On This Week in Sport & Leisure History ~ 18th-24th February 2019

18^th 

• During England’s record 13-0 win over Ireland on this day in 1882, Oliver Vaughton, (5 goals) and Arthur Brown(4) became the first English players to score hat-tricks in a full international fixture.
• The man who built the Ferrari empire, Enzo Ferrari, was born in 1898. A racing driver with Alfa Romeo in the 1920s, he took over the team when Alfa quit racing at the end of 1929 and started manufacturing under the Scuderia Ferrari banner. Since the launch of the world motor-racing championship in 1950, Ferrari has been the most successful manufacturer and the only one to register 100 grand prix wins. Enzo Ferrari died in 1988.
• On this day in 1900 Ajax football team forms in Amsterdam.
• The former football player and England manager Bobby Robson was born in 1933. He played 584 League games for West Bromwich and Fulham before becoming a manager and eventually making his name at Ipswich Town, leading them to a famous FA Cup win in 1978. Appointed manager of England in 1982, he guided the team to the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup before returning to league football in Holland.
• The first officially recognised world heavyweight boxing champion under the Queensbury Rules, ‘Gentleman’ Jim Corbett, died on this day in 1933 at the age of 66.
• Today in 1960 the 8^th Winter Olympic Games opened in Squaw Valley, California.
• Footballer Roberto Baggio was born in 1967, in 1990 he became the then most expensive footballer in the world when he moved from Fiorentina to Juventus for £7.7 million.
• Today in 1967 Bob Seagren set a new pole vault record of 5.36m at San Diego.
• Also born on this day in 1967 Welsh former sprint and hurdling athlete Colin Jackson, who specialised in the 110m hurdles. During a career in which he represented Great Britain and Wales, he won an Olympic silver medal, became world champion twice, World indoor champion once, went undefeated at the European Championships for 12 years and was a two-time Commonwealth champion. His world record of 12.91s for the 110m hurdles stood for over a decade and he remains the 60m hurdles world record holder at 7.30s, which he clocked in 6th March 1994 in Sindelfingen.
• The 10^th Winter Olympic Games came to a close at Grenoble in France on this day in 1968. 
• The first Iron Man Triathlon (swim, bike ride, marathon) was held in Hawaii today in 1978. During an awards banquet for the Waikiki Swim Club, John Collins, a Naval Officer stationed in Hawaii, and his fellow athletes began debating which athletes were the fittest: swimmers, bikers, or runners. Later, he and his wife Judy, who had both participated in new competitions known as triathlons in San Diego, decided to combine three of the toughest existing endurance races on the island. 15 competitors, including Collins, came to the shores of Waikiki to take on the first-ever IRONMAN challenge. Collins’s famous quote – “Swim 2.4 Miles. Bike 112 miles. Run 26.2. Brag for the rest of your life,” is an oft repeated one among the Ironman fraternity.
• Died on this day in 2012, Elizabeth Connell, South African-born operatic mezzo-soprano, and later soprano, whose career took place mainly in the United Kingdom and Australia
• Erland Kops, Danish badminton player, died today in 2017. Born on 14th January 1937 , he won numerous major international singles and doubles titles from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. In 1958, Erland brought an end eight years of dominance by Malayan players at the All England Badminton Championships by winning the Men’s Singles event. He was also among the first Westerners to win major singles titles in the Far East. He combined abundant speed, power, and stamina with impressive shot-making virtuosity. Despite some disappointing results in the late rounds of Thomas Cup (men’s international team) competition, he was clearly the dominant tournament men’s singles player and one of the dominant men’s doubles players of his era.

19^th 

• The first speedway meeting on a cinder track took place in 1928 at High Beech, Essex.
• On the very same day in 1928 the 2^nd Winter Olympic Games closed at St Moritz in Switzerland.
• In 1975 Her Majesty the Queen knighted cricketer Gary Sobers during a state visit to Barbados, at the time only the fifth cricketer to be so honoured.
