Also, read any UK book or magazine from any date from 1863 onwards, and 99 out of a 100 use football. Soccer is a present-day Americanism. It just doesn’t get - and rarely was - used in the UK.

No they didn’t. It’s called soccer because it was Association Football, abbreviated to soccer. Association Football only started in 1863. So 150 years of it being called soccer. Before that it was football, for centuries. You know, as in the game where you hit the ball with your foot. Here’s a text from 1424:

And a smile.