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The FA Cup

Owen Jones — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 12:41:17 +0000

The FA Cup, or Football Association Challenge Cup to give it its full title, is the oldest football competition in the world. It was started in 1871, when it was suggested that “a Challenge Cup ought to be established in connection with the Association”.

Merely eight teams were entered for the first round which was played on the 11 November 1871. The final was played at the Oval on 16 March, 1872 and was won by The Wanderers who defeated The Royal Engineers by the only goal of the match.

Not only is the FA Cup the oldest association football competition in the world but it is also one of the biggest. It is open to teams who play on most degrees of the English football league system and during the 2009 – 2010 season, 762 teams entered the competition.

Because it is the one competition that mixes teams of all levels of playing ability, it does allow for the occasional ?upset? when a ?minnow? from a lower league defeats one of the more bet on upper echelon clubs.

Whilst at least one such giant killing act will occur in any given season, no non-league club has ever won the tournament since Tottenham Hotspur won the trophy in 1901 while playing in the old Southern League.

For some reason, certain clubs seem to gain a reputation as giant killers and Yeovil Town holds the current record for most wins against teams playing in the league. There are a number of sporting records associated with the FA Cup, some of them standing for a substantial period of time .

One name connected with many early records is that of Lord Kinnaird. He played in the second final in 1873 and then played in a further eight, thereby establishing a record which still stands to this day of playing in nine finals. He played for the winning team no fewer than five times, another record which is still intact.

However he is also accredited with a less fortunate record, that of scoring the first ?own goal” in cup history in 1877. He was playing in goal and involuntarily stepped back past his own goal line.

In 1886 Blackburn Rovers were the second club to win three successive finals, and is the sole club still in existence who can claim this feat as the first club to do so. The Wanderers went out of existence in 1883.

The record for the largest win in FA Cup history is held by Preston North End who in 1887 defeated Hyde 26-0. One of the longest standing sporting records was ultimately broken in 2009 by Everton?s Louis Saha whose 25 second goal beat that of the 30 second goal scored by Bob Chatt of Aston villa in 1895 . A record which had stood for 115 years!

After a timespan of seven years when the Cup final was played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, while the new Wembley Stadium was being rebuilt, The Cup Final has come back to its traditional home at Wembley where it has been played since 1923 when the famous ?White Horse? took place between Bolton and West Ham. This match also holds the record for people attendance when an estimated 200,000 fans crammed in.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on several topics, but is at present concerned with tickets for London Olympics. Click a link if you are interested in 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.

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History Of American Football

Owen Jones — Wed, 25 May 2011 18:51:35 +0000

Although there are references to Native Americans playing ball games, modern American football has its origins in traditional ball games played in villages and schools in Europe for several centuries before America was discovered by Europeans.

There are reports of early settlers at Jamestown, Virginia playing games with inflated balls in the early 17th century.

Early games appear to have had a lot in common with the traditional “mob football” played in England, especially on Shrove Tuesday. The games remained pretty much unorganized until the 19th century, when many colleges took up the sport.

In those days, each school played its own kind of football. Princeton students played a game called “ballown” as early as 1820. A Harvard tradition known as “Bloody Monday” began in 1827, which consisted of a mass ballgame between the freshman and sophomore students.

Dartmouth played its own version called “Old Division Football”, the rules of which were first published in 1871, although the game dates to at least the 1830s. All of these games, and others, shared certain rules.

They remained largely “mob” type games, with huge numbers of players attempting to advance the ball into a goal area, often by any means necessary. The rules were uncomplicated and violence and injury were common .

The brutality of these mob-style games led to extensive protests and a decision to abandon them. Yale, under pressure from the city of New Haven, banned the play of all forms of football in 1860, while Harvard did the same in 1861

Two basic types of football had evolved by this time: “kicking” games and “running” (or “carrying”) games. A cross of the two, known as the “Boston game”, was played by a group known as the Oneida Football Club.

The club, thought of by some historians as the first formal football club in the United States, was formed in 1862 by pupils who played the “Boston game” on Boston Common.

Walter Camp is widely thought to be the most important figure in the advancement of American football. He thought of many of the rule changes and playing strategies which made American Football the unique sport that it has become today.

His first suggestion was to reduce the quantity of players from 15 to 11. The effect of this was to open up the game and put more emphasis on speed rather than strength.