• Ma Lin, Chinese table tennis player, was born on this day in 1980. He learned to play table tennis at the age of five and became a member of the provincial team in 1990. In 1994, he joined the Chinese national team. Ma Lin is the only male player ever to win Olympic gold in Singles, Doubles and Team. Additionally, he holds a professional era record of 5 major titles (4 World Cups and 1 Olympic Gold), having won more World Cups than any other male table tennis player in history. Since retiring in December 2013, Ma Lin has been serving as the head coach of the Guangdong provincial table tennis team.
• On this day in 1983 Russian swimmer Vladimir Salnikov set a world record for the 400m freestyle at 3:48.32s.
• In 1984 the 14^th Winter Olympics came to a close at Sarajevo in Yugoslavia and on that day twin brothers Phil and Steve Mahre became the first such combo to win a Gold and Silver in the same event at an Olympic Games. Competing in the slalom, Phil recorded the quicker time of the two brothers.
• Alan Shearer scored on his England debut against France at Wembley in 1992. England won 2-0 as France suffered their first defeat in 20 games.
• On this day in 1998 the USA Ice Hockey team brought disgrace onto their country when they destroyed  their rooms at the Olympic village in Nagano, Japan. It was the first year the International Olympic Committee permitted NHL players to compete in the games, and so expectations for the quality of play at the tournament were high—especially for an American team whose 1996 World Cup–winning roster remained mostly intact, and which featured twelve of the top fifteen highest-scoring U.S.-born NHL players of all-time. Along with the U.S., the squads from Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, and Sweden were all essentially satellite NHL All-Star teams; these were to be Olympic Games worth watching. Things didn’t go as planned, though, at least not for Team USA (or their fans). In four games, they could only muster a single victory (against a Belarusian side that featured just one NHL representative, Ruslan Salei, who, fascinatingly enough, had been able to join his countrymen earlier than expected—and therefore help them navigate the early rounds, (because he had been serving a two-game suspension from the NHL for head-butting). The American men succumbed to the eventual gold-medal-winning Czechs, 4-1, in the quarterfinals, but as it turned out, their lacklustre play wasn’t the most embarrassing part of their time in Japan. The morning after getting bounced by the Czechs, a delegation of U.S. players—almost certainly worse for drink and definitely dissatisfied with their performance—decided it would be a good idea to smash almost a dozen chairs and activate a few fire extinguishers, one of which was reportedly tossed off a balcony into an Olympic village courtyard. Officials discovered the aftermath a few hours later, and initially estimated the property damages at around $1,000—a number that tripled when all was said and done. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was not impressed. “Obviously, such conduct is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” he said after the incident. “This is an unfortunate incident and one we deeply regret,” said then executive director of USA Hockey Dave Ogrean. “We believe only a handful of individuals were involved. Nevertheless, we will work with the National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Player’s Association in an effort to determine exactly who is responsible.” Bettman assigned the league’s security boss to work with USA Hockey, the NHLPA, and the United States Olympic Committee to “determine which players may have been responsible,” but their investigations ultimately failed to uncover any of the guilty party. Along with being the first Olympic tournament to include professional hockey players, Nagano also marked the debut of the women’s tournament, which was won by—you guessed it—the Americans. Captained by all-time great Cammi Granato, the American women conducted themselves with grace and class en route to upsetting the rival Canadian juggernauts. Juxtaposed with the conduct and success of the women, the behaviour of the men’s team looked even more embarrassing.
