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The name served as a catch-all to describe a number of different versions of a game in which the ball was kicked, many of which coexisted. It is little played today except as a minor tourist attraction and on ceremonial occasions, but its vibrant history lives on, especially in relation to the founding myths of the Chinese nation and people.

A round ball and a square wall, just like the Yin and Yang. Moon-shaped goals are opposite each other, each side has six in equal number. Select the captains and appoint the referee(s)..."

Cuju involved a great degree of complexity and changed and developed over time. It could be played competitively or cooperatively, in a team or individually, and was often played for purely aesthetic reasons. The non-competitive version was called baida, with the range of skills that players sought to master known as xieshu. Competitive cuju featured two teams whose object was to outscore one another.

The balls used in cuju were originally made of two pieces of leather stitched together and filled with feathers. As the manufacturing process improved, a ball was developed that had up to 12 pieces of leather. It was precisely sewn together, covered an inflatable animal bladder and weighed around 560 grammes (by comparison, a modern football weighs approximately 430 grammes). This change in technology revolutionised the game, allowing the ball to bounce higher and more freely, thereby greatly increasing the range of skills that could be used. The importance of cuju is evidenced by the fact that balls were also manufactured at an imperial workshop.

There were two principal styles of cuju. In the non-competitive version, known as baida, the aim was to demonstrate skill in keeping the ball off the ground, and to juggle it using the precisely defined methods of the xieshu system. Baida could be played individually or in teams of up to ten people.

In the competitive version of cuju, two sides of six played against each other, with the aim of kicking the ball through the fengliu yan in the centre of the court. A team would pass the ball around, again having to avoid it touching the ground at any point. It was then passed to a designated player, who attempted to kick it through the fengliu yan.

When one side had attempted to score, the ball would go to their opponents to try their luck. The exact rules that governed play are not known, but it is clear that the game was of sufficient complexity and competitiveness that referees were required.

Cuju was never entirely restricted to men. Women appear to have occasionally played the game informally alongside and against men. An illustration of a woman and man playing together can be found on a bronze mirror dating back to the Song dynasty (960-1279), while a 15th-century painting by Du Jin portrays women playing against each other during the Tang dynasty (618-907).

The poem Gong Ci, written by Wang Jian (circa 766-831) during the Tang period, describes girls at the Yichun Academy playing cuju among themselves. During the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), it is recorded that women played a version of cuju in which eight of them formed a circle around one in the middle and the ball was systematically passed from the middle to the outer players and back.

It also appears that women were trained as professional players. Although the oppressive practice of foot-binding for women in this era meant that they could not use their feet to propel the ball, female players employed their hips and probably other parts of the body to demonstrate their skills with the ball. These women were often acrobats or other entertainers, who developed their cuju skills as part of their act.

Although some images of cuju have survived the passage of time, along with a few precious objects, our main understanding of the sport comes from the written word. Such was the importance of cuju in ancient Chinese culture that leading poets often wrote about the game.

Huo Qubing, a general in the Han army, allowed his troops to construct a pitch to play cuju when they were guarding the northern borders. However, as a result of the fracturing of the Han empire in 220 AD, cuju endured a slow decline, gradually dropping out of favour with the elite and even ceasing to be used in military training.

During the Tang dynasty, which lasted from 618 to 907, China was united once again. A centralised state machinery was established, which helped to spur economic development. Cuju reappeared as one of many sports that were played in the newly invigorated nation.

The passion for cuju was not confined to the nobility. During the Tang dynasty, the game became part of the folk traditions of the Chinese people and was played during both the Hanshi and Qingming festivals.

Originally held in midwinter, the Hanshi Festival was known as the Cold Food Festival because fires were not allowed to be used to cook. Held 15 days after the spring equinox, the Qingming Festival, known as the Tomb Sweeping Festival, grew out of the Hanshi Festival.

The Tang dynasty collapsed in the early 900s and China remained fragmented once more until 960, when General Zhao Kuangyin embarked on a military campaign to unite it yet again. As Emperor Taizu, he established what became known as the Song dynasty, which ruled until 1279.

During the Song dynasty, China reached new heights of economic, cultural and social development. The populations of the cities of Kaifeng and Hangzhou rose to over a million, a national postal service was put in place, gunpowder and movable-type printing were invented, and education and social welfare programmes were established by the government. Literature, art and science prospered.

The country's prosperity was

mirrored by the popularity

of cuju, making it once again

an important pastime. Even

the Emperor himself was known

to be a passionate cuju player.

Cuju societies saw themselves as a force for social harmony, bringing together young men of many backgrounds and adopting something of a communal lifestyle, with members sharing clothes, money and food. There is no evidence that women were allowed to join. The societies also produced instructional manuals that not only explained the techniques of the sport but also promoted it as beneficial for physical and mental health. Their belief that the game helped to build muscles, reduce weight and delay the onset of ageing would not look out of place in a football handbook today.

During the Song dynasty, the importance of cuju also led to a handful of players becoming famous for their skills with the ball. Meng Xian and Lu Bao are two players who achieved national prominence and whose names were recorded for posterity. A national championship known as Shan Yue Zheng Sai was also held, although we have little idea of how it was organised or who was allowed to enter.

The increasing popularity of cuju was also demonstrated by the employment of instructors by cuju societies to teach the game and the emergence of professional players. Like other professional entertainers such as musicians, actors and dancers, cuju professionals would tour the country giving exhibitions of their skills and teaching them to others. Such was the level of organisation in the sport that players could only qualify as professionals after passing examinations, in which they had to demonstrate their mastery of the wide variety of kicks without errors.

Training was intensive and arduous, taking place over many years. This was not the only way that players could make a living from their skills. Members of the nobility also retained their own professional players. In the classic novel Water Margin, the future Emperor Huizong, who reigned from 1100 to 1126, employs the messenger Gao Qiu because of his great skills as a cuju player.

Cuju seems to have been regarded as a sort of panacea for all kinds of ills, having a profoundly positive physical, mental and even spiritual impact. The game also appears to have had a moral and ethical aspect. Most of the cuju societies promoted the key Confucian virtues of benevolence, propriety, courtesy, wisdom and sincerity.

The Hongwu Emperor, the first Ming ruler, went as far as banning cuju altogether because it was a distraction from work and military training. Those caught playing could pay a heavy penalty: having a foot cut off.

With the emphasis on military training, cuju all but disappeared in official contexts, as sports such as horse riding were preferred as an adjunct to such training. A form of cuju played on ice also seems to have been encouraged at this time, but did not prove to be popular.

Given the severity of the punishment for playing cuju, it is perhaps not surprising that the long tradition of playing the game during the Hanshi and Qingming festivals also died out, as did the cuju societies. Even so, just as has been the case everywhere else in the world where football and other sports have been banned, records show that people still continued to play cuju informally.

Following internal rebellions and foreign invasions, notably from Western empires, Chinese society became fractured. The social stability that had allowed cuju to flourish in previous centuries disappeared completely.

As the Western occupiers became more influential in China from the mid-19th century, they also brought with them Western sports, including athletics. Cuju became little more than a traditional folk memory.

In the late 1950s, a few Chinese historians began to unearth the history of the ancient game, but it was not until the 1980s that significant research into cuju was undertaken at Chinese universities. As China sought to become a major force in world football, it revisited the history of cuju and the Linzi Football Museum was opened in 2015, showcasing the culture of the game.

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