FOOTBALL

Football refers to a number of sport that involves a varying number of people kicking a ball with the foot to score a goal. The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more commonly known as just "football" or "soccer". The modern game of association football originates from the formation of The Football Association in London, England in 1863 base on multiple efforts to standardize the varying forms of the game. This allowed clubs to play each other without disagreement.

One of the famous football clubs is Manchester Unites Football Club. Manchester United FC  is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.

In 1968, under the management of Matt Busby, Manchester United was the first English football club to win the European Cup. The current manager, Sir Alex Ferguson has won 24 major honours since he took over in November 1986.

Manchester United has won many trophies in English football, including a record 19 league titles, a record 11 FA Cups, four League Cups and a record 19 FA Community Shields. The club has also won three European Cups, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, one UEFA Super Cup, one Intercontinental Cup and one FIFA Club World Cup. In 1998–99, the club won a Treble of the Premier League, the FA Cup and the UEFA Champions League, an unprecedented feat for an English club.

Manchester United is one of the wealthiest and most widely supported football teams in the world. As of July 2012, the club is number one in Forbes magazine's annual ranking of the world's 50 most valuable sports teams, valued at $2.23 billion. After being floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1991, the club was purchased by Malcolm Glazer in May 2005 in a deal valuing the club at almost £800 million.

On 13^th July 2012 Sir Alex Ferguson revealed his new 23 year old Japanese attacking midfielder. Shinji Kagawa is ready to give the Premier League a taste of what helped Borusisia Dortmund to the Bundesliga. Kagawa will play behind the main striker or in an attacking three for Ferguson next season.

 His league goals last season would have put him second behind Wayne Rooney in United’s goal scoring charts.

His performance in the 5-2 German Cup Final win over Bayern Munich convinced Ferguson to spend £12 million on a man he believes will help to revive his side. Ferguson hopes to be raising a glass tohis new arrival from day one and admits that is what he needed to do after the drama of losing the title to rivals, City.

Recently, Shinji Kagawa scored his first goal for Manchester United in their 1-0 pre-season victory over Shanghai Shenhua.Kagawa, who was named as man of the match, found the net after 68 minutes against Shenhua, who lined up without former Chelsea players Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba at the Shanghai Stadium.

SKATEBOARD

KNOW ABOUT SKATEBOARD...(?)

Nowadays, skateboarding are popular to youngsters which people must know that skateboarding was first stated in 1950s but people don’t know who invented it first even though several of them have claimed that they invented it. Somehow there’s no proof of it and so skateboarding remains a strange spontaneous creation.  This sport is still active until now.

Besides that, Anthony Frank Hawk as well-known as ‘Tony Hawk’, the famous American skateboarder who won 73 titles and was named the top vert skater every year from 1984 to 1996. He began skating in 1977 and turned pro in 1982. He also invented dozen of trick moves and he performed astonish tricky moves which was 900 twist at the 1999 X games. People have a difficulty to perform that 900 twist move. Besides skating, His video game which was Tony Hawk’s pro skater was sold off more than $1billion in sales which helps it became the most successful video games of all time. Unfortunately, Tony hawk retired from competition in 1999 but still remains active until now.

According to Switzerland-based union cyclist international (UCI) and some other influential sports power players, they were planning to add skateboard to 2016 Olympic  games in Rio De janeiro, Brazil. Supposedly, this sport to be included in 2012 Olympic Games in London but the deal eventually fell through in 2007. So we might see skateboarding in 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil or we might not? We shall see in 2016 Brazil Olympic Games.

Squash

Somewhere around 1830, the sport called ‘squash’ was discovered by pupils of Harrow School when racket balls actually squashed when being hit on the wall. In 1864, squash was officially became a sport. The equipments needed by a squash player are a racket, a squash balls and squash shoes.