• Passing away on this day in 2007 at the age of 85, the founder of The National Ballet of Canada (1951) and its artistic director for 24 years – Celia Franca. Born in London in 1921 as Celia Franks, she was the daughter of a Polish Jewish immigrant and East End tailor. She began to study dance at the age of 4 and was a scholarship student at the Guildhall School of Music and the Royal Academy of Dance. She made her professional debut aged 14. She caught the attention of choreographer Walter Gore and successfully auditioned for Marie Rambert’s ballet company in 1936. She changed her name to Franca in emulation of Alicia Marks, who changed hers to Alicia Markova. In 1941, aged 20, she was recognized as one of the finest dramatic ballerinas in the Sadler’s Wells company. In 1947 she joined the Metropolitan Ballet as a soloist and ballet mistress. It was there that she began choreographing for television, creating the first two ballets – Eve of St. Agnes and Dance of Salomé – ever commissioned by the BBC. In 1950, a group of Toronto balletomanes asked Franca to start a Canadian classical company. A determined woman who thrived on challenges, she did the impossible in only 10 months – while supporting herself as a file clerk at Eaton’s department store, she recruited and trained dancers, staged some Promenade Concerts, organized a summer school, gathered a talented artistic staff and whipped her uneven but enthusiastic new company into shape for its opening on 12 November 1951. She and Betty Oliphant founded the National Ballet School of Canada in 1959 to provide exceptional dancers for the Company. During her years with the National Ballet and since her retirement, Celia was recognized at home and abroad.
• Hillar Kärner, Estonia chess player, who was seven times national champion as well as International Master in 1980, died today in 2017 at the age of 81.

20^th 

• On this day in 1872 The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York City.
• In 1877 Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake receives its premiere at the Bolshoi theatre in Moscow.
• Born on this day in 1910 Russian ballet dancer, director and choreographer Konstantin Sergeyev. He was the artistic director and choreographer for the Kirov Theatre and taught at the Leningrad State Choreographic Institute. He was married firstly to prima ballerina Feya Balabina  and then Natalia Dudinskaya, also a prima ballerina. Galina Ulanova was his partner between 1930 and 1940. Sergeyev and Ulanova were the first to dance Romeo and Juliet in Sergey Prokofiev’s ballet of the same name. Sergeyev was named a People’s Artist of the USSR in 1957 and a Hero of Socialist Labour in 1991. He was the recipient of four Stalin Prizes, he passed away on 1^st April 1992.
• Jimmy Greaves, prolific English goal scorer, was born on this day in 1940. He started his career at Chelsea as a 17 year-old and scored on his debut for the club and subsequently in every major competition he played in. He is England’s fourth highest international goal scorer (44 goals), Tottenham Hotspur’s highest ever goal scorer (266 goals), the highest goal scorer in the history of English top-flight football (357 goals), and has also scored more hat-tricks (six) for England than anyone else. He finished as the First Division’s top scorer in six seasons. He was a member of the 1966 England World Cup squad, but not picked to play in the final. After spells at Spurs, West Ham and AC Milan he retired and later, after overcoming alcoholism, enjoyed a successful career in journalism and broadcasting. He popularised the phrase ‘Funny ‘ole game’.
• The Shell Trophy cricket match between Wellington and Canterbury at Christchurch in 1990 was bizarre to say the least. In a deliberate attempt to give away runs in order to force a result, Wellington bowler Bert Vance delivered 17 no-balls in the penultimate over. The umpire inadvertently counted the number of legitimate balls, only five of which were delivered. The 22-ball over resulted in 77 runs being scored, 69 of them from the bat of wicket-keeper Lee Germon. A further 17 runs were scored off the last over. Canterbury faced the last ball needing just one run for victory, but the batsman offered no stroke and the match was drawn. Wellington still went on to win the Shell Trophy.
• On this day in 1998 American figure skater Tara Lipinski became, at the age of 15 years, 8 months and 10 days, the youngest gold medallist in Winter Olympic history when she won the ladies figure staking title at Nagano in Japan. Two years earlier in late 1996, at the US Postal Challenge, Lipinski became the first female skater to land a triple loop/triple loop jump combination, which became her signature element. In early 1997 she unexpectedly won the US Championships and, at 14, became the youngest person to win the title ahead of Sonya Klopfer who won it in 1951 at the age of 15.  Lipinski also won the 1997 Champion Series Final, again becoming the youngest female ever to win the title. She went on to win the World Championships, again becoming the youngest person to win the title.