Camp’s most famous change, the establishment of the line of scrimmage, was also designed to speed up play although many teams utilized it to slow down the play.

Camp therefore proposed that a team be required to advance the ball a minimum of five yards within three downs. These down-and-distance rules, combined with the creation of the line of scrimmage, transformed the game from a variant of rugby or soccer into the distinct sport of American football.

While it has had a protracted history as a college sport, professional football is a relatively modern institution . The first completely professional game was not played until 1895 and the first known professional league, the National Football League was not formed until 1902

At the end of the 1932 season, the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans tied with the best regular-season records. To ascertain the champion, the league chose to hold its first playoff game.

Chicago won, 9-0. The playoff proved so popular that the league was reorganized into two divisions for the 1933 season, with the two winners advancing to a scheduled championship game.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with London Olympics 2012 venues. Click a link if you are interested in 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.

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English Soccer Teams’ Nicknames

Owen Jones — Sun, 22 May 2011 13:51:55 +0000

A review of the nicknames used by English football teams reveals a beguiling insight into English social history over the last 150 years.

All football teams appear to get a nickname, bestowed upon them affectionately by their loyal fans. Although in one very famous case – that of Manchester United – the nickname of The Red Devils was in fact invented by the club itself as a marketing ploy, copyrighted and eventually the Red Devil himself was included in the team’s coat of arms.

The origin of the name may seem obvious, or may be lost in the mists of time or even not known today.

In many cases the nickname is derived from the colour of the team?s shirts. Obvious examples of these include:

Chelsea ? The Blues Burnley ? the Clarets Watford ? the Hornets Preston North End – The Lilywhites Liverpool ? The Reds Newcastle United ? The Magpies Coventry City ? The Sky Blues Blackpool United ? the Tangerines Weymouth ? The Terras Cambridge United ? the Yellows Hull City ? the Tigers

Other nicknames are far more prosaic in origin, being based upon abbreviations or contractions of the team?s real name. Examples of these cases include :

Middlesbrough – Boro Rochdale – the Dale Gillingham – the Gills Wigan Athletic – the Latics Queens Park Rangers – QPR Blackburn Rovers – The Rovers Aldershot Town – The Shots Shrewsbury Town – The Shrews Tottenham Hotspur – Spurs Swansea City – The Swans Woverhampton Wanderers – Wolves

Location plays an important aspect in many team nicknames

Sunderland – The Black Cats (named after the Black cat gun battery which was located on the banks of the River Wear) Bournemouth – The Cherries (the stadium was built on the site of a cherry orchard) Carlisle United – The Cumbrians (Carlisle is in the county of Cumbria) Bristol Rovers – The Gas ( their old ground was situated next to the gasworks) Torquay United – The Gulls (Torquay is beside the sea) Tamworth – The Lambs ( the team plays at The Lamb Ground, named after a local pub) Grimsby Town – The Mariners (Grimsby is on the coast) Rotherham United – The Millers ( the pitch is called Millmoor) Sheffield Wednesday – The Owls ( they play in an area of Sheffield known as Owlerton) Kettering Town – The Poppies ( their stadium was built on a poppy field) Blackburn Rovers – The Riversiders (their site is built on the banks of a river) Bolton Wanderers – The Trotters (in the 19th century the ground was situated next to a piggery)

Other nicknames are derived from local occupations or industries:

Sheffield United – The Blades ( local links with cutlery manufacture) Burton Albion – The Brewers ( Burton is a major centre for the brewing industry ) Hereford United – The Bulls (from the local cattle industry) Wycombe Wanderers – The Chairboys ( local furniture industry) Northampton Town – The Cobblers (from the local boot and shoe industry) Yeovil Town – The Glovers (local links to the glove making industry ) Luton Town – The Hatters (Luton was for many years a centre for the production of hats) Crewe Alexander – The Railwaymen ( Crewe was constructed as a railway town

Finally, a short assortment of some of the more humorous, bizarre or obtuse derivations:

Charlton Athletic – The Addicks ( A corruption of the ward ?haddocks? after a local fish and chip shop) Norwich City – The Canaries ( Norwich was a leading centre for the breeding of canaries. The team later adopted the green and yellow of the Norwich Canary as their playing strip) Hartlepool United – The Monkey Hangers (During the Napoleonic wars the citizens of Hartlepool allegedly hung a monkey believing it to be a French spy) Bury – The Shakers (The first Chairman of the club, J T Ingham said before a local derby game against Blackburn ?We will shake them, in fact we are the Shakers?) Peterborough United – The Posh (A previous manager of the team is reputed to have said ?We are looking for posh players for a posh team?)

