13th – On this day in 607, the 12th recorded passage of Halley’s Comet occurred. The annual University Golf Match, commonly known as the Varsity Match took place for the first time today in 1878. The match is contested between the Full Blue golf teams from Oxford and Cambridge universities.  The first match took place at Wimbledon Common, courtesy of London Scottish Golf Club, which hosted the fixture for 19 years until it moved to Royal St George’s Golf Club in 1897. The match was contested by four singles matches, and used the holes up method of scoring. Oxford, led by Horace Hutchinson, won by a margin of 24 holes. Up to and including 2013, 124 University Golf Matches have been played. This fixture is the oldest amateur event in golf; the first Amateur Championship was played in 1885. It is also the oldest team event in English golf. Scottish team matches were common after 1849, and included St Andrews University matches against Fife artisan clubs. The Varsity Match was most recently contested in March 2016, at Royal West Norfolk Golf Club, and was won by Oxford by a margin of 10-5, making it a record breaking 7 in a row, for the men and a Cambridge victory for the ladies. On this day in 1935 a three-thousand-year-old archive was discovered in Jerusalem which confirmed biblical history. Today in 1982 Elaine Zayak landed six triple jumps on her way to winning the world skating championship.   At age two, Elaine lost three toes on her left foot as a result of a lawn mower accident. On the advice of her doctors, she began figure skating as physical therapy. Her left boot was stabilized with a wooden mould to compensate for the irregularity in the shape of her left foot. Zayak was the first woman to consistently land many triple jumps in her programmes. At the 1982 World Championships, four of her six jumps were triple toe loops. While she also had triple salchows and loops in her repertoire, they were less consistent. Her skating contributed to the creation of what became informally known as the Zayak Rule, enacted at the 1982 ISU Congress, which states that a skater may not perform the same kind of triple jump more than twice, and for it to be given full credit on both occasions, one of the two triples must be incorporated into a combination or sequence. The rule encouraged skaters to display a greater variety of skills. The 1948 Lincolnshire Handicap drew a field of 58 horses, the largest number of runners for a flat race in England at that date. Boxer Joe Bugner was born in 1950. Hungarian born Bugner, who was brought to Britain as a youngster, captured the British, European and Commonwealth heavyweight titles with a controversial win over Henry Cooper in 1971.  His potential was never fully realised and perhaps his finest achievement was in taking Muhammad Ali the distance in a world title fight in Kuala Lumpur in 1975.  The former West Indian cricket captain Sir Frank Worrell died in 1967 at the age of 42. His international career for West Indies included 51 appearances and 3860 runs. In the 1945-46 season he and former schoolmate Clyde Walcott put on a then world record 574 (unbroken) for the fourth wicket for Barbados against Trinidad at Port-of-Spain. It was the second time Worrell had been involved in a partnership of 500 or more. Test matches between West Indies and Australia are for the Frank Worrell Trophy.  While competing in the English Amateur Snooker Championship at Aldershot, Hampshire, in 1991, Ronnie O’Sullivan (now a professional) became the youngest person at the time to compile a maximum 147 during competitive play.  He was only 15 years and 98 days old at the time. He achieved his first major professional success when he won the 1993 UK Championship at the age of 17 years and 358 days, making him the youngest player ever to win a ranking title – a record he still holds. He is also the youngest player to have won the Masters, having captured his first title in 1995 at the age of 19 years and 69 days. On this day in 2012 25 year-old Alaskan, Dallas Seavey, became the youngest winner of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

 