• The gaming world mourned as Kenji Eno died today in 2013, aged just 42. He was a Japanese musician and video game designer who gained a reputation as a maverick during the mid-1990s for creating unorthodox games like Real Sound and is perhaps best remembered today for his rebellious marketing techniques. Outside of his native home land he was best known for his survival horror video games, the D series and Enemy Zero. Apart from creating video games, Eno was also a well-regarded electronic musician and he created the scores for several of his games. During his life, Eno founded the video game development companies: EIM, Ltd., WARP (later transformed into SuperWARP), and From Yellow to Orange. He also worked in a variety of fields apart from video games and music including the automotive, mobile phone, tobacco, and hotel industries.
• David Barons, trainer of the 1991 Grand National winner Seagram, died in New Zealand aged 81 on this day in 2018. He became one of the biggest trainers in the West Country in the late 1960s and early 1970s, helping Bob Davies to become champion jockey. “I started riding for him in spring 1968 and we were kings of the West Country back then,” said Davies, who shared the title with Terry Biddlecombe in the 1968-69 season before claiming it outright in two of the next three years. Barons’ career took on a new dimension in the 1980s when he became one of the first trainers to import New Zealand-bred jumping stock with great success. Among the notable winners he sent out during that period were the Hennessy Gold Cup winners of 1986 and 87, Broadheath and Playschool – and the dual Whitbread (now bet365) Gold Cup winner of 1992 and 1993, Topsham Bay. Playschool also landed the 1987 Coral Welsh National and the Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown, before starting favourite for that season’s Gold Cup only to be pulled up, a result which Barons would later put down to foul play.  Many of Barons’ biggest successes came in partnership with Paul Nicholls, who later became assistant trainer to Barons at his stable in Kingsbridge, Devon, before setting up in his own right. Barons will forever be associated with the diminutive Seagram, who stormed to Aintree success at the age of 11 in 1991 under Nigel Hawke at the expense of that year’s Gold Cup winner, Garrison Savannah.  Barons sent out the winners of more than 900 races in a career that began in 1963 and ended in 1994 when he decided to return to farming and concentrate on importing New Zealand-bred horses.

21^st

• On this day in 1896 – An Englishman raised in Australia, Bob Fitzsimmons, fought an Irishman, Peter Maher, in an American promoted event which technically took place in Mexico, winning the 1896 World Heavyweight Championship in boxing.
• Today in 1907, the poet W H Auden was born. Wystan Hugh Auden, who died aged 66 in Vienna was best known for love poems such as “Funeral Blues,” poems on political and social themes such as “September 1, 1939” and “The Shield of Achilles,” poems on cultural and psychological themes such as The Age of Anxiety, and poems on religious themes such as “For the Time Being” and “Horae Canonicae. He was born in York, grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended English independent schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29 he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in English public schools, then travelled to Iceland and China in order to write books about his journeys. In 1939 he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Austria. Public recognition of Auden’s work sharply increased after his “Funeral Blues” more commonly referred to as “Stop all the clocks” was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral  in 1994 and subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. After the Twin Towers attack on 11 September 2001 his 1939 poem “September 1, 1939” was widely circulated and frequently broadcast.  Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and USA in 2007 marked his centenary year.
• On this day in 1925 The New Yorker magazine made its debut.
• Edwin H Land publicly demonstrated his Polaroid Land camera,which could produce a black-and-white photograph in 60 seconds, on this day in 1925. 
• Eric Liddell, Scottish athlete, rugby union international player, and missionary, who chose his religious beliefs over competing in an Olympic race held on a Sunday died on this day in 1945. At the 1924 Olympics in Paris, Liddell refused to run in the heats for his favoured 100m because they were held on a Sunday. Instead he competed in the 400m held on a weekday, a race that he won. He returned to China in 1925 to serve as a missionary teacher. Aside from two furloughs in Scotland, he remained in China until his death in a Japanese civilian internment camp.
• In 1952 Dick Button performs the first figure skating triple jump in completion.
• One of the best known of the famous ‘Busby Babes’, Duncan Edwards, died in 1958 aged 21. The brightest prospect in English football, Edwards had made his international debut at 18. He was a member of the great Manchester United team decimated in the Munich Air Disaster. Edwards clung onto life for two weeks after the crash before eventually succumbing.
