English Inventions - Sport

Sport

  • Bungee jumping - The first modern bungee jumps were made on 1 April 1979 from the 250-foot (76 m) Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, by members of the Oxford University Dangerous Sports Club.
  • Football – The rules as we know them today were established in 1848 at Cambridge University, Sheffield F.C. is acknowledged by The Football Association and FIFA as the world's first and oldest football club.
  • Rugby – William Webb Ellis
  • Cricket – the world's second-most popular sport can be traced back to the 13th century
  • Bowling machine (for cricket) and predecessor of the pitching machine first invented by Nicholas Felix (born 1804)
  • Baseball – A diary has been found which describes the game being played by a teenager in Guildford in 1755 before it was recorded as being played in the US in the 1790s.
  • Tennis – widely known to have originated in England.
  • Boxing – England played a key role in the evolution of modern boxing. Boxing was first accepted as an Olympic sport in Ancient Greece in 688 BC
  • Ice Hockey – a variant of Field Hockey invented by British soldiers based in Canada.
  • Darts – a traditional pub game, the numbering layout was devised by Brian Gamlin
  • Table-Tennis – was invented on the dinner tables of Britain as an indoor version of tennis
  • Snooker – Invented by the British Army in India
  • Ping pong – The game has its origins in England, in the 1880s
  • Bowls – has been traced to 13th century England
  • Field hockey – the modern game grew from English public schools in the early 19th century
  • Netball – the sport emerged from early versions of women's basketball, at Madame Österberg's College in England during the late 1890s.
  • Rounders – the game originates in England most likely from an older game known as stool ball
  • Thoroughbred Horseracing – Was first developed in 17th and 18th century England
  • Polo – its roots began in Persia as a training game for cavalry units, the formal codification of the rules of modern Polo as a sport were established in 19th century England
  • The format of Modern Olympics – William Penny Brookes
  • Modern Rock Climbing – Walter Parry Haskett Smith (1859–1946) is considered the Father of Rock Climbing.
  • The first Paralympic games competition were held in England in 1948 – Ludwig Guttmann
  • oldest rowing competition in existence and oldest rowing race in the world: Doggett's Coat and Badge annual race on the Thames since 1715
  • oldest sporting competition in the world still running: the Kiplingcotes Derby (horse-racing), held each year in the town of South Dalton, near Hull and run annually without a break since 1519 The oldest non-horse competition in England is the Ancient Silver Arrow Archery competition known as the Scorton Arrow as it was originally held in Scorton, Yorkshire. It was first shot for in 1673.

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Famous quotes containing the word sport:

    ““Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Æschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And the d’Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on.
    The End”
    —Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)

    “For generations, a wide range of shooting in Northern Ireland has provided all sections of the population with a pastime which ... has occupied a great deal of leisure time. Unlike many other countries, the outstanding characteristic of the sport has been that it was not confined to any one class.”
    —Northern Irish Tourist Board. quoted in New Statesman (London, Aug. 29, 1969)

    “Rabelais, for instance, is intolerable; one chapter is better than a volume,—it may be sport to him, but it is death to us. A mere humorist, indeed, is a most unhappy man; and his readers are most unhappy also.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)