Video about benefits of sports

10 reason to playing sports.

As the football season winds up and summer sports begin to get underway, now is a great time to consider the benefits of sport.

• 1. Exercise. This one is a no brainer, really, but sports are a fun way to get active and fit. The great thing about the sort of exercise you get playing sport is that it is very functional. While using a weights machine at the gym might isolate one muscle, playing a sport helps you train groups of muscles in a much more natural, practical way.
• 2. Camaraderie. Team sports are an excellent way to get out and meet new people and find new friends. This kind of positive support is very important for your mental health, especially when you are feeling a bit down.
• 3. Overcoming adversity. Sport is a great teacher. There are always challenges along the way whether it be a particular opponent, a nagging injury or a technical flaw you need to iron out. You will learn tools on the sporting field that you can use in all aspects of your life, from your job to your diet.
• 4. Leadership. Sports teams are a great place to develop leadership skills. No matter what your position on the team, there is always an opportunity to show leadership and to help out your fellow team mates. Once again these skills have lots of benefits when transferred to your everyday life.
• 5. Stress relief. Sure a tight match can be stressful at times, but it is a much different sort of stress from your everyday life. Sport played in the right spirit can be a great opportunity to forget about the stress of your daily life and think about something totally different.
• 6. Teamwork. Successful teams always have one trait in common: teamwork. Learning to work as part of a larger team is a skill well worth developing.
• 7. Networking. You will be amazed at how many business opportunities start on the sporting field. I actually met one of my former bosses at an Australian Rules Football training in Sydney of all places.
• 8. Reward for effort. Sport is great at teaching you life lessons. One famous sporting quote is "the harder I train, the luckier I get". This lesson applies equally to your health, your work life and your relationships. 
• 9. Nature. Sport allows you to get outdoors. Getting out in the fresh air and especially the sunlight are very important for your health and wellbeing. 
• 10.  Me time. For those of you with busy work and family lives, sport allows you to have some time just for you. Time to do what you enjoy with a group of people you choose to play with, and a break from the monotony of daily life.

So why not sign up for a sporting team? It doesn't need to be too serious. It might be a lunchtime kick of soccer with some workmates or a Sunday game of touch. Just find a sport that you enjoy doing and a group of people you enjoy playing with. Your life will be all the better for it.

Sport by region.

Africa

West Africa

Benin • Burkina Faso • Cape Verde • Côte d'Ivoire • Gambia • Ghana • Guinea • Guinea-Bissau • Liberia • Mali • Mauritania • Niger • Nigeria • Senegal • Sierra Leone • Togo

North Africa

Algeria • Egypt • Libya • Mauritania • Morocco • Sudan • Tunisia • Western Sahara

Central Africa

Angola • Burundi • Cameroon • Central African Republic • Chad • The Democratic Republic of the Congo • Equatorial Guinea • Gabon • Republic of the Congo • Rwanda • São Tomé and Príncipe

East Africa

Burundi • Comoros • Djibouti • Eritrea • Ethiopia • Kenya • Madagascar • Malawi • Mauritius • Mozambique • Rwanda • Seychelles • Somalia • Tanzania • Uganda • Zambia • Zimbabwe

Southern Africa

Botswana • Lesotho • Namibia • South Africa • Swaziland

Dependencies

Mayotte (France) • St. Helena (UK) • Puntland • Somaliland • Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic

Antarctica

None

Asia

Central Asia

Kazakhstan^[2] • Kyrgyzstan • Tajikistan • Turkmenistan • Uzbekistan

East Asia

China^[3]

Tibet

Hong Kong^[4] • Macau^[5]

Japan • North Korea • South Korea • Mongolia • Taiwan^[6]

North Asia

Russia^[7]

Southeast Asia^[8]

Brunei • Burma (Myanmar) • Cambodia^[9] • East Timor (Timor-Leste)^[10] • Indonesia^[11] • Laos • Malaysia • Philippines • Singapore • Thailand • Vietnam

South Asia

Afghanistan • Bangladesh • Bhutan• Iran • Maldives • Nepal • Pakistan • Sri Lanka

India^[12]

Delhi

West Asia

Armenia^[13] • Azerbaijan^[14] • Bahrain • Cyprus^[15] (including disputed Northern Cyprus) • Georgia^[16] • Iraq • Israel • Jordan • Kuwait • Lebanon • Oman • Palestine ^[17]Qatar • Saudi Arabia • Syria • Turkey^[18] • United Arab Emirates • Yemen