• Today in 1976 was a red letter day for Liechtenstein when their skier Hanni Wenzel won the country’s first Olympic medal, a bronze, in the giant slalom. At the next Games in Lake Placid in 1980 she went three better, winning gold medals in the slalom and giant slalom, and just missed out on a sweep by taking the silver in the downhill at Whiteface Mountain.
• Today in 1983 Donald A Davis of America ran a World Record for the mile in 6:0 7.1. Hang on I hear you cry!! OK, OK, so the mile was run backwards. Davis executed this feat at the University of Hawaii, however this was bettered on July 18^th 2004 when German athlete Thomas Dold set a new mark of 5:46.59 at Meßkirch in Germany
• Playing in the Indian national snooker championship in 1988, Geet Sethi became the first amateur to register an official maximum 147 break in a tournament.
• Chicago stockbroker Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon, landing in Canada in 1995. 
• Betty Miller, the first female pilot to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean died on this day in  2018.  Her record making flight came in May 1963, specifically, she flew from Oakland, California, USA to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, to deliver the plane (a twin-engine Piper) to a buyer. The flight also made her the first woman to fly solo from Oakland, California to Honolulu, Hawaii. She started the first leg on 25th April from Oakland California and took over 17 hours to reach Honolulu. On 5th May, she left Honolulu for the second leg of her flight to Canton Island, next Fiji and then New Caledonia. She landed in Brisbane, Australia, on 13th May 1963, she climbed out of the plane wearing a cotton dress and high heels to the cheers of a large crowd. The total elapsed flying time for the flight over the Pacific was 51 hours, 38 minutes. In recognition of her flight, she received the Federal Aviation Administration’s Gold Medal for Exceptional Service from President Kennedy, and later President Johnson presented her with the Harmon International Trophy for Aviatrix of the Year (1963).

22^nd 

• Austrian motor-racing driver Niki Lauda was born today in 1949. He won his first world title with Ferrari in 1975. Only an horrific accident in the German Grand Prix at Nurburgring in August 1976, which left him with severe facial burns and lung damage, prevented a second successive title. He regained his world crown from James Hunt a year later. He came out of retirement to win his third title with McLaren in 1984.
• On this day in 1955 one of American tennis star Maureen “Little Mo” Connolly announced she was to retire from the sport after a horse-riding accident. Maureen Connolly’s tennis career began at the age of 10 on the municipal courts of San Diego. Her first coach Wilbur Folsom encouraged her to switch from left-handed to right and she soon became a baseline specialist with an especially strong backhand. She earned her nickname “Little Mo” from the sportswriters who likened her explosiveness on court to the battleship USS Missouri, known as “Big Mo”, which was based in her home town. She has won the women’s title at Wimbledon for the past three consecutive years, in 1952, 1953 and 1954. At 16, she became the youngest woman player to win the US national singles. In 1953 she became the first woman tennis player ever to complete the Grand Slam, taking the US National Women’s title at Forest Springs, New York to add to her Wimbledon, French and Australian o Open titles. Last July (1954), she broke her leg in a horse riding accident just a few weeks before she was due to defend her US title. Although she planned to return to tennis, she had recently realised she would never regain her previous form. She was back at Wimbledon in July 1955 reporting for her local newspaper. In an interview for the BBC’s Panorama, she said her life as a housewife and journalist was keeping her too busy to miss playing tennis. She set up the Maureen Connolly Brinker Foundation to encourage the development of young players in her home state of Texas. The Foundation has since expanded and now runs competitions for young players worldwide. She was elected to the National Lawn Tennis Hall of Fame in 1968. The following year she was diagnosed with cancer and died, aged 34. One of her daughters, Cindy Brinker Simmons, set up a charity, Wipe Out Kids’ Cancer, in memory of her mother. Her record as youngest Grand Slam winner was beaten by American Tracey Austin in 1979, when she was just three months short of her 17th birthday.
• The second round Scottish FA Cup tie between Inverness Thistle and Falkirk was played on this day in 1979 – at last! It had been postponed a (British) record 29 times because of bad weather.