We hope this look though the history behind the nicknames of English football teams has been amusing and enlightening.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on several subjects, but is at present concerned with London Olympics 2012 venues. Click a link if you are interested in 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.

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What Is The Beautiful Game?

Owen Jones — Fri, 20 May 2011 16:09:53 +0000

Football, soccer or ?The Beautiful Game? – are all names employed to describe the most well-liked team game in the world. Although the words football and soccer are essentially interchangeable in the UK they have very different meanings in North America.

In the USA the word ‘football’ is taken to signify American Football, a game more akin to the British rugby football, while soccer refers to the game known to the rest of the world as football.

It is peculiar that the word soccer is in fact an English slang term of the word association in the same way that the word ?brekkers? refers to breakfast.

The regulations of football were first set down in 1863 by the Football Association in the UK and these are in essence the same rules by which the game is played by today. However they were merely the first endeavour to codify and standardize the vastly varying types of the game being played in 19th century public schools in England.

However the game has a much longer history and references to a game similar to today?s football can be discovered in the writings of one William Fitzstephen in the late 12th century. At a range of times during the medieval period laws were passed prohibitting the playing of football, largely, it is supposed, because it detracted from the time dedicated to archery practice.

So it could be said that England?s supremacy in France at battles such as Crecy and Agincourt , brought around largely as a result of the success of Welsh and English longbowmen, was a direct result of deficiency of expertise on the football pitch!

Football also fell victim to Puritan censorship and endevours to keep the Sabbath holy as naturally the only time a working man had any free time to indulge in such pursuits was on a Sunday (the Sabbath)

Incidentally, the term ?the Beautiful Game as a synonym for Association football has no great history to it. Its origins are somewhat uncertain as some assert that it was invented by a Brazilian footballer named Valdir Pereira although the English TV commentator Stuart Hall claims to have coined the phrase in 1958.

From its primitive beginnings football has now grown into the world?s most commonly played team sport. F?d?ration Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA as it is more commonly known , now has 208 member countries where an estimated 200 million plus players habitually play the game.

Such is the effect of football that star players from the major European leagues and particularly the English Premiership are now household names the world wide and it is common whilst driving through a remote jungle village in South East Asia to get confronted by a larger than life size portrait of say, David Beckham, marketing something as routine to motor oil.

Little did those men meeting at the Freemasons Tavern in Great Queen St,. London on the morning of 26 October 1863 to set the rules of the game know the immense world wide effect their decisions would have.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on several subjects, but is currently concerned with London Olympics 2012 venues. Click a link if you are interested in 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.

The FA Cup The FA Cup, or Football Association Challenge Cup to give...
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A Brief History Of The Rugby World Cup

Adriana Noton — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:49:17 +0000

Rugby is a very popular sport throughout the world, and is played within all of the countries of the old British Empire and Commonwealth. The best countries are those that reside in the southern hemisphere such as New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. In addition to this certain British countries such as England, Ireland, and Wales, as well as France are consistently competing at the highest level. Every four years there is a Rugby World Cup is held in order to find out which is the best team in the world.

The inaugural World Cup was held in 1987 down in Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand have always been the number one team in the world for long periods of time, and fittingly they were the first to win against France by a score of 29 points to 9 in the final.

Four years later the Rugby world cup came to Europe and was hosted by Great Britain throughout different stadiums in England, Ireland, and also France across the pond. For this tournament, a qualifying tournament was used to decide the final lineup of the 32 teams that were to compete. Four years ago it had been an invite only tournament, but now some of the lesser-known countries had to go through qualifying periods in order to make sure they got into the tournament.

On this occasion, the tournament was won by the neighbours of New Zealand, Australia which kept the dominance of world rugby firmly in the home of the southern hemisphere. England were beaten in the final on this occasion by a score of 12 points to 6.

Four years later, the cup was first held in South Africa and this became the first time that every single match was to be played in a single country. It was also the first time that South Africa had played in the tournament, as the end of the boycott against them in world sports came about due to the end of apartheid.