Caucasus (a region considered to be in both Asia and Europe, or between them)

North Caucasus

Parts of Russia (Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Adyghea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachai-Cherkessia, North Ossetia, Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai)

South Caucasus

Georgia (including disputed Abhkazia, South Ossetia) • Armenia • Azerbaijan (including disputed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic)

Europe

Akrotiri and Dhekelia • Åland • Albania • Andorra • Armenia • Austria • Azerbaijan • Belarus • Belgium • Bosnia and Herzegovina • Bulgaria • Croatia • Cyprus • Czech Republic • Denmark • Estonia • Faroe Islands • Finland • France • Georgia • Germany • Gibraltar • Greece • Guernsey • Hungary • Iceland • Ireland • Isle of Man • Italy • Jersey • Kazakhstan • Kosovo • Latvia • Liechtenstein • Lithuania • Luxembourg • Macedonia • Malta • Moldova (including disputed Transnistria) • Monaco • Montenegro • Netherlands • Norway • Poland • Portugal • Romania • Russia • San Marino • Serbia • Slovakia • Slovenia • Spain • Svalbard • Sweden • Switzerland • Turkey • Ukraine

United Kingdom

England • Northern Ireland • Scotland • Wales

Vatican City

European Union

North America

Canada

Greenland • Mexico • Saint Pierre and Miquelon

United States

Alabama • Alaska • Arizona • Arkansas • California • Colorado • Connecticut • Delaware • Florida • Georgia • Hawaii • Idaho • Illinois • Indiana • Iowa • Montana • Kansas • Kentucky • Louisiana • Maine • Maryland • Massachusetts • Michigan • Minnesota • Mississippi • Missouri • Nebraska • Nevada • New Hampshire • New Jersey • New Mexico • New York • North Carolina • North Dakota • Ohio • Oklahoma • Oregon • Pennsylvania • Rhode Island • South Carolina • South Dakota • Tennessee • Texas • Utah • Vermont • Virginia • Washington • West Virginia • Wisconsin • Wyoming

District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.)

Central America

Belize • Costa Rica • El Salvador • Guatemala • Honduras • Nicaragua • Panama

Caribbean

Anguilla • Antigua and Barbuda • Aruba • Bahamas • Barbados • Bermuda • British Virgin Islands • Cayman Islands • Cuba • Dominica • Dominican Republic • Grenada • Haiti • Jamaica • Montserrat • Netherlands Antilles • Puerto Rico • Saint Barthélemy • Saint Kitts and Nevis • Saint Lucia • Saint Martin • Saint Vincent and the Grenadines • Trinidad and Tobago • Turks and Caicos Islands • United States Virgin Islands

Oceania'''(includes the continent of Australia)

Australasia^[19]

Australia

Dependencies/Territories of Australia

Christmas Island^[8] • Cocos (Keeling) Islands • Norfolk Island

New Zealand^[20]

Melanesia^[21]

Fiji • Indonesia (Oceanian part only)^[22] • New Caledonia (France) • Papua New Guinea^[23] • Solomon Islands • Vanuatu •

Micronesia

Federated States of Micronesia • Guam (US) • Kiribati • Marshall Islands • Nauru • Northern Mariana Islands (USA) • Palau • Wake Island (USA) •

Polynesia^[24]

American Samoa (USA) • Chatham Islands (NZ) • Cook Islands (NZ) • Easter Island (Chile) • French Polynesia (France) • Hawaii (USA) • Loyalty Islands (France) • Niue (NZ) • Pitcairn Islands (UK) • Adamstown • Samoa • Tokelau (NZ) • Tonga • Tuvalu • Wallis and Futuna (France)

South America

Argentina • Bolivia • Brazil • Chile • Colombia • Ecuador • Falkland Islands • Guyana • Paraguay • Peru • Suriname • Uruguay • Venezuela

