1.
Docklands Stadium
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Docklands Stadium is a multi-purpose sports and entertainment stadium in the Docklands precinct of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Construction started in October 1997 under the name, Victoria Stadium. Also headquartered in the precinct is Seven Networks digital broadcast centre. The stadium was announced on 31 October 1996 as a replacement for the much larger Waverley Park as a headquarters for the Australian Football League. Under the terms of the agreement governing construction and operation of the venue, Docklands Stadium, like Waverley Park, was built primarily for Australian rules football, unlike most grounds of a similar size in Australia which were originally designed for cricket. The first match to be played at the ground was between Essendon and Port Adelaide, before a crowd of 43,012, in Round 1 of the 2000 AFL season, Essendon won the match by 94 points. The stadium was the first stadium in Australia to have movable seating, all four level-one tiers of the stadium can be moved up to 18 metres forward into a rectangular configuration. It was first used for a Melbourne Storm game in July 2001, despite the seating being a key feature of the stadium, it has rarely been used, citing damage to turf, time to deploy the seats and a reduced capacity. Docklands Stadium first featured rugby league football when it was used as the Melbourne Storms home ground for one season in 2001, the Storm continued to play home games at the ground sporadically in the following years. Docklands was also the venue for the third and deciding game of the 2006 State of Origin series, in 2015, LED electronic advertising was added around the perimeter of the ground on level 1 and 2. It was the first time Australia had hosted a round of the SGP event since the round of the 2002 season in Sydney. With stadium capacity capped at 42,000 for the event,26,609 fans saw 45 year old American rider Greg Hancock take out his 20th SGP Final, danish rider Niels-Kristian Iversen finished second with Polands Maciej Janowski finishing third. Reigning Australian Champion Jason Doyle qualified for the final but was outed in a crash in the first turn in which he suffered neck, a fully conscious Doyle was then transported to the Royal Melbourne Hospital for observation. The plan was rejected by the AFL, prior to the start of the 2016 AFL season the seats in the Medallion Club were replaced. The old seats in the Medallion Club section were relocated to areas in the ground. On 7 October 2016, the AFL Commission announced that the league had acquired ownership of the stadium. On 16 August 2000, the first indoor One Day International was held when the Australian cricket team played South Africa in the Super Challenge, the following table summarises the ODI centuries scored at Docklands. Events that have held at the Docklands Stadium include concerts by many famous artists
2.
Melbourne
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Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia and Oceania. The name Melbourne refers to an urban agglomeration spanning 9,900 km2, the metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of 4,641,636 as of 2016, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians. Founded by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemens Land on 30 August 1835, in what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837. It was named Melbourne by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, in honour of the British Prime Minister of the day, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. It was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria, to whom Lord Melbourne was close, in 1847, during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, it was transformed into one of the worlds largest and wealthiest cities. After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as the interim seat of government until 1927. It is a financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region. It is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a centre for street art, music. It was the host city of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the main passenger airport serving the metropolis and the state is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia. The Port of Melbourne is Australias busiest seaport for containerised and general cargo, Melbourne has an extensive transport network. The main metropolitan train terminus is Flinders Street Station, and the regional train. Melbourne is also home to Australias most extensive network and has the worlds largest urban tram network. Before the arrival of settlers, humans had occupied the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. At the time of European settlement, it was inhabited by under 2000 hunter-gatherers from three indigenous tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and it would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. Batman selected a site on the bank of the Yarra River. Batman then returned to Launceston in Tasmania, in early August 1835 a different group of settlers, including John Pascoe Fawkner, left Launceston on the ship Enterprize
3.
Victoria (Australia)
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Victoria is a state in southeast Australia. Victoria is Australias most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall, most of its population is concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australias second-largest city. Prior to British European settlement, the area now constituting Victoria was inhabited by a number of Aboriginal peoples. With Great Britain having claimed the entire Australian continent east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria was included in the wider colony of New South Wales. The first settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, and much of what is now Victoria was included in the Port Phillip District in 1836, Victoria was officially created as a separate colony in 1851, and achieved self-government in 1855. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate, at state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. Victoria is currently governed by the Labor Party, with Daniel Andrews the current Premier, the personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria, currently Linda Dessau. Local government is concentrated in 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, Victorias total gross state product is ranked second in Australia, although Victoria is ranked fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne is home to a number of museums, art galleries and theatres and is described as the sporting capital of Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in Australia, and the host of the 1956 Summer Olympics, Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, having been founded in 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. The first British settlement in the later known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. In the year 1826 Colonel Stewart, Captain S. Wright, fly and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. Victorias next settlement was at Portland, on the south west coast of what is now Victoria, edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, from settlement the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after the now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe. And in 1838 Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier white settlements dating back to 1826, days later, still in 1851 gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo. Later discoveries occurred at sites across Victoria
4.
