The game of football began modestly enough, yet it had certain durable qualities, and it inspired a particular kind of determined devotion in its followers. The games that are now known as Rugby and Association Football began in England about halfway through the present century. There are records of earlier forms in China, at least two thousand years ago, in ancient Greece and Rome. But it was in England that football began to take the shape we now recognise, and it is here where we begin our history of soccer.