South Atlantic

Ascension Island • Saint Helena • Tristan da Cunha

Interesting Sports Facts

Ancient Egyptians used to play a game like bowling. They used large stones as pins and the smaller ones as ball.
Golf was first played by ancient Romans who used bent wooden sticks and leather ball stuffed with feathers for this purpose.
Did you know that you can play the first four turns in a game of chess in 318,979,564,000 ways?
Laos, Thailand and Cambodia have built a 27-hole golf course on the border between the three countries. Most of this golf course was previously a minefield.
Turkey knocked Spain out during a World Cup qualifier by drawing straws. The straws were picked by a blindfolded Italian boy Luigi Franco.
Babe Ruth was the first one to order a bat with a knob on it, back in 1919.
The first boxing match ever filmed was between Mike Leonard and Jack Cushing in 1894.
In bowling, three successive strikes are called "turkey". This term originated in the 19th century when first team member to do this was rewarded with a turkey.
Cyclists cover a distance of about 2,300 miles during the Tour de France cycle race.
During the World War II a lot of players were called to duty, thus the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles combined to become The Steagles.
In first basketball game, peach baskets were used.
Yankees were the first one to identify their team of baseball players by numbers.
Jousting is the state sport of Maryland.
Since the inclusion of field hockey in Summer Olympics in 1908, it has been played in every Olympic Games except 1924 due to the lack of an international sporting structure.
There are 336 dimples on a golf ball and its weight is estimated to be 1.62 oz.
Soccer is the world's most popular game.
There are four major types of contests of the ice hockey, that are: slopestyle, rail jam, boarder cross, and halfpipe.
The referee used to toss a jump ball after every basket until 1937.
Although swimming was a part of the first modern Summer Olympic Games played in 1896, but the backstroke was included as in Olympic event in second Summer Olympics plaed in 1900.
In 1997, Martina Hingis of Switzerland became the youngest woman to be ranked world number 1 player of tennis. She was only 16 years old then.
National Football League (NFL) used to be APFA before June 1922.
Lenin Stadium in Moscow can easily accommodate accommodate more than 103,000 people.
A practice match of Arsenal was the first soccer match to be telecasted on TV.
The real name of Pele is Edson Arantes do Nascimento. Pele was his nickname.
In cricket, if a bowler get three wickets in thee successive deliveries, then it is known as hat-trick. Wasim Akram was the first bowler to perform a hat-trick in both one days and test matches.
A German player named Boris Becker won Wimbledon tennis tournament at the age of 17 in 1985.
Jackie Robinson was the first baseball player to be named rookie of the year. This happened in 1947.
Butterfly wasn't accepted as a separate style until 1952. Before that it was considered a variant of Breaststroke.
20 red cards were shown during a soccer game in 1993. It was played between Sportivo Ameliano and General Caballero in Paraguay.
On June 14 1974, Carlos Caszely of Chile was the first player to be shown a red card in a match of World Cup.

About Olympic

Million pound Olympic project brings sport to communities

People in North Lincolnshire are to benefit from a one million pound sport project as part of the Olympic Legacy.
The Door Step Sport project aims to give opportunities to communities to take part in sports at a time and place convenient to them.
Sport England awarded the council more than £540,000 of National Lottery funding to assist with the scheme.
Councillor David Robinson said he hoped the project would encourage people to be more active.
The investment expands on the Street Sport project for young people, which offers diversionary activities in towns and villages in the region.
Councillor David Robinson, said: "This project is great as it encourages people to take part in sport and be more active.
"All communities are different and it is all about finding the right solution for each community that will benefit them the most."

The world's Top 10 most popular sports.

