The history of sports is vast and fascinating. This should come as no surprise, since people have been practising all manner of sporting activities for thousands of years. While some sports have only been around for a few decades or centuries, others are considerably older.
What’s great about sports is that you don’t just have to practise them, you can watch them. Massive industries have been developed out of people attending matches, races, competitions, and tournaments. There’s also a fast-growing sports betting industry that’s taken off thanks to sites such as GGBet letting people place bets on sporting events. Betting on sports can be an enjoyable hobby, so long as it’s done in moderation.
To celebrate the history of sports, here are some surprising facts you probably won’t have come across before. hey cover many different sports and time periods.
The Quickest Red Card
In soccer, the referee gives a player a red card when they’ve broken a rule. The fastest this has ever happened is right at the start of a match at precisely zero seconds on the clock. Back in 2007, there was a Premier League match between Reading and Sheffield United.
Keith Gillespie, a Sheffield United player, had elbowed a Reading player in the face when he was substituted in. This took place before the match had officially begun. When it did, the referee, who had witnessed the incident, gave Gillespie an instant red card.
The First Sport to be Played on the Moon
Golf is the first sport in the history of mankind that’s been played on the moon. In 1971, astronaut Alan Shepard visited the moon as part of the Apollo 14 program. The landing, which was televised, saw Shepard produce a golf club and ball.
He then made two hits: the first went about 22 meters, while the second reached a distance of 37 meters. Because of his exceptionally thick gloves, he was only able to putt with one hand.
Octopus Wrestling Used to Be Practiced
These days, any sort of activity that involves animals being hurt is frowned upon. A few decades ago, however, attitudes were somewhat more relaxed when it came to animal sports. A type of animal that you wouldn’t think would be associated with any kind of sport is the octopus.
Several decades ago, people actually practiced octopus wrestling, where they would dive underwater, pull octopuses out from their dwellings, and provoke them into fighting back. The aim was to keep pushing the octopus until it gave up and fled. In 1963, there was even an Octopus World Wrestling Championship.
Female Equality at the Olympics
It wasn’t until the 2012 Olympics, held in London, that every single competing country sent a minimum of one female athlete. The 2012 Olympics were also the first where women were able to compete in all sports. It was for these two reasons that these Olympics became known as the Women’s Games.
Olympic Medals
Something else you might not know about the Olympics has to do with the medals. It’s common knowledge that whoever comes first gets a gold medal, while the second-place athlete gets a silver medal, and for the third-place athlete, it’s a bronze medal. However, appearances can be deceiving.
The bronze medal is typically made from a bronze alloy, a mixture of tin and copper, so that checks out. As for the silver medal, it’s pure silver. As for the gold medal, it’s actually 92.5% silver and has to include at least six grams of gold. The gold is used in the plating which gives the mostly silver medal its gold appearance. The last time gold medals were actually gold was over 100 years ago at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.
Golf in Scotland
Scotland is widely known as the birthplace of golf. The modern version of the sport is believed to have been invented in the 15th century, though its true origins are believed to go back further than that. What you might not know is that even though golf was created in Scotland, it was actually banned there not once, but three times.
This happened between 1457 and 1744 for the simple reason that the government thought the sport was interfering with military training. Back then, golf wasn’t necessarily restricted to courses like it is today. It was much more public as it was regularly played in streets and at business properties, hence the feeling that it was a distraction.
A Tennis Match With Added Bite
When you play or watch a typical tennis match, you’ll notice that the grass is carefully maintained. It’s kept very short and is taken care of so that it provides the best possible support for players.
Up until 1949, the grass was usually kept at a length of two inches. What happened in 1949 to change this was that a tennis player was bitten by a snake in the grass. Since this happened, the standard length of tennis court grass has been kept at 8mm.
Winning a Horse Race After Dying
Back in 1923, Frank Hayes competed in his first (and only) horse race. He was asked to take part in a steeplechase at New York’s Belmont Park racecourse and was 35 or 22 at the time (it’s not clear what his exact age was). He supposedly underwent a vigorous exercise regimen and was physically drained by the time the race took place.
At some point during the race, what he had put his body through caught up with him, and he died from a heart attack. However, no one knew he had died until after he and his horse – Sweet Kiss – passed the finish line in first place, nonetheless.