American Football

    A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by a motor, that puts an object in rotation around a fixed axis, applying force perpendicular to the axis. The centrifuge works using the sedimentation principle, where the centripetal acceleration is used to separate substances of greater and less density. There are many different kinds of centrifuges, including those for very specialised purposes.

Amateur leagues

     The Japan American Football Association was founded in 1934 with three collegiate teams: Rikkyo, Meiji and Waseda. By 1937, an allstar game involving teams representing eastern and western Japan, attracted over 25,000 spectators.

     American football became popular in various countries after World War II, especially those in which there were large numbers of U.S. military personnel, who often formed a substantial proportion of the players and spectators.

     In Japan, high school teams also began to appear. In the 1970s, the movement of players between Japan and the U.S. increased dramatically, along with greater exposure on Japanese television.

     The first amateur clubs in Europe were formed in West Germany in the 1970s. The German Football League's first German Bowl was played in 1979, with Frankfurt winning. In Europe the use of experienced players from the USA or Canada, who had to wear a large "A" on their helmets, brought quick success, but hampered the development of local talent. No more than two or three "A" players were allowed on the field, and in countries like Finland, teams also had to provide a local quarterback. This helped the Finnish American Football Association win the European championships in the 1980s, over Great Britain and Germany, where US players often ran the offense in club games, but were not available for the national teams. However they could play for clubs that competed for the Euro Bowl. (See also: List of leagues of American football).

American Pro football outside the U.S.A.

     Since 1986, the NFL has expanded into new markets and ventures with the American Bowl games, starting in London. In 1991, the league formed the World League of American Football. This turned into NFL Europe, a developmental league which now has five teams in Germany and one in the Netherlands. Franchises which started in other parts of Europe have moved to Germany over the years.

     The NFL played a regular-season game in Mexico City in 2005 and for the first time, a regular season game will be played outside North America in 2007 when the Miami Dolphins play the New York Giants at Wembley Stadium in the UK. In 2003, The NFL lauched its own television channel on DISH Network, the NFL Network.

Baseball

     Americans began playing baseball on informal teams, using local rules, in the early 1800s. By the 1860s, the sport, unrivaled in popularity, was being described as America's "national pastime."

     Alexander Joy Cartwright (1820-1892) of New York invented the modern baseball field in 1845. Alexander Cartwright and the members of his New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, devised the first rules and regulations for the modern game of baseball.

     Baseball was based on the English game of rounders. Rounders become popular in the United States in the early 19th century, where the game was called "townball", "base", or "baseball". Cartwright formalized the modern rules of baseball.

     The first recorded baseball game in 1846 when Alexander Cartwright's Knickerbockers lost to the New York Baseball Club. The game was held at the Elysian Fields, in Hoboken, New Jersey. In 1858, the National Association of Base Ball Players, the first organized baseball league was formed.

• 1845: Alexander Cartwright published a set of baseball rules for the Knickerbocker Club of New York, and his rules were widely adopted.
• 1869: The Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first openly-salaried team and are thus considered the first professional team.
• 1871: The first professional baseball league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, was established.
• 1876: The first major league, the National League, was formed.
• 1878: Frederick Winthrop Thayer of Massachusetts (captain of the Harvard University Baseball Club) received a patent for a baseball catcher's mask on February 12.

Boxing

     Boxing, also called pugilism (from Latin), prizefighting (when referring to professional boxing) or the sweet science is a sport and martial art in which two participants of similar weight fight each other with their fists in a series of one to three-minute intervals called "rounds". In both Olympic and professional divisions, the combatants (called boxers or fighters) avoid their opponent's punches while trying to land punches of their own. Points are awarded for clean, solid blows to the legal area on the front of the opponent's body above the waistline, with hits to the head and torso being especially valuable. The fighter with the most points after the scheduled number of rounds is declared the winner. Victory may also be achieved if the opponent is knocked down and unable to get up before the referee counts to ten (a Knockout, or KO) or if the opponent is deemed too injured to continue (a Technical Knockout, or TKO). For record-keeping purposes, a TKO is usually counted as a knockout when calculating the total knockouts.

Soccer

     Football or Soccer is the name given to a number of different, but related, team sports. The most popular of these world-wide is association football (also known as soccer). The English word "football" is also applied to American football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, rugby football (rugby union and rugby league), and related games. Each of these codes (specific sets of rules) is to a greater or lesser extent referred to as "football" and sometimes "footy" by its followers.

These games involve:

• a large spherical or prolate spheroid ball, which is itself called a football.
• a team scoring goals and/or points, by moving the ball to an opposing team's end of the field and either into a goal area, or over a line.
• the goal and/or line being defended by the opposing team.
• players being required to move the ball mostly by kicking and — in some codes — carrying and/or passing the ball by hand.
• goals and/or points resulting from players putting the ball between two goalposts.
• offside rules, in most codes, restricting the movement of players.
• in some codes, points are mostly scored by players carrying the ball across the goal line.
• in most codes players scoring a goal must put the ball either under or over a crossbar between the goalposts.
• players in some codes receiving a free kick after they take a mark/make a fair catch.

Many of the modern games have their origins in England, but many peoples around the world have played games which involved kicking and/or carrying a ball since ancient times.

Golf

     Golf is a sport in which individual players or teams hit a ball into a hole using various clubs, and also is one of the few ball games that does not use a fixed standard playing area. It is defined in the Rules of Golf as "playing a ball with a club from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules."

     It is said that the first ever game of golf may have been played at the Bruntsfield Links in 1456, claimed by the history of the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society, now The Royal Burgess Golfing Society.

     Golf, in essentially the form we know today, has been played on Scotland's Musselburgh Links since at least 1672, while variations of the game had been played throughout the British Isles and the Low Countries of northern Europe for several centuries before that.

Tennis

     Today, tennis is a world-class competitive sport captivating millions of players and fans all round the world. A constant programme of tournaments and events takes place throughout the year and top players have become sporting icons for a new generation. Something that was once the pastime of Kings has become a sport for all.

     That's why the Cliff Richard Tennis Foundation is so passionate about taking tennis into every school in the country. We may or may not find the next Wimbledon Champion, but we will at least introduce thousands to a sport that will change their lives in so many positive ways.

     If you have found this history of tennis interesting we strongly recommend a visit to the Tennis Museum at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club - the home of the Wimbledon Championships. The Museum has a vast collection of tennis memorabilia and exhibits covering the history of the game, the development of rackets and balls and the paraphernalia of the modern game. There is also a chance to view Centre Court - one of the Museum's main attractions. To visit the website, where you'll find details of opening times and admission fees, click on the Wimbledon Championships logo.

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