1. Association Football: Soccer, the world’s most popular game, has the largest fan following on the planet. Its origin is Chinese, where it was discovered by the English and is now the de facto sport in 93 countries - home to two billion people. It  has 208 member nations and thus is easily the world’s richest sport. It also has the largest contingent of diehard fans, players and professional leagues in the world’s largest economy, Europe. The English Premier League and the Champions League are the most popular football leagues, with the matches shown live to half a billion people in 202 countries. Manchester United is the richest club in the world with a valuation of $1.87 billion. The FIFA World Cup is the largest and most lucrative sporting event in the world. The 2006 tournament, with 64 matches featuring 32 nations and television coverage in 214 countries, had a cumulative television audience of 26 billion people. The final between defending champions Italy and France was watched by 700 million viewers.
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2. Cricket: With Twenty20, the three-hour, 20-overs-a-side version, One-Day internationals and Test matches, cricket is the second most popular sport in the world. The English gentleman’s game is the most popular sport in the Indian subcontinent, which has a 1.5 billion population. It attracts crazy fans with a religion-like following in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Then there is the West Indies and the 20 million or so non-residential Indians - figures that can be matched only by the soccer buffs of Europe and South America. Cricket is among the top three most popular sports in Australia, England, South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Afghanistan and Mauritius. The ICC, its ruling body,  has 10 Test playing nations and 104 member countries. The game also cherishes the ‘most popular’ tag in 20 countries. The ICC World Cup is the world’s second largest single sporting event, drawing a cumulative television audience of five billion. A final involving India could draw up to 400 million TV viewers (India has 130 million television sets). BCCI  is the world’s richest sporting organisation, with a valuation in excess of $2 billion. The IPL attracts two billion and is the most popular and richest  cricket league with  the average attendance figure of 57,500. India are the defending Twenty20 World Cup champions and Australia the ODI champions.
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3. Basketball: Amongst the most popular sports in the USA, China, Russia, the Philippines, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain and Puerto Rico. The National Basketball Association (NBA), with 30 teams and an average attendance of 17,500, is the richest and most popular basketball league and arguably the most viewed American sporting action in the world, attracting an accumulative television audience in excess of a billion. Induction of players of different nationalities to the NBA has ignited the general population to take up and follow the sport in a big way across various nations. The FIBA world championship and Olympics are the major international events, with Spain and the United States is the respective current gold medalists.
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4. Baseball: The national pastime of the United States  is the most popular sport in Japan, Taiwan, Cuba, Venezuela and South Korea. It is amongst the most popular in the USA, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada, Colombia, Panama, the Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua  and the Dominican Republic . With 117 member nations, it has passionate fans nearing the half-a-billion mark and is arguably the richest bat-and-ball game. Major League Baseball is the  premier baseball league and attracts the highest attendance (79.5 million in 2,430 matches). New York Yankees are the most valued and popular club, and after the preamble of the not-so-popular baseball World Cup, the international think-tank initiated the successful World Baseball Classic - a 16-nation tournament with MLB players, where Japan are the multiple defending champions.
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5. Rugby Union: The most popular sports in New Zealand is also very popular  in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Italy, Madagascar, Fiji, the Cook Islands, Romania, Samoa, Tonga and Argentina . It is also played in the USA, Japan, Georgia, Belgium, Germany, Chile, Paraguay, Malaysia, Russia, Canada and Spain. The 16-nation Rugby World Cup is the third largest single sporting event, achieving an average attendance of more than 45,000 and an estimated television audience in excess of two billion. The Six-Nations championship, British Lions tours and Tri-Nation series are the major tournaments outside the World Cup, followed by millions of passionate rugby fans. The International Rugby Board  has 103 member nations spanning every continent. South Africa are the defending world champions.
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6. Field Hockey: The national sport of India and Pakistan is amongst the top five sports in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Germany,  Holland (the six-time world champions), Australia (three Olympics golds), South Korea, Japan, Argentina, Malaysia and England. The Olympics and the World Cup,  the most prominent events, have been dominated by India, with eight Olympics golds, and Pakistan, winners of four World Cups. The Champions Trophy and the Sultan Azlan Shah tournament are other prominent events. The International Hockey Federation comprises more than 100 countries. Germany are the current World and   Olympic champions.
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 7. Volleyball: The national sport of Sri Lanka is a very popular participant sports in almost all countries and amongst the top six in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Russia, Italy, the Netherlands , Japan, China, India, Philippines and Poland. Volleyball is also a popular sport in the south of India, North America, Eastern Europe and Brazil, enjoying a surge in popularity in schools and colleges. The most important tournament is the Olympics where the USSR, Brazil and the USA are multiple gold medallists. FIVB is the international governing body with more than 150 volleyball-playing nations. The United States are the current Olympic champions and Brazil the defending world champions. Another hugely popular version is beach volleyball, which often rivals even the main sport.
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 8. Ice Hockey: A winter sport boosted by the advent of artificial turf, Ice Hockey enjoys popularity throughout the seasons and is amongst the top four sports in the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway , Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Czech Republic, Great Britain and Slovakia. The National Hockey League is the most popular league and captures the lion’s share among all the hockey leagues, pulling in average crowds of 40,000 to the stadiums in the US and watched by millions on TV across Europe and America. The International Ice Hockey Federation, with 66 members, stages the World Championship where Russia are the defending champions.
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9. American Football: The most popular sport in the United States has its roots in English soccer and rugby football. It is loved by more than half the nation’s population  of 306 million. With more than 200 million passionate fans residing across the US, Canada, Japan, the Caribbean and Europe, it has mass appeal and glamour. The National Football League (NFL) is the richest sporting league in the world, netting $6.2 billion annually and attracting a world-record average attendance of around 67,700. IFAF, with 45 members, is the international governing body that oversees the sport’s World Cup, where the United States are the defending champions. Outside the US  and Canada, American football  is also played domestically in the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Austria, Mexico and Japan, the multiple world champions in 1999 and 2003.
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10. Rugby League: The other version of rugby football is played extensively in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Wales, France, England and Papua New Guinea, where it is considered a national sport.  It is played in more the 30 nations, growing in popularity particularly in Europe and in New Zealand, after being crowned world champions in 2007. Passionate rugby league fans dwell mainly in northern parts of England, Australia and New Zealand. National Rugby League, with 16 teams, is the most prominent domestic league and probably the most popular rugby football club competition in the world. It draws huge crowds across the grounds of Australia and New Zealand.
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The history of sport.

