. inventor Charles Goodyear — who had patented vulcanized rubber — exhibited a spherical football, with an exterior of vulcanized rubber panels, at the Paris Exhibition Universelle. The ball was to prove popular in early forms of football in the U.S.A.

The first clubs

During this period, the Rugby school rules appear to have spread at least as far, perhaps further, than the other schools' codes. For example, two clubs which claim to be the world's first and/or oldest football club, in the sense of a club which is not part of a school or university, are strongholds of rugby football: the Barnes Club, said to have been founded in 1839, and Guy's Hospital Football Club, in 1843. Neither date nor the variety of football played is well-documented, but such claims nevertheless allude to the popularity of rugby before other modern codes emerged.

In 1845, three boys at Rugby school were tasked with codifying the rules then being used at the school. These were the first set of written rules (or code) for any form of football.This further assisted the spread of the Rugby game. For instance, Dublin University Football Club — founded at Trinity College, Dublin in 1854 and later famous as a bastion of the Rugby School game — is the world's oldest documented football club in any code.

Official disapproval and attempts to ban football

Numerous attempts have been made to ban football games, particularly the most rowdy and disruptive forms. This was especially the case in England and in other parts of Europe, during the Middle Ages and early modern period. Between 1324 and 1667, football was banned in England alone by more than 30 royal and local laws. The need to repeatedly proclaim such laws demonstrated the difficulty in enforcing bans on popular games. King Edward II was so troubled by the unruliness of football in London that on April 13, 1314 he issued a proclamation banning it: "For as much as there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls from which many evils may arise which God forbid; we command and forbid, on behalf of the King, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in the future."

The reasons for the ban by Edward III, on June 12, 1349, were explicit: football and other recreations distracted the populace from practicing archery, which was necessary for war.

By 1608, the local authorities in Manchester were complaining that: "With the ffotebale...[there] hath been great disorder in our town of Manchester we are told, and glass windows broken yearly and spoiled by a company of lewd and disordered persons ..." That same year, the word "football" was used disapprovingly by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's play King Lear contains the line: "Nor tripped neither, you base football player" (Act I, Scene 4). Shakespeare also mentions the game in A Comedy of Errors (Act II, Scene 1):

Am I so round with you as you with me,
That like a football you do spurn me thus?
You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither:
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.

"Spurn" literally means to kick away, thus implying that the game involved kicking a ball between players.

King James I of England's Book of Sports (1618) however, instructs Christians to play at football every Sunday afternoon after worship.The book's aim appears to be an attempt to offset the strictness of the Puritans regarding the keeping of the Sabbath.

Medieval and early modern Europe Football

The Middle Ages saw a huge rise in popularity of annual Shrovetide football matches throughout Europe, particularly in England. The game played in England at this time may have arrived with the Roman occupation, but there is little evidence to indicate this. Reports of a game played in Brittany, Normandy, and Picardy, known as La Soule or Choule, suggest that some of these football games could have arrived in England as a result of the Norman Conquest.

These forms of football, sometimes referred to as "mob football", would be played between neighbouring towns and villages, involving an unlimited number of players on opposing teams, who would clash in a heaving mass of people, struggling to move an item such as an inflated pig's bladder, to particular geographical points, such as their opponents' church. Shrovetide games have survived into the modern era in a number of English towns.

The first detailed description of football in England was given by William FitzStephen in about 1174-1183. He described the activities of London youths during the annual festival of Shrove Tuesday:

After lunch all the youth of the city go out into the fields to take part in a ball game. The students of each school have their own ball; the workers from each city craft are also carrying their balls. Older citizens, fathers, and wealthy citizens come on horseback to watch their juniors competing, and to relive their own youth vicariously: you can see their inner passions aroused as they watch the action and get caught up in the fun being had by the carefree adolescents.

Most of the very early references to the game speak simply of "ball play" or "playing at ball". This reinforces the idea that the games played at the time did not necessarily involve a ball being kicked.

In 1314, Nicholas de Farndone, Lord Mayor of London issued a decree banning football in the French used by the English upper classes at the time. A translation reads: "[f]orasmuch as there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large foot balls in the fields of the public from which many evils might arise which God forbid: we command and forbid on behalf of the king, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in the future." This is the earliest reference to football.

The earliest mention of a ball game that involves kicking was in 1321, in Shouldham, Norfolk: "[d]uring the game at ball as he kicked the ball, a lay friend of his... ran against him and wounded himself".

In 1363, King Edward III of England issued a proclamation banning "...handball, football, or hockey; coursing and cock-fighting, or other such idle games", showing that "football" — whatever its exact form in this case — was being differentiated from games involving other parts of the body, such as handball.

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".