• The USA Ice Hockey Team beat the Soviets in a stunning 4-3 upset at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid on this day in 1980. The Americans went on the claim the gold medal.
• On this day in 1998 the 18^th Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, came to a close.
• Atje Keulen-Deelstra, the Dutch speed skater, who was a four-time World All-round Champion between the age of 32 and 36, died on this day in 2013. As a teenager she took part in gymnastics, athletics and basketball, but finally chose speed skating.  By the age of 16, she had already won a junior title of Friesland and several cash prizes in the Netherlands. When the Thialf arena opened in 1967 in Heerenveen, Keulen-Deelstra went there to work on her comeback after having married and had a family. She quickly made much progress, but she was told over and over again that she was too old. Not a member of the Dutch speed skating team, she won the Dutch All-round Championships in 1970 at the age of 32, beating Dutch skating team members such as Ans Schut and multiple world champion Stien Kaiser. That same year, she became World All-round Champion. More successes soon followed when in 1972, she became Dutch, European, and World All-round Champion, a feat she then repeated the following two years (1973 and 1974). In addition, at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, she won one silver and two bronze medals. In 1975 she switched to marathon skating and she became Dutch Champion in that discipline five times. She won her last Dutch Marathon Championships title in 1980 when she was 42 years old. In 1997, just a few weeks after having been injured in a traffic accident, Keulen-Deelstra participated in the Elfstedentocht. She died of a cerebral infarction. In the 1980s and early 1990s, her daughter Boukje Keulen (born 2 December 1963) also was a successful skater. Like her mother, Boukje went from short track through long track (“regular”) to marathon speed skating.
• George Weedon, Briitsh gymnast, born on 3rd July 1920, died on this day in 2017. He competed at two Olympic Games and was a member of the Regent Street Polytechnic Gymnastics Club. In 1948 in London he participated in the Individual All-Around, Team All-Around, Floor Exercise, Horse Vault, Parallel Bars, Horizontal Bar, Rings, and Pommell Horse, finishing in 12th place out of 16 nations in the team competition, and no higher than 38th in any individual event. In 1952 in Helsinki he competed in the same events, finishing 21st out of 23 countries in the team tournament, with 116th being his best placing individually. He married another British Olympic gymnast, Joan Airey, with whom he had three sons and one daughter. One grandchild, Lindsey Weedon, was a British representative modern pentathlete. Before and after retiring from active competition, he taught physical education at various schools including, from 1950 to 1971, the John Lyon School in Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex. In 2010 he was interviewed by the BBC about his experiences at the 1948 Games, in anticipation of the 2012 London Olympics and professed his belief that the city had not been properly prepared to host the earlier edition, due to its insufficient infrastructure.  He was the subject of a 2011 short film, Walk Tall, by filmmaker Kate Sullivan. On 11th July 2012 he was a torch bearer during the Olympics torch relay.

23^rd 

• In 1874 Major Walter Clopton Wingfield patented his game of ‘Sphairistiké’, which later became known as lawn tennis. In the foyer of the Lawn Tennis Association there is a statue to the Welshman with the simple statement: “Inventor of Lawn Tennis”. It is a title that still provokes debate among sports historians. During the late 19th century there was a growing demand to develop gentle outdoor activities and games for the middle-classes, and, with this in mind, Wingfield set about devising games to meet this need and Sphairistiké was the result, taking the name from the Greek world ‘sphairos’ meaning ball. His friends were not keen on the game’s original name. Arthur Balfour, who would later become prime minister, suggested “lawn tennis” and Wingfield later added “or lawn tennis” to the title of his eight-page instruction booklet. It is often said that Wingfield first demonstrated the game at a Christmas party held in 1873 at Nant Clwyd, a Denbighshire country house, but this version of the game would be pretty near the final form. In 1869 Wingfield had shown the game to his friend Lord Landsdowne, although it was not until 1874 that he actually applied for a patent for the game that he devised. Originally Wingfield’s lawn tennis court was an hour-glass shape which may have been adopted for patent reasons as it set it apart from the more familiar rectangular courts. Sets of equipment to play Sphairistiké were manufactured and the game became quite popular. Within the first year over 1,000 sets were sold at a price of five guineas. However, other versions of lawn tennis were played before Wingfield began demonstrating his take on the game. Another major, called Harry Gem, and his Spanish friend JB Perera, were developing the game that they had had named ‘pelota’, which they later changed to ‘lawn rackets’. In 1872, they set up the Leamington Lawn Tennis Club, later publishing the Rules df Tennis. Wingfield may not have been the first to create a game called lawn tennis but it is generally felt that he was the man who first popularised the sport.
