Category: Sport
The London Olympics
The unpredictable British weather hardly makes us favourites for hosting the Summer Olympics, but London has achieved this on three occasions. The […]
Table Tennis
To while away chilly evenings, some sports developed miniature indoor versions adapted for play on tables, initially in the gentry’s mansions. ‘Whiff-Whaff’ […]
English billiards
Cleopatra: “Let it alone. Let’s to billiards. Come, Charmian.” ~ from Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ (1606) This shows not only that the […]
Three Lions
Knights began to have personal coats-of-arms for identification on the battlefield in the 1100s and this quickly spread to the nobility and […]
Andy Murray
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 […]
Hawk-Eye
Referees and umpires, we all should agree, have a very difficult job. The assistance of digital camera technology entered into the fray, […]
Running the sub-4-minute mile
Sometimes called ‘The Dream Mile’, this feat is said to have begun with aristocrats betting on their respective footmen to race each […]
Channel swimming
An open-water swimmer needs exceptional mental strength to attempt to swim the English Channel, the North Channel or even, as South African-born […]
Tanni Grey-Thompson, Paralympian
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, DBE (1969-) is the UK’s most successful Paralympian. Born in Cardiff, she was immobilised with spina bifida by age […]