Although not everyone could agree on the laws, and it took around 5 meetings before the rules were set in stone, even then some teams were still unsure about some of the rules; Blackheath even withdrew their membership after “hacking” or uncontrolled kicking was banned. The offside was another rule which took a long time decide upon, as it would change the style of play considerably; and thus it was not accepted as a rule until 1867.
These new set of rules would change football and the foot balling society for ever, as no longer could football be looked upon as a “barbarians” game, mob football had disappeared. So unlike sports like tennis, which attracted Royalty and wealthy people, and was then slowly turned into a sport for all classes, “mob” football had become football and now appealed to the rich and wealthy instead of just the “barbarian” peoples.
The FA continued to develop the sport, in particularly by introducing a challenge cup (more commonly known as the FA Cup now) for its members (this was introduced in 1871 and July 20th). Membership to the FA grew rapidly, and by 1881 it had 128 members, making the FA Challenge Cup the most prestigious and oldest competition of its time. The FA was becoming bigger and bigger as society was becoming more civilized, as they wanted to play sports which were fun but had “professional rules” for all to play by. And thus professionalism was legalised in 1885, but it wasn’t until 1914 that all professional and amateur clubs agreed to recognise the authority the FA had as the single governing body in England.
As the FA grew in size and importance it moved it’s headquarters from it’s original place at the Holborn Viaduct to 61 Chancery Lane in 1890, then back to High Holborn, Russell Square, 22 Lancaster Gate in 1929 and then finally to it’s present address at 16 Lancaster Gate, in 1971. The FA continues to work on promoting, developing and protecting the game at all levels.
As the society became more and more enthusiastic about football and some teams had huge amounts of support from fans, the FA had to begin diverging from its priorities of making football fair for everyone, onto cracking down on hooliganism and more recently racism from the fans. These problems have been no going for some time but are being cracked down on by the FA in order to protect mainly international football, as the FA threatens to ban countries that are unable to control their fans from carrying out hooliganism or racism.