There is also an account in Latin from the end of the 15th century of football being played at Cawston, Nottinghamshire. This is the first description of a "kicking game" and the first description of dribbling: "[t]he game at which they had met for common recreation is called by some the foot-ball game. It is one in which young men, in country sport, propel a huge ball not by throwing it into the air but by striking it and rolling it along the ground, and that not with their hands but with their feet... kicking in opposite directions" The chronicler gives the earliest reference to a football field, stating that: "[t]he boundaries have been marked and the game had started.

Other firsts in the mediæval and early modern eras:

* "a football", in the sense of a ball rather than a game, was first mentioned in 1486.This reference is in Dame Juliana Berners' Book of St Albans. It states: "a certain rounde instrument to play with ...it is an instrument for the foote and then it is calde in Latyn 'pila pedalis', a fotebal."
* a pair of football boots was ordered by King Henry VIII of England in 1526.
* women playing a form of football was in 1580, when Sir Philip Sidney described it in one of his poems: "[a] tyme there is for all, my mother often sayes, When she, with skirts tuckt very hy, with girles at football playes."
* the first references to goals are in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In 1584 and 1602 respectively, John Norden and Richard Carew referred to "goals" in Cornish hurling. Carew described how goals were made: "they pitch two bushes in the ground, some eight or ten foote asunder; and directly against them, ten or twelue [twelve] score off, other twayne in like distance, which they terme their Goales". He is also the first to describe goalkeepers and passing of the ball between players.
* the first direct reference to scoring a goal is in John Day's play The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (performed circa 1600; published 1659): "I'll play a gole at camp-ball" (an extremely violent variety of football, which was popular in East Anglia). Similarly in a poem in 1613, Michael Drayton refers to "when the Ball to throw, And drive it to the Gole, in squadrons forth they goe".

Early history

Ancient games

Documented evidence of what is possibly the oldest activity resembling football can be found in a Chinese military manual written during the Warring States Period in about the 476 BC-221 BC. It describes a practice known as cuju (蹴鞠, literally "kick ball"), which originally involved kicking a leather ball through a hole in a piece of silk cloth strung between two 30-foot poles. During the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), cuju games were standardized and rules were established. Variations of this game later spread to Japan and Korea, known as kemari and chuk-guk respectively. By the Chinese Tang Dynasty (618-907), the feather-stuffed ball was replaced by an air-filled ball and cuju games had become professionalized, with many players making a living playing cuju. Also, two different types of goal posts emerged: One was made by setting up posts with a net between them and the other consisted of just one goal post in the middle of the field. FIFA, the governing body of association football (soccer), has acknowledged that China was the birthplace of its game.

The Japanese version of cuju is kemari (蹴鞠), and was adopted during the Asuka period from the Chinese. This is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about 600 AD. In kemari several people stand in a circle and kick a ball to each other, trying not to let the ball drop to the ground (much like keepie uppie). The game appears to have died out sometime before the mid-19th century. It was revived in 1903 and is now played at a number of festivals.

The Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games some of which involved the use of the feet. The Roman writer Cicero describes the case of a man who was killed whilst having a shave when a ball was kicked into a barber's shop. The Roman game harpastum is believed to have been adapted from a team game known as "επισκυρος" (episkyros) or pheninda that is mentioned by Greek playwright, Antiphanes (388-311BC) and later referred to by Clement of Alexandria. These games appears to have resembled rugby.

There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, and/or prehistoric ball games, played by indigenous peoples in many different parts of the world. For example, in 1586, men from a ship commanded by an English explorer named John Davis, went ashore to play a form of football with Inuit (Eskimo) people in Greenland.[4] There are later accounts of an Inuit game played on ice, called Aqsaqtuk. Each match began with two teams facing each other in parallel lines, before attempting to kick the ball through each other team's line and then at a goal. In 1610, William Strachey of the Jamestown settlement, Virginia recorded a game played by Native Americans, called Pahsaheman. In Victoria, Australia, indigenous people played a game called Marn Grook ("ball game"). An 1878 book by Robert Brough-Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, quotes a man called Richard Thomas as saying, in about 1841, that he had witnessed Aboriginal people playing the game: "Mr Thomas describes how the foremost player will drop kick a ball made from the skin of a possum and how other players leap into the air in order to catch it." It is widely believed that Marn Grook had an influence on the development of Australian rules football.

Games played in Central America with rubber balls by indigenous peoples are also well-documented as existing since before this time, but these had more similarities to basketball or volleyball, and since their influence on modern football games is minimal, most do not class them as football.

These games and others may well go far back into antiquity and may have influenced later football games. However, the main sources of modern football codes appear to lie in western Europe, especially England.

Etymology

While it is widely believed that the word "football" (or "foot ball") originated in reference to the action of a foot kicking a ball, there is a rival explanation, which has it that football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe, which were played on foot.[1] These games were usually played by peasants, as opposed to the horse-riding sports often played by aristocrats. While there is no conclusive evidence for this explanation, the word football has always implied a variety of games played on foot, not just those that involved kicking a ball. In some cases, the word football has even been applied to games which have specifically outlawed kicking the ball.