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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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hockey
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Hitting a ball about with sticks has been as ancient a pastime, all over the world, as primitive football. But as with football, it was in English *public schools during the early 19C that hockey first became formalized as a game. The first adult club to be formed was the *Blackheath Football and Hockey Club, some time before 1861. Their version of hockey was rough and ready, played on the open heath with a black cube of rubber as the ball. The game was much refined in the 1870s when the Teddington Cricket Club, to the west of London, took it up as a winter sport, using a cricket ball on smooth grass.
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A national governing body, the Hockey Association, was formed in 1886; and by 1895 international matches were being played between England, Ireland and Wales. It has remained a purely amateur game. It was included in the Olympic Games at the White City in 1908 and rapidly became popular throughout the British Empire – to such an extent that the only non-Commonwealth country ever to win the men's Olympic gold medal has been Germany (1972, 92).
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