• Harold Horder,Australian rugby league player was born on this day in 1894. A national and state representative player whose club career was with the South Sydney Rabbitohs and North Sydney Bears between 1912 and 1924. Regarded as one of the greatest wingers to play the game, from 1924 until 1973 his 152 career tries was the NSWRFL record. Horder played 86 games for Souths between 1912–1919 and 1924, 9 games for New South Wales, 13 Test matches for Australia. After following his brother Clarence “Spot” Horder to South Sydney, Harold in his first game, stepped and swerved through the entire Glebe team in a 90-metre dash to score one of the greatest individual tries in rugby league history. He went on to be the NSW Rugby Football League’s top try-scorer in 1913, 1914 and 1917 and for each of the four seasons 1913, 1914, 1918 and 1922 he was the League’s top point scorer. The Gregory’s reference records that in the 1912 City Cup-tie against Glebe, Harold induced the Souths selectors to name his relatively inexperienced brother Clarrie in the side, While Glebe was concentrating on Harold, Clarrie cut holes in the defence and Souths won 30-5. Horder was selected to make his debut for Australia during the 1914 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand. He was selected to go on the 1921–22 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain. He also scored a double in Norths’ 1922 grand final win. He scored 102 tries for South Sydney and 50 tries for North Sydney. In his final season at Souths he became the first player to score 150 tries in NSWRFL history. In 1918 he overtook Dally Messenger’s record for the most points scored in an NSWRFL career (379); Horder’s eventual total of 758 stood as the new career record for nine seasons until it was bettered by Arthur Oxford in 1927. in 1925 moved to Brisbane rugby league club Coorparoo as their captain coach for two seasons after leaving Souths. He appeared in an Australian film In the Last Stride (1916).
• Pakistan wicketkeeper Wasim Bari caught seven New Zealand batsmen during the Auckland Test match in 1979, a Test record which England’s Bob Taylor equalled a year later.
• On this day in 1980 the 13^th Winter Olympic Games were closed at Lake Placid NY.
• Today the 22^nd Winter Olympic Games closed at Sochi, Russia in 2014. On this last day of the competitions, Canada beat Sweden in men’s hockey, keeping Canada as the reigning gold medal winner in two consecutive Winter Games.
• George Derek Ibbotson, British athlete whose most  famous achievement was setting a new world record in the mile in 1957, died today in 2017 at the age of 84. (17 June 1932 Born in Huddersfield on 17th June 1932, he was of the generation that included other great British milers such as Roger Bannister, Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway, he was the junior champion in Britain in 1951. After service in the Royal Air Force, he returned to competition. In 1956 at Melbourne, he won bronze in the 5,000 metres. After the games, he focused on the mile, which was probably an error. He began the 1957 season running in mile races, as a 5,000m or 3 mile runner would often do in the early part of the racing season – to race at a faster pace than he would need in those longer distances. After he had run a particularly fast mile at a Glasgow meeting, an experienced athletics official told the BBC that while it was a very good time, he and many others felt that Ibbotson’s greater potential was over 5,000m or 3 miles. In a race dubbed “mile of the century”, Ibbotson won, probably because Delaney, the 1,500m champion at Melbourne the previous year, was boxed in at a crucial point on the final lap. The time was a new world record, taking 0.8 of a second off John Landy’s time of 3.58 min set in 1954. Ibbotson continued competing in mile races throughout the season as well as some longer distance events – and ended the season exhausted. It was not just the number of races but the faster pace at which they were run. Ibbotson never found the same form again. He represented England in the Empire Games at Cardiff in 1958, finishing tenth in the 3 miles. He soldiered on and in 1960, in a bid to enter the Rome Olympics, he copied Gordon Pirie who, when he was struggling for form, increased his racing and took part in shorter races than usual, because it was good speed training. Ibbotson was not so successful and was ultimately not selected. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours for services to athletics. In 2011, he was inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame.

