Sport

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.

His name was Sir Roger Bannister, a 25 year old English doctor and an athlete.

On 6th May 1954, he ran a mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds, making him the first man to beat the four minute barrier.

But the following month on 21st June, his rival runner, Australian John Landy, bettered the Iffley Road record with a time of 3 minutes 57.9 seconds, but Bannister will always be remembered as the man who ran the “miracle mile”.

The current fastest mile record is held by Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj, who ran a time of 3 minutes 43.13 seconds in Rome, Italy, on 7 July 1999. 

Svetlana Masterkova holds the women’s record of 4 minutes 12.56 seconds.