You need a small ball, a net and rackets to play. __________ You hit a shuttlecock over a net. ______________ You hit the ball with a club and try to get it in the hole. ________ A sport of defense and attack using a sword ______________ You need a horse to practice this. ____________ A sport where two opponents wear gloves and hit each other in the ring. ______________ A type of dancing on ice. ______________ You do this in a boat out at sea. ______________ A game with two teams and the objective is to bounce the ball and throw it into a high net. ______________ You need a bicycle to do this sport. ______________ A type of physical exercise on the parallel bars or beam ______________ A type of football in the water. ______________ The earliest recorded form of soccer dates to China in the second and third centuries B.C., more than 2,200 years ago. According to the FIFA website, the game consisted of kicking a leather ball filled with feathers and hair through a small opening made from bamboo canes. This ancient form of soccer was not a fun game for regular people, but a military exercise for Chinese warriors. Medieval England was the birthplace of modern soccer. In the late 1100s, when knights walked the land and kings battled for the English throne, a man named William FitzStephen wrote the first existing account of a game called "foot ball." Common people from entire villages would gather to kick a ball through the streets and across the fields, pushing each other in the process. For FitzStephen, the game was undignified and brutal. During the next 600 years, a number of English kings banned the game to protect the country's soldiers and workers from injury. According to the Spartacus Educational website, Edward II outlawed the sport in the 1300s. Edward III, Henry IV, Henry V, Edward IV, Henry VII and Henry VIII also enforced the ban. The people of England, however, continued to play despite the royal commands. In the 1800s, soccer finally began to resemble the game we know today. The sport had become popular in schools and universities across England, where the students began to put down some rules. In 1863, representatives from some of England's soccer clubs gathered to create the official rules of soccer. By the end of the meeting, the men had formed the Football Association, the same association that governs English soccer today. They also created the "Laws of the Game," a set of 13 official rules. This meeting marked the birth of modern soccer. (www.livestrong.com) Whats your favourite sport? Where do you practise it? Do you need any special equipment? Do you do it alone or with friends? Write a paragraph in your notebook about sport. Answer the following questions When and where was football invented? ___________________________________________________. What were the first balls made of? ___________________________________________________. Was it a competitive sport in China? Justify. ___________________________________________________. When did football appear in Europe? ___________________________________________________. How did village people play the game? ___________________________________________________. Who wrote the first account of the game and what was his opinion of it? ___________________________________________________. Why did the kings of England ban the sport? ___________________________________________________. Who invented the rules for football?