14th – Born on this day in 1804 in Leopoldstadt, Vienna was Austrian Romantic composer and violinist Johann Strauss I, also known as Johann Baptist Strauss, Johann Strauss Sr., the Elder, the Father.  Famous for his waltzes, which alongside Joseph Lanner, he popularised and thereby set the foundations for his sons to carry on his musical dynasty.  He was the father of Johann Strauss II, Josef Strauss and Eduard Strauss, the last of whom had a son called Johann Strauss III. His most famous piece is the Radetzky March (named after Joseph Radetzky von Radetz). The 1984 Olympic javelin champion Tessa Sanderson, was born in Jamaica in 1957. After making two unsuccessful attempts at the Olympic title she eventually struck gold in Los Angeles in 1984, breaking the Olympic record with her first throw in the final.  She was the first Briton, and the first black athlete, to win an Olympic throwing title.  She later became a television celebrity.  On this day in 1980 LOT Flight 7 crashed near Okęcie Airport in Warsaw, Poland with 87 crew and passengers losing their lives. After trouble with the deployment of the landing-gear the aircraft clipped a tree with its right wing and impacted the ice-covered moat of a 19th-century military fortress. On impact, the aircraft disintegrated; a large part of the main hull submerged in the moat, while the tail and parts of the main landing gear landed a few meters further, just before the entrance to the fort. On the scene, a diving team was later trying to recover parts of the aircraft (including some of the engines) from the moat, but it was far too murky; ultimately, the moat had to be drained to allow the air crash investigation team to recover parts of the disintegrated plane.  Among the fatalities were Polish singer Anna Jantar, American ethnomusicologist Alan P. Merriam, six Polish students returning home from an AIESEC conference in New York and a contingent of the U.S. amateur boxing team (22 of whom died). According to the doctors who arrived at the scene, many of the passengers were apparently asleep when the plane hit the ground, but some of them – including many of the boxers – were supposedly aware that they were about to crash, as they held to their seats so strongly that on impact, the muscles and tendons in their arms became severed. Some reports suggested that some of the boxers actually survived the crash and drowned in the moat, but no evidence for this was presented. By ironic coincidence, at the time of the crash, a conference on improvements in air travel safety was being held at Okęcie airport, less than a kilometre away. Ken Barrington, the former Surrey and England batsman, collapsed and died of a heart attack while touring with the England team in the West Indies in 1981. In his playing days he was a member of the Surrey team that won seven consecutive county championship titles in the 1950s. Barrington also played for England 82 times and scored 6806 runs at an average 58.67.   The 400m Serbian hurdler and national record holder Emir Bekrić was born on the day in 1991. In 2013, Bekrić became the first male track and field athlete from Serbia to win a medal at the IAAF Outdoor World Championships. In the same year he won the award European athletics rising star, as well as golden badge for Serbian athlete of the year. Born on this day in 1997 Simone Biles, American gymnast who is the 2016 Olympic individual all-around, vault and floor gold medallist. She was part of the gold medal-winning team dubbed the “Final Five” at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She also won the bronze medal for the beam during the Olympics. Biles is a three-time world all-around champion (2013–15), three-time world floor champion (2013–15), two-time world balance beam champion (2014, 2015), four-time United States national all-around champion (2013–16), and a member of the gold medal-winning American teams at the 2014 and 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships Five cities had submitted bids for the 2022 Winter Olympics by this day in 2014, they were Oslo, Norway; Almaty, Kazakhstan; Beijing, China; Krakow, Poland and Lviv, Ukraine; the winner was due to be selected in July 2015. Oslo withdrew its bid on 1 October 2014, leaving Almaty and Beijing as the 2 remaining candidates. Beijing was selected as host city after beating Almaty by 4 votes, on 31 July 2015.

