Court Ladies in the Inner Palace
(detail) c. 1465-1509 by Du Jin

Although the picture is blurry, it shows Chinese ladies playing soccer in the 15th century.  One of them has a dainty foot extended and a big round ball in the air above it.  Soccer is an English invention, but if you thought that the English male was the first person to put foot to an inflated ball, you are hundreds of years out of date.  Chinese palace ladies were already practicing their passing inside the bamboo fence. 

Chinese ladies are also ahead of the men, playing golf in a level surface of a palace garden.  On the same garden scroll they are to be seen wielding a sort of proto-putting ball into the middle of their group.  This proto-golf was called chuiwan.