Australian Football League
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The Australian Football League is the pre-eminent professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the governing body. The league was founded as the Victorian Football League as a breakaway from the previous Victorian Football Association, the league currently consists of 18 teams spread over five of Australias six states. Matches have been played in all states and territories of Australia. The AFL season currently consists of a competition, followed by a 23-round regular season. The top eight teams play off in a four-round finals series, culminating in the AFL Grand Final. The winning team in the Grand Final is termed the premiers, the current premiers are the Western Bulldogs. The six clubs invited two more VFA clubs – Carlton and St Kilda – to join the league for its season in 1897. In 1908, the league expanded to ten teams, with Richmond crossing from the VFA, Port Adelaide was the most successful club of the competition winning three titles during the period along with an earlier victory. In 1925, the VFL expanded from nine teams to twelve, with Footscray, Hawthorn, North Melbourne and Hawthorn remained very weak in the VFL for a very long period. Between the years of 1927 and 1930, Collingwood became the first, in 1952, the VFL hosted National Day, when all six matches were played outside of Melbourne. Matches were played at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Brisbane Exhibition Ground, North Hobart Oval, Albury Sports Ground and Victorian country towns Yallourn, Footscray became the first of the 1925 expansion teams to win the premiership in 1954. Melbourne became a powerhouse during the 1950s and early 1960s under coach Norm Smith, the club contested seven consecutive grand finals from 1954 to 1960, winning five premierships, including three in a row from 1955 to 1957. Television coverage began in 1957, with telecasts of the final quarter permitted. At first, several channels competed through broadcasting different games, however, when the VFL found that television was reducing crowds, it decided that no coverage was to be allowed for 1960. In 1961, replays were introduced although direct telecasts were rarely permitted in Melbourne, in 1959, the VFL planned the first purpose built mega-stadium, VFL Park, to give it some independence from the Melbourne Cricket Club, which managed the Melbourne Cricket Ground. VFL Park was planned to hold 155,000 spectators, which would have made it one of the largest stadiums in the world – although it would ultimately be built with a capacity of 78,000. Land for the stadium was purchased at Mulgrave, then farmland, the VFL Premiership Trophy was first awarded in addition to a pennant flag in 1959, essentially the same trophy design has been in use since
5.
Olympic Games
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The Olympic Games are considered the worlds foremost sports competition with more than 200 nations participating. The Olympic Games are held four years, with the Summer and Winter Games alternating by occurring every four years. Their creation was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games, which were held in Olympia, Greece, Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894, leading to the first modern Games in Athens in 1896. The IOC is the body of the Olympic Movement, with the Olympic Charter defining its structure. The evolution of the Olympic Movement during the 20th and 21st centuries has resulted in changes to the Olympic Games. The IOC has had to adapt to a variety of economic, political, as a result, the Olympics has shifted away from pure amateurism, as envisioned by Coubertin, to allowing participation of professional athletes. The growing importance of mass media created the issue of corporate sponsorship, World wars led to the cancellation of the 1916,1940, and 1944 Games. Large boycotts during the Cold War limited participation in the 1980 and 1984 Games, the Olympic Movement consists of international sports federations, National Olympic Committees, and organising committees for each specific Olympic Games. As the decision-making body, the IOC is responsible for choosing the host city for each Games, the IOC also determines the Olympic programme, consisting of the sports to be contested at the Games. There are several Olympic rituals and symbols, such as the Olympic flag and torch, over 13,000 athletes compete at the Summer and Winter Olympic Games in 33 different sports and nearly 400 events. The first, second, and third-place finishers in each event receive Olympic medals, gold, silver, the Games have grown so much that nearly every nation is now represented. This growth has created numerous challenges and controversies, including boycotts, doping, bribery, every two years the Olympics and its media exposure provide unknown athletes with the chance to attain national and sometimes international fame. The Games also constitute an opportunity for the host city and country to themselves to the world. The Ancient Olympic Games were religious and athletic festivals held every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, competition was among representatives of several city-states and kingdoms of Ancient Greece. These Games featured mainly athletic but also combat such as wrestling. It has been written that during the Games, all conflicts among the participating city-states were postponed until the Games were finished. This cessation of hostilities was known as the Olympic peace or truce and this idea is a modern myth because the Greeks never suspended their wars. The truce did allow those religious pilgrims who were travelling to Olympia to pass through warring territories unmolested because they were protected by Zeus
6.
