The Best Professional Football Sites and Forums On The Internet

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...

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...

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...

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...

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)...

History Of Association Football ... During the early 1860s, there were increasing attempts in England to unify and reconcile the various football games that were played in the public schools as well in the industrial north under the Sheffield Rules... Ebenezer Cobb Morley, a solicitor from Hull, wrote to Bell's Life newspaper in 1863, proposing a governing body for football... For this, he is considered not just the father of the Football Association, but of Association Football itself...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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"...

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...

Laws Of Australian Rules Football ... The laws is an extensive document containing rules and interpretations and is currently managed by the Australian Football League... The first national and international body, the Australasian Football Council, was formed in 1890 to govern Australasian Rules... Since 1990, the rules for the game known as Australian football have been governed by the AFL and the organisation's Laws of the Game committee...

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...

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...

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 American Football ... American football resulted from several major divergences from rugby, most notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp, considered the "Father of American Football"... The popularity of collegiate football grew as it became the dominant version of the sport in the United States for the first half of the 20th century... The origin of professional football can be traced back to 1892, with William "Pudge" Heffelfinger's $500 contract to play in a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club...

Rugby Football ... The game of football that was played at Rugby School between 1750 and 1859 permitted handling of the ball, but players were not allowed to run with it in their hands towards the opposition's goal... 1830 Running with the ball became common in 1830s at Rugby School and Rugby School football became popular throughout the UK in the 1850s and 1860s... 1863 The Football Association (FA) is formed, formalising the schism between the Football Association and Rugby Football...

History Of Sport ... polo, numerous martial arts forms, and various, now assimilated football varieties) and even from the Americas (e.g... European colonialism certainly helped spread particular games around the world, especially cricket (related to baseball), football of various sorts, bowling in a number of forms, cue sports (like snooker, carom billiards and pool), hockey and its derivatives, equestrian (originally of Middle Eastern origin), and tennis (and related games deriving from jeu de paume), and many winter sports, while the originally Europe-dominated modern Olympic Games generally also ensured standardization in particularly European directions when rules for similar games around the world were merged...

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...

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...

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...