Arguably the most widely played game in the world today, Association Football or soccer can trace its origins back to 200BC in China.

The word soccer was a slang term coined in the 1890s. The word soccer originally came from an abbreviation of Association Football (Assoc; soc) a term introduced in about 1870 for football played by the rules of the Football Association as opposed to Rugby football.

The ‘er’ was put on the end in the same way as rugby was called ‘rugger’ and football was called ‘footer’.

This use of the ‘er’ suffix was common in the British public schools and Universities in the late 19th century.

In the 1890s the spelling varied between ‘socker’ and ‘soccer’. As we know now, ‘soccer’ was the name that stuck and is used internationally today.

The word soccer is more commonly used in countries like the United States of America and Australia, where other forms of football are more popular.