In one of the greatest stories in the history of the game, South Africa ended up coming out of the blue as underdogs and one against the most dominant team in the world of New Zealand in the final but is widely regarded as one of the greatest rugby matches of all. Nelson Mandela was there to see the captain of the team Francois Pienaar lift the trophy above his head in a great symbolic moment in the country’s history.

In 1991 the World Cup once again returned to the shores of Europe with whales being the host and matches played all over the five Nations. In a great upset, a fantastic semi-final saw the dominant New Zealand beaten by France, who then stepped up against Australia in the final. However, France could not repeat the correct efforts, and Australia became the first team to win the World Cup for a second time.

By 2003, the dominant team in world rugby had for the first time changed from being New Zealand and other teams from the southern hemisphere and the first time England were the team to beat at the tournament. With the great Johnny will concern at number 10 and his trusty left boot in order, England were favourites to overturn New Zealand if they were to meet them. However this was not necessary, as Australia turned up and managed to defeat New Zealand on home turf, meeting England in the final in the greatest ever be much played. True to form, they will concern provided the finishing touch to a magnificent effort by the England team.

The most recent World Cup was paid in 2007 in France, and South Africa became the second team to win it twice defeating England the holders in the final. We now look forward to 2011 with a World Cup will return to New Zealand. Will they finally be able to defeat their daemons and with it for a second time? Time will tell.

A recognized leader in sports travel and tours, Roadtrips provides Rugby world cup packages and 2012 summer Olympics tickets, and hotels and accommodations.

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Everything You Need To Know About 2010 World Cup Packages In South Africa

Adriana Noton — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:10:16 +0000

Though the event is due to be broadcast live in 3D for the first time, there is nothing like being up close and personal with the world’s greatest football show. As such, it could well be time to take advantage of one of the 2010 World Cup packages that are available.

The Soccer World Cup hits the African for the first time this year of course, and it makes for something that is going to be truly spectacular. Fans from the world over will be joining the party and, as such, there are tailor made packages to follow the merits of every country taking part and enjoy the amazing country to the full.

Though there are a host of different types available, all packages follow much the same basic routine. They will obviously guarantee entry to the match of choice, but will also include international flights, transfers where needed, and accommodation will also be taken care of for the duration of the stay.

This is for the most basic of packages of course, for just the one match at the group stage. There are more 2010 World Cup packages available of course; going right from the start to the final, but the cost will obviously rise considerably.

There are also likely to be certain restrictions in some cases and, whilst many of these are imposed across the board by FIFA, there will also be local restrictions that need to be checked. It is important to note that some matches may not be available because of this.

Many of the top packages available also include fantastic excursions in areas of interest local to the stadia where the match is due to play. One of the most popular types are those that include safaris in the amazing parks. However, for a real treat, seeing the morning migration of wildebeest from a hot air balloon is something not to be missed.

Booking of the 2010 World Cup Packages can be done quite easily, with many operators. However, such are the restrictions; the process can take a little time. There is a crackdown on ticket touting in this year’s completion, so identities will need to be verified.

Prices are quite high of course, but do vary from package to package of course. However, they do offer what will for most be a once in a lifetime opportunity, and a chance to really soak up the atmosphere of one of the best sporting events the world hosts.

When looking online, though it will be tempting to look for the cheapest available, caution should certainly be exercised. Though tighter rules exist over ticket allocation, there are no guarantees that they will stop all confidence tricksters of course. As such, it is wise to go with a name you know, or have certainly heard about.

Booking your 2010 World Cup Packages with a reputable operator, that is accredited and protected within your own country will not just make for a safe and pleasant trip; but allow you to enjoy all the action without worry.

The packages are not cheap of course but, considering what is on offer, this is perfectly understandable. For many, it will be the trip of a lifetime of course and, as such, many have been saving for some years. However, such will be the sheer scale and entertainment on offer, the value for money is beyond compare.

However, there are some cheaper packages available but, these do need to be approached with caution. Despite the restrictions and so forth, there are still going to be scam artists out there. Mindful of this, it is worth checking the reputability of the operator before booking.

Booking with a reliable provider of sporting hospitality for you 2010 World Cup packages will be the best option. Knowing that you can just enjoy what you are there for; to support your team the best you can, will just add to the whole affair.

Book your 2010 World Cup packages from the industry leader in sports travel. Providing 2010 World Cup packages for soccer tickets, hotels, preferred seating and more. Also offering 2012 summer Olympics packages.

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