Sport

When West Germany won the competition for the first time in 1954 they were the unfancied representatives of a divided nation emerging from defeat and humiliation.

W.H. Chaloner describes the eventful and varied life of a sometime steam engine manufacturer, champion boxer, and, in later life, firefighter.

A fashionable parade and a scene of sporting contests, St James’s Park was first enclosed by Henry VIII. Marjorie Sykes describes the history of the park, including how James I kept a menagerie and aviary there, to which Charles II added pelicans.

In the 1880s, writes Ronald Rees, an English community brought with it to Canada hunting, horse-racing, cricket, tennis and rugby.

Tzykanion, or polo, formed part of the ritual of life at the court of the Emperors in Constantinople. Expertise on horseback, writes Anthony Bryer, was one of the requirements of Imperial dignity.

The great Olympian was born on September 12th, 1913

E.G. Dunning finds that traditional football was a game with few rules, played riotously through the streets and across country. The nineteenth century saw its evolution on the playing fields of the public schools into the two main forms we know today.

Mathew Lyons on why Horse Guards Parade was an appropriate location to host the Olympic beach volleyball.