What was the original soccer ball?
Sophia Dalton
Published Jun 01, 2026
What was the original soccer ball?
The first properly made ball was simply a pig or sheep’s bladder, inflated by good old fashioned lung power and knotted at the end. A leather casing would then be fitted around the bladder to provide durability. The resulting ball was rounder than a rugby ball, although still far from spherical.
What is the oldest soccer ball?
The oldest soccer ball in the world is a ball of grey colour made from cow hide, that’s stored safely within the confines of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. It is said to have belonged to Mary the Queen of Scots, who was a Scottish royal that lived during the 16th century.
What were old footballs filled with?
At the beginning of the 20th century, the vast majority of footballs in circulation featured rubber bladders. An inner tube covered in leather was used, which improved bounce and ball physics.
What were early soccer balls made of?
According to historical references and legend, early balls ranged from human heads, stitched up cloth, animal and human skulls to pig or cow bladders. The Chinese played ‘tsu chu’, in which animal-skin balls were dribbled through gaps in a net stretched between two poles.
What were old footballs made of?
Before rubber was invented, animal bladders were easy to get. They were basically round, lightweight, easily inflated and fairly durable. The oldest football ever found was made in the 1540s. It consists of a pig bladder covered with pieces of leather, possibly from a deer.
Where can you find the oldest football?
Stirling Castle
During an excavation project at Stirling Castle, Scotland, UK in the mid-1970s, a grey, leather ball was discovered behind oak-panelling in a bedroom once used by Mary, Queen of Scots during her reign in the 16th century; it has since been declared the world’s oldest football.
What were old footballs made out of?
What were footballs made of in 1960?
It was in the 1960s that the first synthetic balls were used, which could replicate the qualities of leather without absorbing water, but the game persisted using some form of leather until the 1980s. The first World Cup finals to use a fully synthetic ball was the Mexico tournament in 1986.
What were old soccer balls like?
Most balls produced by that time used rubber bladders. The balls were made from inner tubes covered with heavy brown leather. These balls would bounce easier and yet could be kicked. Most balls had a tanned leather cover with eighteen sections stitched together arranged in six panels of three strips each.