Category: Sport

Sir Steven G. Redgrave, (1962-) was Great Britain’s first competitor to win five Olympic Gold medals in five consecutive Games and he achieved this feat from 1984 to 2000, after which he retired from the gruelling sport of rowing. His hometown is in Buckinghamshire next to the River Thames and it was in those waters that he began building his fitness, skills and love of rowing, and where he has now taken up canoeing for his own pleasure.

At 6ft.5in. tall, with a 16-stone frame and plenty of tactical knowledge, he powered his way to his first success at national junior level and soon moved up to take Olympic Gold no.1 at age 22 in the Coxed Fours. He and Andy Holmes (1959-2010) then won Gold no.2 in the Coxless Pairs and Bronze in the Coxed Pairs in 1988. Gold nos.3, 4 and 5 came with a new partner, Norfolk-born Sir Matthew C. Pinsent (1970-), who went on to win another Gold for his own four-in-a-row in 2004.

In this video from 2000 Pinsent is seen clambering to reach Redgrave in celebration.

Redgrave has coached the Chinese rowing team and supported projects such as River Action UK to clean up river pollution. He is also Chairman of the Henley Royal Regatta.

(Top images: Steve Redgrave by Brunel University at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, Gold medal by Plashing Vole at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC 2.0, Bronze medal by Arne Müseler at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0)

Water polo was a sport just waiting to burst onto the scene, considering its rapid spread, not only in Britain but also abroad, although the International Swimming Hall of Fame took until 2003 to honour the inventor, William Wilson (1844-1912). Born in London and raised in Glasgow, Wilson was a keen advocate of daily open-air swimming, even in icy conditions, and as well as teaching swimming he was involved in the administration of swimming clubs in the Glasgow area.

A bizarre forerunner called ‘aquatic football’ was apparently attempted in the early 1870s, whereby swimmers had to use their feet to kick the ball, but when asked to think of a crowd-pleasing event for an annual swimming gala at River Dee in 1877, ‘aquatic hand-ball’ was Wilson’s solution.

Water polo, as it later became known, is said to be the sport requiring the most strength, but even Wilson realised that it was too difficult to control the ball in river currents so he moved it to indoor pools in the following years. As well as formulating the rules of water polo, Wilson was a pioneer of techniques for swim races, such as starts and turns at the end of a length, and for life-saving.

(Top image: David Sanborn at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The Cheltenham Festival ranks alongside other sporting events where one is sure to see the best performances in the most splendid facilities. Like the Wimbledon fortnight, for example, the four days of steeplechase horse racing at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire bear witness to catering on a gargantuan scale amidst the mobilisation of what amounts to a small village of 6,000 staff, including 350 chefs.

Add to that the multitude of race-goers and it is no wonder a train station was built there in 1912, a year after it was decided to fix the venue permanently at Cheltenham’s Prestbury Park. This was formerly part of a Bishop’s estate, with deer, rabbits, hares, oaks and thorn bushes a-plenty. Horse racing was taking place there by the 1830s and the Festival’s origins date from 1860. The Cheltenham Gold Cup, with prize money currently £614,813 for the winner, was inaugurated in 1924 and the cup itself is still the original.

One of the other, shorter, feature races is the Ryanair Chase and that airline puts on an extra 30 flights from Dublin to Birmingham for the Festival. Cheltenham Racecourse has been described as the world’s finest of its kind and the Festival easily attracts a knowledgeable daily attendance of up to 68,500 capacity.

(Image: Carine06 at Flickr.com / CC BY-SA 2.0)

England’s greatest cricketing rivals are Australia and 5-match Test series with them are known as ‘The Ashes‘ because of a wry joke started in 1882 by an English journalist and embellished by the wife of an Australian baron. The series takes place every 1½-2½ years during English/Australian summers and honours are fairly even between the two teams.

The joke was a tongue-in-cheek obituary for ‘English cricket’ penned by ‘Sporting Times’ reporter Reginald Brooks (1854-88) after Australia achieved their first victory over England on English soil, albeit by just 7 runs. The obituary whimsically stated “R.I.P. The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. Brooks’s father Charles (1816-74) had previously campaigned for the right to be cremated, which was illegal until 1902.

England then toured Australia three weeks later with better success and at one venue the captain, Ivo Bligh (1859-1927, later Lord Darnley) was presented in jest with a small ‘urn’ containing ashes (thought to be of a lady’s veil) by the hostess and her children’s governess, Florence Morphy. Ivo and Florence were later married and they treasured the little terracotta urn until Ivo’s death, whereupon Florence donated it to the Marylebone Cricket Club Museum. Winners of The Ashes actually receive Waterford crystal replicas.