Paralympic Games
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There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which since the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea, are held almost immediately following the respective Olympic Games. All Paralympic Games are governed by the International Paralympic Committee, the Paralympics has grown from a small gathering of British World War II veterans in 1948 to become one of the largest international sporting events by the early 21st century. Paralympians strive for equal treatment with non-disabled Olympic athletes, but there is a funding gap between Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Given the wide variety of disabilities that Paralympic athletes have, there are categories in which the athletes compete. The allowable disabilities are broken down into ten eligible impairment types and these categories are further broken down into classifications, which vary from sport to sport. The first athlete to do so was German American gymnast George Eyser in 1904, hungarian Karoly Takacs competed in shooting events in both the 1948 and 1952 Summer Olympics. He was an amputee and could shoot left-handed. The first organized athletic day for disabled athletes that coincided with the Olympic Games took place on the day of the opening of the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, the first games were called the 1948 International Wheelchair Games, and were intended to coincide with the 1948 Olympics. Dr. Guttmans aim was to create a sports competition for people with disabilities that would be equivalent to the Olympic Games. The games were again at the same location in 1952. These early competitions, also known as the Stoke Mandeville Games, have described as the precursors of the Paralympic Games. There have been milestones in the Paralympic movement. The first official Paralympic Games, no longer open solely to war veterans, was held in Rome in 1960,400 athletes from 23 countries competed at the 1960 Games. Since 1960, the Paralympic Games have taken place in the year as the Olympic Games. The Games were initially only to athletes in wheelchairs, at the 1976 Summer Games, athletes with different disabilities were included for the first time at a Summer Paralympics. With the inclusion of more disability classifications the 1976 Summer Games expanded to 1,600 athletes from 40 countries, the 1988 Summer Paralympics in Seoul, South Korea, was another milestone for the Paralympic movement. It was in Seoul that the Paralympic Summer Games were held directly after the Olympic Summer Games, in the same host city and this set a precedent that was followed in 1992,1996 and 2000. It was eventually formalized in an agreement between the International Paralympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee in 2001, and was extended through 2020
7.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
8.
Ireland
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Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, however, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, however, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is also the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, prosperous, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
9.
Team sport
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A team sport includes any sport which involves two or more players working together towards a shared objective. A team sport is an activity in individuals are organized into opposing teams which compete to win. Examples are basketball, volleyball, water polo, handball, lacrosse, cricket, baseball, Team sports are practiced between opposing teams, where the players interact directly and simultaneously between them to achieve an objective. The objective generally involves teammates facilitating the movement of a ball or similar object in accordance with a set of rules, in order to score points. However, other types of team sports do not involve teammates facilitating the movement of a ball or similar item in accordance with a set of rules, for example, swimming, rowing, sailing, dragon boat racing, and track and field among others are also team sports. In other types of team sports there may not be a team or point scoring, for example. Instead of points scored against a team, the relative difficulty of the climb or walk is the measure of the achievement. In some sports where participants are entered by a team, they do not only compete against members of other teams, for example, motorsport, particularly Formula One. This process is known as team orders and although previously accepted was banned in Formula One between 2002 and 2010, after a controversy involving team orders at the 2010 German Grand Prix however, the regulation was removed as of the 2011 season. Organized sports in athletics, started in Greece in 796 BC, is recorded up to 393 BC and these games, which are Olympic games, were a form to test the skills of warriors, consisted of running, jumping or leaping, wrestling, and javelin throw. In the Bayankhongor Province of Mongolia cave paintings dating back to Neolithic age of 7000 BC depict a wrestling match surrounded by crowds, cave paintings of the Prehistoric times in Japan show a sport similar to sumo wrestling. In Wadi Sura, near Gilf Kebir in Libya, Neolithic in the cave of swimmers shows evidence of swimming in a rock painting, the name athletes is derived from Aethelius, the King of Elis in Olympia, Greece. Before the start of the gods were invoked by offering of mostly fruits. The winner of the race was crowned with a wreath of olive or laurel, in subsequent years monetary attractions were introduced as prize money. However, the practice of offering celery sticks is still in vogue in the 100 m sprint in the Olympics, the present pattern of Olympic Games is akin to the practice followed in the ancient days. The 200 m sprint is known in Greek as short foot race, the 400 m race is equivalent to two stades and called Diaulos in Greek. With the advent of computer gaming and the Internet, Esports which is in vogue for quite a few years was recorded in October 1972 as a video game. A Space war tournament was organized by Stanford University which was titled Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics with an offering of one-year subscription to Rolling Stone
10.
