American Football

Further Reading: Football

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Sheffield Rules ... The first inter-club football match and competitive tournament were both played using Sheffield Rules... Background The oldest recorded football match in Sheffield occurred in 1794 when a game of mob football was played between Sheffield and Norton (at the time a Derbyshire village) that took place at Bents Green...

Football ... Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools in the eighteenth and nineteenth century... The influence and power of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread, including to areas of British influence outside of the directly controlled Empire, though by the end of the nineteenth century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gaelic Football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage... In 1888, The Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football competitions...

Australian Rules Football ... The objective of the game is to score points by passing the ball through the opponent's goal. The main way to score points is by kicking the ball between the two major goal posts...

Baseball In The United Kingdom ... One milestone of baseball in the United Kingdom was the 1938 victory of Great Britain over the United States to win the inaugural World Cup of Baseball. At present Today, there are more than 40 baseball teams, 875 adult and Junior (Under 18) players ranging geographically from Croydon to Liverpool, Portsmouth to Edinburgh...

Association Football ... The Laws of the Game were originally codified in England by the Football Association in 1863 and have evolved since then... Association football is governed internationally by FIFA, which organises the FIFA World Cup every four years... Etymology and names The rules of football were codified in England by the Football Association in 1863 and the name association football was coined to distinguish the game from the other forms of football played at the time, specifically rugby football...

Names For Association Football ... The term association football has never been widely used, although in Britain some clubs in rugby football strongholds adopted the suffix Association Football Club (A. F. C.) to avoid confusion with the dominant sport in their area, and FIFA, the world governing body for the sport, is a French-language acronym of "Fédération Internationale de Football Association" – the International Federation of Association Football... "Soccer football", is used less often than it once was: the United States Soccer Federation was known as the United States Soccer Football Association from 1945 until 1974, when it adopted its current name... Countries that call it football Association football is known as "football" in the majority of countries where English is an official language, such as the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth Caribbean (including Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and others), Malta, India, Nigeria, Cameroon, Pakistan, Liberia, Singapore, Hong Kong and others, stretching over many reg...

The Football League ... As this sponsor has changed over the years the league has been known in turn as the Canon League, the Today League, the Barclays League, the Endsleigh League, the Nationwide Football League and the Coca-Cola Football League, until the present sponsor npower was adopted in 2010, contracted until 2013... Promotion and relegation between these divisions is a central feature of the League and is further extended to allow the top Championship clubs to exchange places with the lowest placed clubs in the Premier League, and the bottom clubs of League Two to switch with the top clubs of the Football Conference, thus integrating the League into the English football league system...

Women's Association Football ... The growth in women's football has seen major competitions being launched at both national and international level... (For more information, see Women's association football around the world and International competitions in women's association football respectively.) Women's football has faced many struggles throughout its fight for right... Although women's football had its first golden age in the UK in the early 1920s, when some matches achieved over 50,000 spectators, this was stopped on 5 December 1921 when England's Football Association voted to ban the game from grounds used by its member clubs...

Oldest Football Competitions ... Many early football fixtures before the 1850s did not have set rules, clubs or trophies and are poorly documented... Years Date Competition Type First trophy awarded, years Original code Current code Location Notes 1858– 7 August Melbourne Grammar School-Scotch College schools fixture Cordner-Eggleston Cup, 1989– experimental Australian rules football Melbourne, Australia 1860– 26 December - interclub fixture - Sheffield Rules defunct Sheffield, England 1861–1876 December Caledonian Challenge Cup club trophy Caledonian Challenge Cup, 1861–1864 Melbourne Rules defunct Melbourne, Australia 1867 only Youdan Cup club trophy Youdan Cup, 1867 Sheffield Rules defunct Sheffield, England 1868 only Cromwell Cup club trophy Cromwell Cup, 1868 Sheffield Rules defunct Sheffield, England 1871– FA Cup club trophy FA Cup, 1871– Association Football Association...

Sport ... Sport is generally recognised as activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition, and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports. However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, actvities claim recognition as mind sports...

Association Football Pitch ... Note that due to the original formulation of the Laws in England and the early supremacy of the four British football associations within IFAB, the standard dimensions of a football pitch were originally expressed in imperial units...

History Of Baseball Outside The United States ... In 1973, struggles in the FIBA led to a dissident organisation, the Federacion Mundial de Beisbol Amateur (FEMBA), which organised its own World Championships. The two organisations were reconciled in 1976, forming the International Baseball Association (AINBA)...