 

15th – The Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional baseball team, played their first match as professionals against Great Western in 1869.  Test cricket was inaugurated on this day in 1877 when James Lillywhite’s touring England team met the Australians at the Melbourne cricket ground.  Charles Bannerman (Australia) made history as the first man to score a century in Test cricket. Remarkably, when the Centenary Test was played 100 years later the result was exactly the same, an Australian win by 45runs. Liverpool FC was founded today in 1892. In 1927 the first Women’s Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge took place on The Isis in Oxford.  Playing for Wales against England at Highbury in 1920, Billy Meredith of Manchester United became the oldest person to play international soccer. He was aged 45 years and 229 days at the time.  He played for both Manchester clubs during his 26-year career which also included 48 caps for Wales. Leonid Yengibarov was born on this day in 1935. A Soviet clown and actor he was born in   Moscow to an Armenian father and a Russian mother. He started his career as a boxer. In 1955 he joined the State School of Circus Art, Clownship department. He graduated from Circus school with skills in juggling, acrobatics, and hand balancing. After graduation in 1959 he moved to Yerevan and joined the Armenian state circus. He was one of the first Soviet clowns to create the poetic, intellectual clownery, which made spectators think, not only laugh. Leonid Yengibarov, ‘the clown with sad eyes’, revolutionized the art of clownery by introducing lyrical tones into traditional buffoonery and grotesque sequences. After initial incomprehension, his popularity grew immensely. After that he was invited to work in cinema. His first film, A Path to the Arena, was in fact about himself. By the end of the 1960s he was known as one of the best clowns in the country and in the countries of the Eastern bloc, where he was permitted to travel. His circus career came to a halt in 1971: he left the State Circus when his partner was banned from international touring. He created a Variety Pantomime Theatre (Estradniy teatr pantomimi) instead.  However officially he was forbidden to call his company “theatre”, only allowed to use the term “troupe”. He managed to stage only a single piece, “Star Rain” before his untimely death from a massive heart attack in 1972 at the age of 37 In 1947 Neil McBain became the oldest person at that date to play in the Football League when he kept goal for New Brighton at the time; he was forced by a goalkeeper shortage to go in goal.  Considering his age – 51 years 120 days – the score-line of 3-0 to Hartlepools seems respectable. American jockey Cash Asmussen was born in 1962. A winner of the Eclipse Award for top apprentice at the age of 17 in the 1979 season, with a total of 263 winners, he came to Europe in 1982.  At Chepstow in 1993 he made history as the first American jockey to ride a winner for Her Majesty the Queen. On this day in 1968 Bob Beamon set an indoor long jump record of 27feet 2 and ¾ inches. Joanne Wise, British long jumper was born on this day in 1971. In 1998, she won the Commonwealth Games gold medal in Kuala Lumpur. She also competed at the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992 and the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.  An excellent junior, she was AAA’s Junior champion at Under 15, Under 17 and Under 20 levels. She also won two English schools titles. In 1987, she finished fifth at the European Junior Championships in Birmingham. The highlight of Wise’s junior career came in 1988 in Sudbury, Canada at the World Junior Championships, when she won a bronze medal with a wind-assisted jump of 6.69 m. Both world and European junior titles were won by Wise’s long time domestic rival Fiona May. She went on to finish seventh at the 1989 European Juniors in Varazdin (6.16m) and ninth at the 1990 World Juniors in Plovdiv (6.14m). In 1992, Wise competed at her first Olympic Games but had a disastrous time in the qualifying round, managing only 5.87 m for 26th overall. At the 1993 World Championships, she was 23rd in the qualifying round with 6.20m. After struggling with injuries, Wise entered the best phase of her career at the 1997 World Indoor Championships, finishing fourth with 6.70m, which tied the UK indoor record of Susan Hearnshaw set in 1984. She missed the bronze medal by just one centimetre. Later that same year, she narrowly missed the final at the World Championships in Athens. In 1998, she became the Commonwealth Champion with a jump of 6.63 m, ahead of Jackie Edwards and Nicole Boegman. In 1999, at the World Championships in Seville, she finished fifth in the final with a jump of 6.75m, just short of her lifetime best of 6.76m, which she had set in Malmö two weeks earlier. Wise competed at her second Olympic Games in Sydney, 2000, failing, by just one centimetre, to reach the final. She was also twice AAA’s Champion (1999 & 2000), three times AAAs Indoor Champion (1992, 1997 & 1999) and was twice UK Champion (1992 & 1997). Wise’s indoor best of 6.70 m, remained the UK indoor record for fifteen years, until 2012, when Shara Proctor jumped 6.89m. In 1990, playing for New Zealand against Australia at Wellington, Richard Hadlee took five wickets in an innings for the 100th time in his career.  