Antiquity

Sports that are at least two and a half thousand years old include hurling (similar to field hockey) in Ireland, harpastum (similar to rugby) in Rome, cuju (similar to association football) in China, and polo in Persia. The Mesoamerican ballgame originated over three thousand years ago.
There are artifacts and structures that suggest that the Chinese engaged in sporting activities as early as 2000 BC. Gymnastics appears to have been a popular sport in China's ancient past. Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a number of sports, including swimming and fishing, were well-developed and regulated several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt. Other Egyptian sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zourkhaneh had a close connection to the warfare skills. Among other sports that originate in Persia are polo and jousting.

Ancient Greece

Hermes, one of Olympian gods and patron of athletics
Depictions of ritual sporting events are seen in the Minoan art of Bronze Age Crete (from approximately 2700 to 1450 BC), mainly involving religious bull-leaping and possibly bullfighting. Homer tells us that sport was practiced in Mycenaean times, between 1600 BC and ca. 1100 BC. In the Iliad there are extensive descriptions of funeral sports games held in honour of deceased warriors, and engaging in sports is described as the occupation of the noble and wealthy, who have no need to do manual labour themselves. In the Odyssey, king Odysseus of Ithaca proves his royal status to king Alkinoös of the Phaiakes by showing his proficiency in throwing the javelin. It was predictably in Greece that sports were first instituted formally, with the first Olympics recorded in 776 BC in Olympia, where they were celebrated until 393 AD. Initially a single sprinting event, the Olympics gradually expanded to include several footraces, run in the nude or in armor, boxing, wrestling, pankration, chariot racing, long jump, javelin throw, and discus throw. A variety of informal and formal games were popular in Ancient Greece, with the most prestigious ones achieving Panhellenic status. Some games, e.g. the Panathenaia of Athens, included musical, reading and other non-athletic contests in addition to regular sports events. High-profile athletes were major celebrities in Ancient Greece. City walls were torn down when victors returned home, as a city of such men was said to be in no need for walls to defend itself. They were often granted lifetime pensions or dining rights at public expense. Regardless of such material rewards granted afterwards, the most prestigious games were strictly stephanítai (from the Greek: στέφανος, stéphanos, a wreath or crown of plant branches), i.e. the only prize awarded was a wreath and the athletes competed for glory alone.

Middle Ages

For at least seven hundred years, entire villages have competed with each other in rough, and sometimes violent, ballgames in England (Shrovetide football) and Ireland (caid). In contrast, the game of calcio Fiorentino, in Florence, Italy, was originally reserved for the aristocracy. The aristocracy throughout Europe favoured sports as patrons. Horse racing, in particular, was a favourite of the upper class in Great Britain, with Queen Anne founding the Ascot Racecourse.