Australian Football Tactics And Skills ... While Australian football has often been described as a game without rules, this is in fact far from the case and tactics have played an important role from its early days... Modern football played at professional Australian Football League level has evolved into a game that is vastly different to amateur football...

Association Football Around The World ... Africa (CAF) Country Overview National team List of clubs National association Main league competition (s) Main cup competition (s) Supercup match Algeria Overview National team Clubs Fédération Algérienne de Football Championnat National Algerian Cup Algerian Super Cup Angola Overview National team Clubs Federação Angolana de Futebol Girabola Taça de Angola SuperTaça Benin Overview National team Clubs Fédération Béninoise de Football Premier League Benin Cup Botswana Overview National team Clubs Botswana Football Association Mascom Premier League FA Challenge Cup Burkina Faso Overview National team Clubs Fédération Burkinabé de Foot-Ball Premier League Coupe du Faso SuperCup Burundi Overview National team Clubs Fédération de Football du Burundi Premier League Burundian Cup Cameroon Overview National team Clubs Fédération Camerounaise de Football...

English Public School Football Games ... Private schools ("public schools" in England and Wales) are widely credited with three key achievements in the creation of modern codes of football... Second, many early references to football in literature were recorded by people who had studied at these schools, showing they were familiar with the game... These versions of football rules were the basis of both the Cambridge Rules and subsequent rules of association football...

Basketball ... A regulation basketball ring consists of a rim 18 inches in diameter and 10 feet high mounted to a backboard. A team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket during regular play...

Tee ... A standard golf tee is 2.125" (two and one eighth inches = 5.4 cm) long, but both longer and shorter tees are permitted. Ordinary tees can be made from wood or from durable plastic...

Oldest Football Clubs ... Other early clubs include the Great Leicestershire Cricket and Football Club present in 1840 In 1841 two clubs are documented in a contemporary challenge to play "foot-ball" in Lancashire: "The Body-Guard club" (Rochdale) and the "Fear-noughts Club" A club for playing "cricket, quoits and football" was established in Newcastle on Tyne in or before 1848... The Surrey Football Club was established in 1849 and published the first non-school football list of rules (which were probably based upon the eighteenth century Gymnastic Society cited above) Continuous clubs It is claimed that the Barnes Club (later Barnes Rugby Football Club), from Barnes in London, was formed in 1839 and is the oldest club to have played football for its entire history... It is also argued, and supported by the Guinness Book of Records, that Guy's Hospital Football Club, founded by staff at Guy's Hospital in London in 1843, is the oldest club...

Passing (association Football) ... The skill of dribbling the ball is seen much less in modern football matches than in the first half of the twentieth century... History of Ball Passing in Football Early History of Ball Passing in Football Main article: Medieval football In 1581 Richard Mulcaster is the first describe "foteball" teams consisting of players using different positions ("standings"), although passing is not stated explicitly... Similarly, in 1650 English puritan Richard Baxter in his book Everlasting Rest: "like a Football in the midst of a crowd of Boys, tost about in contention from one to another"...

Ball In And Out Of Play ... The restarts in football are: Kick-off: following a goal by the opposing team, or to begin each period of play...

Cambridge Rules ... Thring, who had both attended Shrewsbury School, succeeded in making some old Etonians join them to form a football club at Cambridge University... In the following year an attempt was made to get up some football in preference to the hockey that was then in vogue...

Baseball ... Evolving from older bat-and-ball games, an early form of baseball was being played in England by the mid-eighteenth century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed...

Laws Of The Game (association Football) ... History and development See also: History of association football Pre-1863 Games which could be described in the most general sense as 'football' had been a popular in Britain since the Medieval period... 1863 rules The Laws were first drawn up by Ebenezer Cobb Morley and approved at a meeting of the newly-founded Football Association (FA) on 8 December 1863... Association football can be considered to begin at this point, as the game played by clubs which didn't adopt the rules evolved into rugby football...

Dribbling ... Dribbling is often invaluable especially in the third part of a pitch or at the wings, where most attacks take place. Dribbling creates space in tight situations where the dribbler is marked (closely guarded by a defender), and the dribbler can either score or create scoring chances after a successful dribble...

Winning Isn't Everything; It's The Only Thing ... It is attributed to UCLA Bruins football coach Henry Russell ("Red") Sanders, who spoke two different versions of the quotation...