Yes people were playing football at Rugby School when someone for a laugh picked up the ball and ran into the goal.
Isn't rugby football's cousin?
Lacrosse requires too much investment in equipment. It wont catch on in poorer countries. Same with American football, which also has the handicap of being a collision sport that favors heavily built linebackers and thus is unsuitable for some cultures.
There is a reason football is the worlds game. You only need a ball, four sticks, four players, and 8 metres by 5 of flattish ground to get a perfectly good competetive game going. If you play 3 and in, you can do it with the same space, 2 sticks, and just 3 players. It's difficult to think of another sport which could be so portable.
Another problem with high impact collision sports is the fact that they're not going to be as popular among the working class- someone with a white collar job can play football on weekends and even if he breaks an ankle or an arm or something he can probably still come in to work, albeit with a bit of difficulty, but if a factory worker or a manual labourer or what have you does the same thing it's going to be a lot more problematic. IIRC this happened with rugby which is why the lower impact rugby league was more popular among the working classes.
With regards to Hockey: it is quite popular in northern Europe -I'd say it is more popular than football in Scandinavia, but it will never catch up in southern europe for obvious reasons. However, roller hockey -I.e. hockey played on regular skates- is very popular in Spain and Portugal, even if the need of special equipment will make it impossible to ever reach football.
Basket ball was invented by a soccer Coach to allow his Players to practice during the Winter, and is not that Unique,
I simply relate the action on the Soccer Field to what I know about Basket Ball and can easily understand Soccer.
For what it's worth: I pay attention to several news sites in France and Belgium (mostly to improve my French) and it's always interesting (and often infuriating...) how they pay attention to American society. I've noticed that there'll be no coverage at all of baseball (except when there are drug scandals, which I guess they can relate to scandals in other sports), no football until the Super Bowl... and NBA scores throughout the season. (Hockey? What's that? For starters, it's not played on ice over there.) I think basketball's well on its way to catching on internationally. My personal favorite is baseball, but I'm fine keeping that to ourselves. Never really seen the need for every part of the world to conform to every other.
Yes. Both codes of rugby are popular in France and are strongest in the south west in a corridor between Provence and Bordeaux. Rugby union has a professional competition - the Top 14 - with semi-professional competition below. Rugby league has two professional teams in Perpignan and Toulouse, with semi-professional competition below.Also, am I imagining it or is rugby far more important in France than in Belgium?