Sport

In Rome, Italy in 1960, the first Paralympic games were held and there were 400 athletes competing from 23 different countries. Followed by the 1976 Paralympics Winter games in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden.

Although sports for atheletes that had suffered an impairment have been around for more than 100 years, it was not until after the second World War that a more comepetitive form of events existed.

The purpose of introducing the competition was to help the recovery, mentally and physically, of the large number of injured veterans and civilians hurt during the years of war.

In 1944, the British Government requested Dr.Ludwig Guttmann open a spinal injury centre at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in London. During this time the rehabilitation of the injured and impaired patients moved on from being purely recreational sports to that of competitive sports.

On 29th July 1948, which was the opening ceremony day of the London Olympics, Dr Guttmann organised the first wheelchair bound atheletes competition, which was then known as the Stoke Mandeville Games.

During these games 16 injured servicemen and women took part in an archery event this was followed in 1952 by a Dutch ex-servicemen joining in the Movement. Thereafter, the International Stoke Mandeville Games was founded.

Since the 1988 Olympic Games of Seoul, Korea and the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France, all Olympic and Paralympic Games have taken place in the same cities and venues, as an agreement was reached between the IPC (International Paralympic Committee) and IOC (International Olympic Committee).

Also back in 1960, the collective groups of the World Federation of ex-servicemen, and the International Working Group on Sport for the Disabled joined forces. These groups were set up to explore problems that people with an impairment might suffer in joining in, and being affiliated to, the International Stoke Mandeville Games.

In 1964, these two groups formed one corperation which was known as the International Sport Organisation for the Disabled (ISOD). They offered opportunities for athletes who could not automatically be affiliated to the International Stoke Mandeville Games: like the visually impaired, persons with cerebral palsy, amputees, and paraplegics.

At the beginning, just 16 countries were affiliated to ISOD, but they encouraged the event to include blind and amputee athletes into the 1976 Toronto Paralympics. After that they pushed to have athletes with cerebral palsy in 1980 paralympics in Arnhem.

The aim of the committee was to include all physically impairmed atheles, and with many other organisations being formed, this made the ISOD’s job easier.

Disability oriented groups like the Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association (CPISRA) and International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) were founded in 1978 and 1980 respectively, and this helped push their causes forward.

Finally in 1982 the “International Co-coordinating Committee Sports for the Disabled in the World” (ICC) was formed and the four international organisations experienced a great united benefit in coordinating the furture of the Paralympic Games.

The ICC was consisted of the four presidents of CPISRA, IBSA, ISMGF and ISOD, with the general secretaries and an additional member (which happened to be the Vice-President, followed by the Technical Officer).

With tthe International Committee of Sport for the Deaf (CISS) and International Sports Federations for Persons with an Intellectual Disability (INAS-FID) joining in 1986. However the deaf still maintained their own separate organisation, with the member nations demanding a more national and regional representation within the organisation.

The International Paralympic Committee was founded on 22 September 1989, in Dusseldorf, Germany as an international non-profit organisation and they became the main global governing body for the Paralympic Movement.

The Paralympic Games are now the second biggest sporting event in the world.

We all believe that womens football started to become popular in Britain with ladies in the lead up to the London Olympics in 2012.

Well, think again! Women’s football history dates back towards the end of the 19th century in Scotland.

In 1881, an International womens football match was played in Edinburgh where Scotland beat England 3-0. However, when another game was played in Glasgow, a huge riot broke out and subsequently women were banned from playing football.

Following the ban, Helen Graham Matthews moved to England and set up the “Lady Footballers”. But then in 1894, the medical professionals in the UK called for girls and women to stop playing football due to the physical damage they were doing to their bodies.

But the following year Nettie Honeyball founded the British Ladies Football Club and the sport grew in popularity throughout the first World War.

Again though in 1921, the Football Association (FA) barred all ladies teams playing on FA grounds, so that the difficulties of organising training and matches made it impossible to continue to playing and therefore the sport petered out.

Roll on a few years and following on from England’s 1966 World Cup victory, women’s football began to re-ermerge. In 1969 the Women’s Football Association was founded but it took two further years for an order from UEFA to force the FA to remove the restrictions against women playing on their grounds.

Since 1971 the number of women football players and teams keeps increasing and now is at a record high of 2.89 female footballers.

The Ashes are a series of five test matches in cricket which are played between England and Australia at least once every four years.

When Australia won the test series in 1882, a satirical obituary was put in ‘The Sporting Times’ by a cricket journalist who stated “The body (English Cricket) will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. That is where the term “the Ashes” originated from.

Thereafter, the ashes became associated with the following years series which were played in Australia, especially as the English Captain Ivo Bligh vowed to “regain thoses ashes” as they went on tour. Consequently, the British media dubbed the England Cricket Club’s tour as the quest to regain the Ashes.

England went on to win two out of the three tests that year and were presented with a small urn by a group of Melbourne woman, one of whom became Bligh’s wife.

The urn was said to contain the ashes of a wooden ball and was jokingly described as “the ashes of Australian cricket”

Over the years, Australia has won 32 series, England 31 and they have drawn five series.

The FIFA World Cup is the largest worldwide football tournament in existence celebrating what many people call the ‘beautiful game’.

Did you know that the very first World Cup event took place on 13th July 1930!

Here are some interesting and unknown facts :

• Brazil have appeared in the World Cup 19 times and have won it 5 times.
• The most goals scored by one player in the World Cup tournaments is Ronaldo, during his International career with Brazil from 1998-2006.
• Pelé has the most number of wins when he played for Brazil in 1958, 1962 and 1970.
• The youngest player to play in the World Cup back in 1982 was Norman Whiteside, from Northern Ireland.  He was just 17 yrs and 41 days old.
• The oldest player to play in the tournament was Roger Milla, from Cameroun in 1994 against Russia.  He was 42 yrs  and 39 days old.
• Lothar Mattháus from Deutschland has played  25 matches for his Country from 1982-1998.
• Whilst Paolo Maldini from Italy has played for 2217 minutes for his Country during his career from 1990-2002.
• The fastest goal from kickoff occurred within 11 seconds and Hakan Súkúr from Turkey scored it against the Korea Republic in 2002.
• The player with the most goals scored during one tournament is Just Fontaine of France in 1958 and he scored 13 goals.
• Oleg Salenko, Russia, scored 5 goals during one match against Cameroun in 1994.
• The most goals scored during one match was 12, and the game was between Ósterreich versus Switzerland in 1954.
• The highest goal score victory was back in 1982, when Magyarország beat El Salvador 10-1.
• The goalkeeper with the best record for not conceding a goal during the tournament is Walter Zenga from Italy.  He managed to keep a clean sheet for 517 minutes during the 1990 World Cup.

No doubt future FIFA World Cup’s will see some of these records broken and new facts added to the ever growing list.

 

 

Former Wales international outside half Neil Jenkins holds the record for most penalty goals kicked by a Lion in a series after slotting 13 in the win over South Africa in 1997.

It’s a Wallaby who tops the list for the same feat against the tourists, though, with Matt Burke having booted 11 in 2001.