At Sam Sebastian, Spain,in 1991 the Ukrainian pole-vaulter Sergey Bubka became the first man to clear 20 feet (6.2m) indoors with a vault of 6.14m or 20 feet 1¾inches. Welsh rugby union player Mervyn Davies died on this day in 2012 at the age of 65. He won his first cap for Wales in 1969 against Scotland, going on to play 38 consecutive matches for Wales and scoring two tries. During this period Wales won two Grand Slams and three Triple Crowns. He went on the British and Irish Lions tours to New Zealand in 1971 and to South Africa in 1974, playing in eight tests. In a total of 46 international appearances for Wales and the Lions he only ended on the losing side nine times. Tall and slight of frame, he grew a Mexican moustache to make himself appear more aggressive on the rugby field. He was nicknamed “Merv the Swerve” and is considered to be the greatest Number 8 that Wales has ever produced and one of its greatest at any position. His career was ended by a subarachnoid hemorrhage suffered when captaining Swansea against Pontypool in 1976. He had collapsed during a game on another occasion, four years earlier, and had been wrongly diagnosed with meningitis.  Following the second incident he was a patient in the University Hospital of Wales for several months, and received goodwill messages from all over the world. In a poll of Welsh rugby fans in 2002, Davies was voted both Greatest Ever Welsh Captain and Greatest Ever Welsh Number 8. In 2001 he was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame. He was a smoker and was diagnosed with lung cancer (adenocarcinoma) in November 2011.

 

16th – William Henry Monk the English organist, church musician and music editor who composed popular hymn tunes, including one of the most famous, “Eventide”, used for the hymn “Abide with Me” was born on this day in 1823. Frantz Reichel, French sports administrator, athlete and journalist was born in 1871. Reichel’s father was the treasurer of the French Union of Athletic Sports Societies (USFSA) and the chief press officer at the 1894 Sorbonne Congress, where the Olympic Movement was founded. He later succeeded Pierre de Coubertin as secretary-general of the USFSA. His son was a talented runner, who won French titles in the 110m hurdles (1891), cross country (1890 and 1891) and the 1km walk. In 1892 he set a national record in one-hour run at 16.611km. At the 1896 Olympics he failed to reach the 400m final. It is unclear whether he placed second or third in the preliminary round of the 110m hurdles. He did not run in the final anyway, as he was busy assisting Albin Lermusiaux in conducting the marathon race. At those Games, besides running, Reichel also worked as a journalist for the French magazine Vélo. At the 1900 Olympics Reichel competed in rugby and won a gold medal with the French team. He was later selected as the captain of the French rugby team in an international match in 1906. Reichel was a highly respected rugby player in France, and after his death a championship for young rugby players, Championnat Reichel, was established in his honour. Later in life Reichel became a sports administrator and the secretary general of the USFSA. He also founded the French Boxing Federation and the Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH), serving as its president from 1926 to 1932. He was also a member of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee and headed the organizing committee of the 1924 Paris Olympics. Reichel remained active as a journalist, and became the first European journalist to fly an airplane, assisting Wilbur Wright in his distance record for flights with a passenger. He co-founded the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive  (International Sports Press Association) and served as its first president from 1924 until his death in 1932 aged 61.  The first female boxing match took place in Hill’s Theatre in New York on this day in 1876.  For this contest, two variety show artistes; Nellie Saunders, the Irish-born wife of pugilist James Saunders and Rose Harland, an English-born dancer both trained for a few weeks before participating in a “sparring match with boxing gloves”.  They fought in front of “an appreciative but noisy audience” and Saunders won by a single point before the women “left the stage arm-in-arm”.  In 1872 the first FA Cup final was contested between the Wanderers and the Royal Engineers.  A crowd of 2000 at the Kennington Oval saw the Wanderers’ striker Betts score the only goal of the game.  In 1991 Simon Hodgkinson kicked five goals for England against France in the rugby union International Championship, taking his tally to a championship record at the time of 60 for the season. The final score in the match was 21-19 to England. The Lithuanian figure skater Inga Janulevičiūtė was born today in 1995.  She is the 2014 Lithuanian national champion. Janulevičiūtė qualified for the free skate at the 2014 European Championships and finished 18th. She was the first reserve for the ladies’ event at the 2014 Winter Olympics, having finished 13th at the 2013 Nebelhorn Trophy. On this day in 2012 Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar became the first cricketer to score 100 international centuries. 