(Images LtoR: David Holt at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0, Gena1201 at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0)

The unpredictable British weather hardly makes us favourites for hosting the Summer Olympics, but London has achieved this on three occasions. The 2012 London Olympics was the only one given plenty of time for planning and construction ~ those in 1908 and 1948 were both awarded on short notice, the former due to an eruption of Mount Vesuvius disrupting Rome’s preparations, the latter due to WW2. While £9.3bn was spent on 2012’s spectacle, the combined cost of its predecessors was a tiny fraction of that.

Medals-wise, the GB team excelled in 1908 with an amazing 56 Gold, 50 Silver and 37 Bronze, competing against 21 other countries in 110 events. In stark contrast, 1948 saw us win just 4 Gold, 16 Silver and 7 Bronze against 58 competitors in 136 events, but the positives included the groundbreaking development of the BBC‘s outside broadcasting department.

Existing venues in and around London were utilised, like Wembley, Highbury, Henley, Windsor Great Park, Aldershot, Bisley and for the sailing, Torbay in Devon. 2012 additionally involved the building of London Stadium (now the home of West Ham United F.C.) and London Aquatics Centre, plus four other new venues. Its Olympic Village was later converted into housing. The GB team won a creditable 29 Gold, 17 Silver and 19 Bronze medals among 204 nations in 302 events.

(Top images: 1908 poster – jenikirby.getarchive.net, 1948 poster – theirhistory at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, 2012 GB team – Department for Culture, Media and Sport at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

To while away chilly evenings, some sports developed miniature indoor versions adapted for play on tables, initially in the gentry’s mansions. ‘Whiff-Whaff’ was one such offshoot which came to have a life of its own, away from tennis, thanks to its promotion first as ‘Ping-Pong’ by the legendary games manufacturer John Jaques & Son Ltd. of London, then as ‘Table Tennis‘ by Parker Brothers Inc., who bought the rights in the 1920s and made all ping-pong organisations change their names accordingly.

In fact, Jaques originally trademarked the name ‘Gossima’ in 1891 for his table-top game with foot-high net, two (or four) parchment-covered racquets and a cork ball which bounced unevenly. The original patent filed in 1890 by Yorkshireman David Foster (1848-1928) showed tables with nets and ledges on all sides to keep the ball in. It also stated that “Gentlemen may remove jackets and bow ties to play and ladies are advised not to wear bustles”.

Modern-day manners and materials have transformed the game into an Olympic sport where speed of reaction is key. British players of note include Chester Barnes (1947-2021), Desmond Douglas (1955-) and Andrew Baggaley (1983-) but it is the Chinese who have dominated the medal tables.

And the very first video game was….?

(Top image: Marc at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Cleopatra: “Let it alone. Let’s to billiards. Come, Charmian.” ~ from Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ (1606)

This shows not only that the French game of billiards was known in Britain (London, anyway) at least 400 years ago, but also that it was played by both genders as a genteel pastime. It began as an indoor table-top version of croquet (hence the green cloth) and, as the game became popular in upper-class circles, it presented another outlet in which furniture-makers could show their creativity in table design.

English billiards, the forerunner to snooker and played on the same size table, came about in the 18th century alongside the evolution of the game’s accessories ~ cues replaced maces, the hoops disappeared and there were two cue balls and one red object ball ~ and amendments to the rules ~ points could be scored by hitting the opponent’s cue ball and the object ball in the same shot (called a ‘cannon’) as well as by pocketing a ball. The French continued with pocketless tables while the English preferred to keep all options.

Cabinetmakers Gillow & Co. were the first British company to make a table for English billiards, in 1770. Other renowned British manufacturers were Thurston & Co. and Burroughes & Watts Ltd..

(Image [partly coloured]: Dawn Hudson at publicdomainpictures.net / CC0)

Knights began to have personal coats-of-arms for identification on the battlefield in the 1100s and this quickly spread to the nobility and monarchs. It is suggested that King Henry I (1069-1135) initially had one lion ‘rampant’, then two, and Henry II (1133-89) added a third, but the first clear evidence of the three royal lions ‘passant guardant’ (originally called leopards) comes from the reign of Richard I (1157-99) in 1189-99. They have since been included in most varieties of the Royal Coat-of-Arms and have come to represent England as a country, too.