Development of modern sport

Writing about cricket in particular, John Leech (2005a) has explained the role of Puritan power, the Revolutionary War, and the Restoration of the monarchy in England. The Long Parliament in 1642 "banned theatres, which had met with Puritan disapproval. Although similar action would be taken against certain sports, it is not clear if cricket was in any way prohibited, except that players must not break the Sabbath. In 1660, "the Restoration of the monarchy in England was immediately followed by the reopening of the theatres and so any sanctions that had been imposed by the Puritans on cricket would also have been lifted.He goes on to make the very important point that political, social and economic conditions in the aftermath of the Restoration encouraged excessive gambling, so much so that a Gambling Act was necessary in 1664. It is certain that cricket, horse racing and boxing (i.e., prizefighting) were financed by gambling interests. Leach explains that it was the habit of cricket patrons, all of whom were gamblers, to form strong teams through the 18th century to represent their interests. He defines a strong team as one representative of more than one parish and he is certain that such teams were first assembled in or immediately after 1660. Prior to the English Civil War and the Commonwealth, all available evidence concludes that cricket had evolved to the level of village cricket only where teams that are strictly representative of individual parishes compete. The "strong teams" of the post-Restoration mark the evolution of cricket (and, indeed of professional team sport, for cricket is the oldest professional team sport) from the parish standard to the county standard. As he rightly says, this was the point of origin for major, or first-class, cricket.1660 also marks the origin of professional team sport.A number of the English Public Schools, such as Winchester and Eton, introduced sports for their pupils, particularly variants of football. These were described at the time as "innocent and lawful," certainly in comparison with the rural games. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the movement of the populace from the country to the cities, the rural games moved to the new urban centres and came under the influence of the middle and upper classes. The rules and regulations devised at English public schools began to be applied to the wider game, with governing bodies in England being set up for a number of sports by the end of the 19th century. The rising influence of the upper class also produced an emphasis of the amateur, and the spirit of 'fair play'. The industrial revolution also brought with it increasing mobility, and created the opportunity for English public schools, and universities in Britain and elsewhere, to compete with each other. This sparked increasing attempts to unify and reconcile various public school games in England, leading to the establishment of the Football Association in London, the first official governing body in football. Modern history
The influence of British sports and their codified rules began to spread across the world in the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly association football. A number of major teams elsewhere in the world still show these British origins in their names, such as AC Milan in Italy, Grêmio in Brazil, and Athletic Bilbao in Spain. Cricket became popular in several of the nations of the then British Empire, such as Australia, South Africa and India. The revival of the Olympic Games by Baron Pierre de Coubertin was also heavily influenced by the amateur ethos of the English public schools. Baseball became established in the urban Northeastern United States, with the first rules being codified in the 1840s, while American football was very popular in the south-east. With baseball spreading to the south, and American football spreading to the north after the Civil War. In the 1870s the game split between the professionals and amateurs; the professional game rapidly gained dominance, and marked a shift in the focus from the player to the club. The rise of baseball also helped squeeze out other sports such as Cricket, which had been popular in Philadelphia prior to the rise of Baseball.American football also has its origins in the English variants of the game, with the first set of intercollegiate football rules based directly on the rules of the Football Association in London. However, Harvard chose to play a game based on the rules of Rugby football. Walter Camp would then heavily modify this variant in the 1880s, with the modifications also heavily influencing the rules of Canadian football.Some historians—notably Bernard Lewis—claim that team sports are primarily an invention of Western cultures. The traditional teams sports, according to these authors, springs from Europe, primarily England. This ignores some of the ancient games of cooperation from, paragliding, canyoning, BASE jumping, Parkour(or free-running) and more genteelly, orienteering. The history of sport education is an important topic of the political history.
There are many sports whose modern rules were formulated during the mid- or late- 19th century. World-wide, this certainly includes many different football codes, lawn bowls, lawn tennis and others. The major impetus for this was the patenting of the world's first lawnmower in 1830. This allowed for the preparation of modern ovals, playing fields, pitches, grass courts, etc.

Women's sport history

Women's competition in sports has been frowned upon by many societies in the past. The English public-school background of organised sport in the 19th and early 20th century led to a paternalism that tended to discourage women's involvement in sports, with, for example, no women officially competing in the 1896 Olympic Games. The 20th century saw major advances in the participation of women in sports, although women's participation as fans, administrators, officials, coaches, journalists, and athletes remains in general less than men's. Mass involvement tends to favour sports such as swimming and aerobics, and tends to stress the competitive aspects less than men.The increase has been partly related to the drive for more women's rights. In the United States, female students participation in sports was significantly boosted by the  Act in 1972, preventing gender discrimination and equal opportunity for women to participate in sport at all levels.Pressure from sports funding bodies has also improved gender equality in sports. For example the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and the Leander Rowing Club in England had both been male-only establishments since their founding in 1787 and 1818, respectively, but both opened their doors to female members at the end of the 20th century at least partially due to the requirements of the United Kingdom Lottery Sports Fund.