 

17th – On this day in 1877 Billy Midwinter complete Test cricket’s first 5-wicket haul at the MCG , in the first innings  of the first Test. Today in 1897 Cornishman Bob Fitzsimmons knocked our James J Corbett in 14 to take the heavyweight boxing title at Carson City, Nevada. He has already won the world middleweight title in 1891. In 1903 he took the light-middleweight title to become the first man to win three world titles. For 97 years he was the only British-born fighter to hold the heavyweight crown until Lennox Lewis captured it in 1993.  The finest amateur golfer of all-time, Bobby Jones, was born in 1902. He never turned pro and was more than a match for his professional counterparts. He won the British Open three times and the US Open four times. His remarkable ‘grand slam’ of titles in 1930 will surely never be equalled. Jones was also responsible for designing and building the Augusta National golf course, and from there he came up with the idea of the US Masters. He died in 1971 aged 69.  In 1908 Tommy Burns travelled to Ireland to take on the Irish heavyweight Champion Jem Roche in Dublin, a fight that established a world record that still stands to this day.  In front of a massive crowd in the Theatre Royal, Burns disposed of Roche at 88 seconds of the first round, the fastest KO in a heavyweight championship fight. It was also Burns 4th consecutive KO and his 10th title defence. Today in 1979 Wales beat England at Cardiff to capture an at the time unprecedented third successive rugby union Triple Crown.  The Dutch football team FC Lisse were formed on this day in 1981. The 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup was dominated by horses from the stable of trainer Michael Dickinson, who saddled the first five past the post. On this day in 1984, the Boat Race was halted before it even got underway. The 130th running of the annual event was postponed after the Cambridge vessel was in collision with a barge and sank less than an hour prior to the start. It was the first incident of its kind in the history of the world famous boat race, in which students from Cambridge and Oxford universities are pitted against each other. The Cambridge boat, estimated to have cost £7,000, ran headlong into a large moored barge, used by umpires in the middle of the river, shattering the bow section of the vessel. Before an audience of hundreds of spectators gathered at Putney Bridge, the oarsmen were forced to paddle to the side of the river, with bows still and pointed upwards, until it was almost submerged. Most of the crew stepped out of the boat and walked to the side, while others who had to swim back described it as “cold!” The Light Blues took shelter in their boat house and the race was postponed until the next day, when they used a vessel borrowed from the Amateur Rowing Association. The crew had been holding a practice run under Putney Bridge when the accident happened. It was reported the barge had only been moved into position the previous morning but the team had been practising for weeks without it there. The crew refused to blame the boat’s cox, 21-year-old Peter Hobson, who at only 5 feet 4 inches high apparently struggled to see over some of the large rowers. Officials first hoped the race would go-ahead later that afternoon with a substitute boat but by the time necessary alterations had been made to the boat it was decided the tide would have turned. Other suggestions were to run the race in the opposite direction from Mortlake to Putney. The team was reported to have suffered only minor bruises. The race took place the next day with Oxford crossing the winning line first.  Four players received their marching orders (three from Rangers) during Celtic’s 2-0 win in the ‘Old Firm’ clash at Parkhead in 1991.  A week after playing his 700th game for Arsenal in 1992, David O’Leary was sent off for the first time in his career, during a game for the reserve team. Bolton Wanderer footballer Fabrice Muamba collapses and was rushed to hospital during a live football match agents Tottenham Hotspur on this day in 2012.