Therefore in 1872, when the England football team were about to play their first international match, the Football Association asked permission to have the Three Lions as an emblem in black on the players’ gold shirts. It appeared with a crown above. Today there is no crown and it is generally in dark blue on a white background with ten Tudor roses in formation among the lions, who have red tongues. Other colour combinations are sometimes applied.

When the England & Wales Cricket Board was formed in 1997 it adopted a similar logo but restored the crown above the Three Lions. A single lion or rose has been used by a few other sports bodies.

(Top image [cropped]: The Laird of Oldham at Flickr.com / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Sir Andrew Barron Murray (1987-) is the UK’s most successful professional tennis player since Oxford-born Tim Henman (1974-) reached the world no.4 spot briefly in 2004.  Murray achieved the same ranking four years later but he remained in the top four over a 9-year period from 2008 to 2017 for all but approximately 70 weeks. He was no.1 from November 2016 to August 2017.

Among his big wins are two Wimbledon men’s singles titles (2013, 2016), a U.S. Open men’s singles title (2012) and two Summer Olympics men’s singles Gold medals (2012. 2016).

Coached initially by his mother Judy, he showed such promise that he went to Barcelona for further training when he was 15. He turned professional in 2005 after being world no.1  junior in 2004. His brother Jamie (1986-) is also a successful tennis player but he concentrates on doubles, both men’s and mixed. Andy and Jamie have rarely partnered in doubles but they were both in the British team which won the 2015 Davis Cup.

Andy was born in Glasgow but grew up in Perthshire in a small town called Dunblane which in 1996 was the scene of the UK’s worst mass shooting incident, when more than 100 bullets were let loose on the innocent children in the brothers’ primary school, killing 16 of them and a teacher.

(Image [cropped]: Carine06 at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC 2.0)

An ancient British game called ‘town-ball’, ‘base’ or ‘base-ball’ were the forerunners of the sport of rounders. Indeed, ‘base-ball’ was both included in the first printed children’s book in 1744 and in a Surrey newspaper report of 1749 of such a pursuit in which the then Prince of Wales and Earl of Middlesex played in bad weather for several hours.

Rounders became a staple of school sports from the 1800s onwards, particularly for girls as an alternative to cricket. In 1943 a group of teachers decided it was high time for a standard set of rules to be drawn up for the benefit of county competitions, thereby giving rise to the establishment of the National Rounders Association. International matches began in the mid-1970s for adult devotees.

As a largely recreational game, any number of players can be in each of the two teams, as long as they are equal. Officially the maximum is 15 but only 9 can be fielding (any remaining wait behind the backstop as potential substitutes) and the minimum is 6 to ensure there is a bowler, backstop and sufficient fielders to cover the four ‘posts’ or whatever objects are used to mark the corners of a square around which batters must run.

(Top image: Mike Finn at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

Sometimes called ‘The Dream Mile’, this feat is said to have begun with aristocrats betting on their respective footmen to race each other. It is doubtful whether any of them achieved a sub-4-minute mile but more than 1,500 athletes have done just that in recent history. Interestingly, there is an optimum age attached to this middle-distance track event and it has reduced to 22 currently. In fact, Lord Sebastian Coe (1956-) from London was 22 when he broke the world record in 1979 with 3:48.95.

Nevertheless, British milers appear to favour age 24 or 25 for their peak performances. Some examples are:-

• 3:59.40 in May 1954 at Oxford: 25-year-old Sir Roger Bannister (1929-2018) from Middlesex famously achieved the first sub-4-minute mile.
• 3:58.80 later in 1954 at Vancouver: Bannister, still 25, bettered his previous time.
• 3:47.33 in 1981 at Brussels: now aged 24, this was Coe’s personal best.
• 3:48.40 in 1981 at Koblenz: 25-year-old Steve Ovett (1955-) from Sussex improved on his world record of the previous year.
• 3:46.32 in 1985 at Oslo: 24-year-old Steve ‘the Jarrow Arrow’ Cram (1960-) from Gateshead took the world record with this amazing time.
• 3:49.20 in 1988 at Oslo: 25-year-old Yorkshireman Peter Elliott.
• 3:49.38 in 2008 at Oslo: 25-year-old Andy Baddeley (1982-) from Merseyside came from the back in a spectacular win.

No woman has ever come close to running a sub-4-minute mile.

(Top image of Coe (L) and Bannister (R) in 2004 at the Oxford track: GooglerW at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0)