24^th 

• Brian Close, the youngest Test cricketer to represent England at 18 years and 149 days was born today in 1931.He made such an impact in his first season of 1949 that he also did the double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets (bowling seamers and offspin) in a first-class season, again the youngest ever. He spent most of his career at Somerset and was still playing for England in 1976 at the age of 45.
• Scottish international footballer Dennis Law was born on this day in 1940. He scored a then record 30 goals for his country in 55 appearances. At club level he played for Huddersfield Town and Manchester City before moving to Italy. On his return he joined City’s local rivals Manchester United. Ironically he ended his career at City, with his last kick in first-class football, in 1974, effectively relegated Manchester United to the second division.
• Alain Prost, the first Frenchman to win the World motor-racing title, was born in 1955.He won the world title with McLaren in 1985, retained it the following year and in 1989 won it a third time, also in a McLaren. He failed to find a drive in 1992 and spent the season out of the sport. He returned in 1993 as No 1 driver for Williams. In 1993 he became the first man to win 50 formula one races.
• The European Football Championship qualifier between Scotland and England at Hampden Park in 1968 drew a crowd of 134,461, an attendance record at the time for the championship.
• Today at the Winter Olympics in 1980, the United States Hockey team completed the so called Miracle in Ice by defeating Finland 4-2 to win the gold medal.
• In 1988 the Finnish ski jumper Matti Nykänen became the Winter Olympics first triple gold medalist and along with Yvonne van Gennip of the Netherlands, the most successful athlete at that event. Nykänen is the only ski jumper in history to have won all five of the sport’s major competitions: a gold medal in the Winter Olympics (three times), the Ski Jumping World Championships (once), the Ski Flying World Championships (once), four overall World Cup titles, and the Four Hills Tournament (twice). Since the 1990s, his status as a celebrity has mainly been fuelled, not by his sporting achievements, but instead by his colourful personal relationships, his career as a singer, and various incidents often related to heavy use of alcohol and violent behaviour. He was sentenced to jail for 26 months following a stabbing incident in 2004, and again for 16 months after aggravated assault on his wife in 2009.
• In 1993 the former England football captain Bobby Moore died of cancer aged 51.
• Today in 2002 the 19^th Olympic Games closed at Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
• Aggie Allen, Baseball pitcher and outfielder who played from 1950 to 1953 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League died on this day in 2012 aged 81. Born in Alvord, Iowa, Agnes Allen was one of five children, she was taught by her father to throw a baseball at an early age, and they played catch almost every day. As a teenager, she accustomed to play baseball with her father and two brothers, who were semi-professional pitchers, so they taught her how to pitch a fastball, a changeup and a curveball. Allen later attended St. Mary’s High School in Larchwood, where she started to play organized softball and basketball. She read about the AAGPBL in a local newspaper and conned her father into taking her to a try-out in Cedar Rapids. She then was invited to Wrigley Field for another try-out and made the grade. Allen entered the league in 1950 with the Springfield Sallies. She was promoted to the Kalamazoo Lassies in 1951, but during the midseason was loaned to the Battle Creek Belles for five games, returning to Kalamazoo for the rest of the year. Following her baseball career, Allen applied for a Mortar Board at Western Michigan University. After teaching for three years, she was employed as a physical therapist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She also worked for Presentation Health Systems and for McKennan Hospital before becoming a self-employed physical therapist for Canton Inwood Memorial Hospital. Allen retired after 35 years of work. In her spare time, she was both a member of the American Legion Auxiliary and the Elmwood Ladies Golf League. In 1988 she became part of Women in Baseball, a permanent display based at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in  Cooperstown, New York, which was unveiled to honour the entire All-American Girls Professional Baseball League rather than any individual personality.