 

18th – Two famous Irishmen share their birthday today: snooker player Alex Higgins was born in 1949 and top flat racing jockey Pat Eddery in 1952. Higgins won two world titles, in 1972 and 1982. His brilliance was matched by a tendency to throw tantrums which increased as he slipped down the world rankings.  Eddery, on the other hand, stayed at the top after winning the first of nine jockey’s titles in 1974. In 1990 he became the first man since Gordon Richards, in 1952, to ride 200 winners in a season.  Jeff Stelling  is an sports journalist and sport television presenter who currently presents Gillette Soccer Saturday for Sky Sports was born today in 1955. Swedish skier Ingemar Stenmark was born in 1956. He won a record 86 World Cup races between 1974 and 1989 and was three times overall champion.  He won slalom and giant slalom gold medals at the 1980 Winter Olympics. South African tennis player Mariaan de Swardt was born on this day in 1971.  She played as a professional from 1988 to 2001 and twice represented her native country at the Summer Olympics, in 1992 and 1996 and was a member of the South African Fed Cup Team in 1992 and 1994–1997 and in 2006 she became a U.S. citizen. De Swardt also won two Grand Slam titles in mixed doubles competition: the 1999 Australian Open and the 2000 French Open with partner David Adams. In addition to that, she also holds four women’s doubles titles and reached as high as No. 11 in the women’s doubles world ranking. She has one WTA Tour singles title from 1998 and reached No. 28 in the world singles ranking in 1996. Since retiring from tennis, she has been a commentator for Eurosport and South African television, and has coached at professional, collegiate and recreational level with her base being at Atlanta, Georgia. She now resides in Houston, Texas and is a teaching professional at the River Oaks Country Club. In 2004, she set up a non-profit charity, the Pet Care Fund, to help animals. Laure Savasta, French professional basketball player was born in 1974. She plays both point guard and shooting guard and was, with Isabelle Fijalkowski, amongst the first French players to ever play in the WNBA; indeed, she played for the Sacramento Monarchs and was a member of the French national team for a long time. She was the captain and one of the key players of Tarbes GB, taking part to the French championship and European competitions. Now retired, she started a career of basketball coach and TV commentator, on Sport+, for women’s basketball games. Oxford set a record time for the Boat Race in 1984 when they won the postponed event in 16min 45sec, the current course record was set by Cambridge in 1998 at 16min 19sec.  50,000 swimmers raised over £15million for charity during BT’s Swimathon in 1996. Canadian photographer, cinematographer and sound recordist Dan Gibson died on this day in 2006. During the late 1940s, Dan Gibson took photographs and made nature films, including Audubon Wildlife Theatre. Dan produced many films and television series through which he learned how to record wildlife sound. He pioneered techniques of recording, and also helped design equipment to optimize results, including the “Dan Gibson Parabolic Microphone”. Some of his early recordings of the 1950s and 1960s were released on LP records, and started his Solitudes series, which was introduced in 1981. In 1994, Dan was awarded The Order of Canada for his environmental works. In 1997, Dan was awarded the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award at the Juno Awards ceremony in Hamilton, Ontario. In 2004, he released his first DVD, Natural Beauty, which was originally shot in High Definition.  On this day in 2012  the Super-league Greek football match between Olympiacos and Panathinaikos was abandoned after fans set fire to Athens’ Olympic Stadium.