Australian rules football
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The main way to score points is by kicking the oval-shaped ball between the two tall goal posts. The team with the score by the end of the match wins unless a draw is declared. During general play, players may position themselves anywhere on the field, the primary methods are kicking, handballing and running with the ball. There are rules on how the ball can be handled, for example, throwing the ball is not allowed and players must not get caught holding the ball. A distinctive feature of the game is the mark, where players anywhere on the field who catch a ball from a kick are awarded possession, possession of the ball is in dispute at all times except when a free kick or mark is paid. Players can tackle using their hands or use their body to obstruct opponents. The game features frequent physical contests, spectacular marking, fast movement of players and the ball and high scoring. The sports origins can be traced to matches played in Melbourne, Victoria in 1858. Its annual Grand Final is the highest attended club championship event in the world, the sport is also played at amateur level in many countries and in several variations. The games rules are governed by the AFL Commission with the advice of the AFLs Laws of the Game Committee, there is evidence of football being played sporadically in the Australian colonies in the first half of the 19th century. The earliest such match, held in St Kilda on 15 June, was between Melbourne Grammar and St Kilda Grammar. Born in Australia, Wills played a nascent form of rugby football whilst a pupil at Rugby School in England and his letter is regarded by many historians as giving impetus for the development of a new code of football today known as Australian football. Two weeks later, Wills friend, cricketer Jerry Bryant, posted an advertisement for a match at the Richmond Paddock adjoining the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This was the first of several kickabouts held that year involving members of the Melbourne Cricket Club, including Wills, Bryant, W. J. Hammersley, trees were used as goalposts and play typically lasted an entire afternoon. Without an agreed code of laws, some players were guided by rules they had learned in the British Isles. Another significant milestone in 1858 was a match played under experimental rules between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College, held at the Richmond Paddock. This 40-a-side contest, umpired by Wills and Scotch College teacher John Macadam, began on 7 August and it is commemorated with a statue outside the MCG, and the two schools have competed annually ever since in the Cordner-Eggleston Cup, the worlds oldest continuous football competition. Since the early 20th century, it has suggested that Australian football was derived from the Irish sport of Gaelic football
11.
Gaelic football
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Gaelic football, commonly referred to as football or Gaelic, is an Irish team sport. It is played two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kicking or punching the ball into the teams goals or between two upright posts above the goals and over a crossbar 2.5 metres above the ground. Players advance the football, a leather ball, up the field with a combination of carrying, bouncing, kicking, hand-passing. In the game, two types of scores are possible, points and goals, a point is awarded for kicking or hand-passing the ball over the crossbar, signalled by the umpire raising a white flag. A goal is awarded for kicking the ball under the crossbar into the net, positions in Gaelic football are similar to that in other football codes, and comprise one goalkeeper, six backs, two midfielders, and six forwards, with a variable number of substitutes. Gaelic football is one of four sports controlled by the Gaelic Athletic Association, along with hurling and camogie, Gaelic football is one of the few remaining strictly amateur sports in the world, with players, coaches, and managers prohibited from receiving any form of payment. Gaelic football is played on the island of Ireland, although units of the Association exist in other areas such as Great Britain, North America. Outside Ireland, football is played among members of the Irish diaspora. Gaelic Park in New York City is the largest purpose-built Gaelic sports venue outside Ireland, the All-Ireland Senior Championship is considered the most prestigious event in Gaelic football. Under the auspices of the GAA, Gaelic football is a sport, however. Gaelic football was first codified in 1887, although it has purported links to varieties of football played in Ireland. Consequently, the name caid is used by people to refer to present day Gaelic football. Dublin is still known as the football field, the Statute of Galway of 1527 allowed the playing of foot balle and archery but banned hokie—the hurling of a little ball with sticks or staves as well as other sports. By the 17th century, the situation had changed considerably, the games had grown in popularity and were widely played. This was due to the patronage of the gentry, now instead of opposing the games it was the gentry and the ruling class who were serving as patrons of the games. Games were organised between landlords with each team comprising 20 or more tenants, wagers were commonplace with purses of up to 100 guineas. The earliest record of a precursor to the modern game date from a match in County Meath in 1670
12.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