Nicol Ann David, or well known as Nicol David is one of the best Squash player in the world. She is Malaysian and was born on 26 August 1983 in Penang, Malaysia. Nicol David is the first Asian woman to achieve first in women’s squash. She is also the first squash player to have won the World Junior title twice in 1999 and 2001. The first achievement that she won is Asian Squash Championship in 1998.  She also won the British Open title in 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2012, as well as the World Open title a record 6 times in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.

Grégory Gaultier was born on 23 December 1982, in Épinal, France. He is a professional man squash player from France. He won the British Open in 2007. Besides that he also finished runner-up at the World Open in 2006, 2007 and 2011. Gaultier was the European junior squash champion in 2000 and 2001. He also won a British Junior Open title and finished as the runner-up at the world junior championships. In 2003, he was a member of the French team which finishes runners-up to Australia at the World Team Squash Championships. In the semi-finals against England, Gaultier won the deciding match against Lee Beachill which took France through to the final.

Road Bicycle Racing

Cyclist going wild

Road bicycle racing is a competitive bicycle racing sport held on paved lengths of road which became an organized sport in 1868 and has been part of the Olympic Games since 1898. The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCL), based in Switzerland, governs the sport internationally.


There are several types of races; Single-day races, Single-day (Nocturnal), Stage races, Ultra marathon. Major tournaments are the Tour de France (France), Giro D’Italia (Italy) and the Vuetta a Espana (Spain).

 

While the principle is that the first one to cross the finish line is the winner, most riders are grouped into teams, which are usually commercially sponsored. Notable teams are Lampre-ISD (Italy), Omega Pharma-Quick Step (Belgium) and Astana (Kazakhstan).Famous individuals are Lance Armstrong, seven time Tour de France champion (1992- 2011) and Kristin Armstrong, 2008 Olympic gold medalist (2001-2011).

Lance Armstrong winning another medal

Kristin Armstrong;Olympic gold medalist

Netball :)

Netball is a sport which is played by two teams of seven players. It is derived from early versions of basketball which originated in England in the 1890s. By 1960, international playing rules had been standardized, and the International Federation of Netball and Women's Basketball (later renamed the International Federation of Netball Associations (IFNA)) was formed.

The game took place on a rectangular court with two goal posts at each end. Each team would make attempts to score goals by shooting it through its goal ring. Players are given specific positions, which define their roles within the team and restrict their movement to certain areas of the court. During general play, a player with the ball can hold onto it for only three seconds. The team that scores the most goals wins.

In Commonwealth nations, netball is one of the most popular sports especially in schools, and is played by women.

According to the IFNA, more than 20 million people in more than 80 countries plays netball. Three major competitions took place internationally: the quadrennial World Netball Championships, the Commonwealth Games, and the yearly World Netball Series. Netball became an International Olympic Committee recognized sport in 1995.

Australian Diamonds

 The Australian Netball Diamonds represents Australia in an international netball competitions. It was originally formed in 1938 and played it's ever first international match against New Zealand. The team adopted the name 'diamonds' in 2008 alongside with other Australian sports teams such as the women's basketball team, the Opals.

Australia and England during a test match in 2008.

Australia is well known for it's most strongest and successful netball team to ever play in the international tournament. They have won ten out of thirteen World Netball Championships and is currently ranked the first team in the IFNA World Rankings. They have also won two Commonwealth Games events.

Sports

History of sports

Where do we begin with the history of sports? When the history of sports is as old as humankind. To begin with what has been recorded or documented in the history of sports, takes us back at least 3,000 years. but the big question is what is sports?

According to 70sbig.com, 


Sport is/are...


"- Individuals or groups participating in a sanctioned competition that has a standard set of rules for achieving victory.
- The competitors (who are human) exhibit physicality"


The evolution in sports has far progressed from traditional to modern games. Such a sport in early history of sports often involved the preparation and training for war or hunting. Hence there were sports games that involved the throwing of spears, stakes, and rocks, and of course lots of play-fighting.


Although, these were the sports mainly practiced by the people, the Ancient Greece has introduced formal sports, with the first Olympic Games in 776 BC, that included sports such as human and chariot races, wrestling, jumping, disk and javelin throwing, and more.