 

19th – Léon Scieur, Belgian cyclist who won the 1921 Tour de France, along with stages 3 and 10, was born on this day in 1888. His first great victory was the 1920 Liège–Bastogne–Liège; he won a stage and finished fourth in the 1919 and 1920 Tours de France. On this day in 1892 three brothers play Test Cricket in the England v South Africa in Cape Town. Frank Hearne, who played for South Africa in this game, had previously played for England, while his brothers, Alec and George played for England. A cousin, John Thomas Hearne also played for the tourists. Norman Yardley, the former England and Yorkshire cricketer, was born in 1915. He skippered his national side on 14 of the 20 occasions on which he played for them. Born in 1916 Joe Rollino, decorated World War II veteran, weightlifter, and strongman. The son of Italian immigrants, Rollino dubbed himself the world’s strongest man in the 1920s, moving 3,200lbs (1,500kg) with his back during the prime of his career. Born and raised in Coney Island, New York, one of 14 children, he was only 5 feet 5 inches (1.65m) tall and weighed 150lbs (68kg), Rollino allegedly began lifting weights in the 1920s and trained for a time with Warren Lincoln Travis. He also took up boxing and toured the US as a boxer, fighting under the name Kid Dundee. Rollino also became known as a strongman, moving more than a ton, bending nails with his mouth and coins with his bare hands. He often appeared on the Coney Island Festival in the 1920s and 30s, being dubbed the world’s strongest man. Rollino boasted of lifting 635lbs (288kg) with one finger. He once lifted 450lbs (200kg) with his teeth. After retiring from active performing, he worked as a longshoreman and once worked as a bodyguard for Greta Garbo. Rollino was a lifelong and “devout” vegetarian.  During his later years, he was known for his winter swimming activities. Rollino was part of the Iceberg Athletic Club, a now-defunct swimming club, for more than 20 years.  The BBC televised its first rugby match in 1938 when they covered the Calcutta Cup game between England and Scotland at Twickenham.  The Scots managed a rare Twickenham success, thanks in part to a scintillating performance from Wilson Shaw, running out winners 21-16, outscoring England by an incredible five tries to one. Amongst the crown that day, on only his second-ever visit to the ground, was a young boy from the Borders who went on to become a future hero of televised rugby, later to become known as the “voice of rugby”, the legendary Bill McLaren.  England and Nottingham Forest striker Nigel Clough was born in 1966, two days before his father’s 31st birthday.  The son of Forest manager, Brian Clough, he emulated his father by playing for England. On this day in 1990 the first world ice hockey tournament for women was held in Ottawa. Laura Davies won the LPGA Standard Register PING Golf Tournament on this day in 1995.  Lithuanian swimmer Rūta Meilutytė was born in 1997. Olympic gold medallist, and world record-holder, she is the current world record holder in the 50m, 100m breaststroke (long course) and 100m breaststroke (short course). By the age of 15, she had already broken eleven Lithuanian women’s swimming records. At the 2011 European Youth Summer Olympic Festival (Trabzon,Turkey) Meilutytė won the gold medal in the 100m breaststroke, a silver in the 50m freestyle and a bronze in the 100m freestyle. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Meilutytė won the gold medal in the women’s 100m breaststroke with a time of 1:05.47. At 15 years old, she was also the youngest Lithuanian athlete to win an Olympic gold medal. In the semi-final she broke the European record in the 100m breaststroke with a time of 1:05:21. In 2013 Meilutytė broke her own European record by 0.01-second,  Rūta competed at 2013 World Aquatics Championships, in Barcelona, and achieved world records in the 100m, and 50m breaststroke. At the age of 17 she became the first and the only swimmer in history to win all available junior and senior international swimming championships at least once. American Baseball player Joanne Weaver (″Joltin’ Jo″) died today in 2000. She was a right fielder who played between 1951 and 1954 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. One of the most talented hitters in AAGPBL history, Joanne Weaver was the youngest of three sisters to play for the Fort Wayne Daisies in the final years of the league. Weaver often outdid her renowned sister, Betty Weaver Foss, as a power hitter, winning three consecutive batting titles and setting several all-time records. At this point, the Weaver-Foss duet led the AAGPBL in most major offensive categories between 1952 and 1954. A three-time All-Star, Joanne earned Player of the Year honours in 1954, when she hit a .429 average to set an AAGPBL single-season record. Besides this, her .429 mark was the highest Professional American Baseball batting average collected by any player in a single season in a minimum of 300 at-bat appearances. Following her baseball career, Joanne Weaver lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana for more than 30 years. In November 1988, the Weaver sisters received recognition when the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York dedicated a permanent display to the entire league rather than any individual player. In 1990 Joanne moved back to her hometown of Metropolis, Illinois, to be with her parents. Betty returned in 1994 while Jean moved back in 1995, allowing the three Weaver sisters to see each other every day. Betty died in 1998, at the age of 68, following complications related to Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig‘s disease). Joanne died in 2000 at age 64 of the same disease that claimed her sister. Eight years later, Jean died at age 74.