title: Marcelo Salas

text: Salas helped the team win back-to-back titles in 1994 and 1995, he was an essential player for the Universidad de Chile team, as the was the top scorer in both seasons (27 goals in the first season and 17 goals in the second season). Leaving a trail of 76 goals which included a strong 1996 campaign in the Copa Libertadores.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: Later in 1996, Salas moved to Argentina to play in River Plate team of the Argentine first division of football. On 30 September 1996 he scored his first goal, in a match played against Boca Juniors at the La Bombonera stadium. From 1996 to 1998 Salas scored 31 goals in 67 games, helping River to win the Torneo de Apertura 1996 (where he scored two goals in the 3–0 win over Vélez Sarsfield that made him champion), the Clausura 1997, the Apertura 1997 (scoring the title goal against Argentinos Juniors), and the 1997 Supercopa Libertadores, where he scored the 2 goals in the final against São Paulo that gave the millionaire club the cup. In addition, he was elected the Best Footballer of the season in Argentina and South American Footballer of the Year in 1997. These accomplishments would cement his legacy in Argentina as one of its greatest foreign born players earning the nickname, "El shileno (sic) Salas".


title: Marcelo Salas

text: The Argentine team valued his transfer at US$30,000,000 as the English football club Manchester United (The coach Alex Ferguson wanted a player with the characteristics of Ronaldo and Marcelo Salas to replace the retirement of Eric Cantona, Ferguson traveled 14,000 miles to sign Salas, but River Plate refused to sell him.), in addition to great clubs from Italy and Spain for hiring him.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: On 1 February 1998, thanks to his good performances both in Argentina and in the Chile national football team, he was sold to S.S. Lazio in Italy for US$20.5 million. becoming the highest transfer in history at that time, after Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Denilson (to Inter Milan from Italy, Barcelona and Betis from Spain, respectively).


title: Marcelo Salas

text: Salas played in Italy for five years: three years with S.S. Lazio (1998–2001), a key catalyst in helping turn around a Lazio team that hadn't won a Scudetto since the 1973–1974 season. He made his debut for Lazio on 12 August 1998 against the UEFA Champions League champion, the Real Madrid of Spain, where he scored the second goal of his team, in the Teresa Herrera Trophy. His official debut was for the Supercoppa italiana where his team won the competition after winning 2–1 over Juventus F.C., on 29 August 1998. With Salas in the team, successes in Italian football returned for the whole of the Italian capital, after 25 years. He scored his first goal for Serie A playing for Lazio a few days later against Inter Milan. With Lazio he won a Serie A (being Salas the team's top scorer with 12 annotations), an Coppa Italia, two Supercoppa Italiana, a UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and a UEFA Super Cup, scoring the match's only goal in the latter, in a 1–0 win over Manchester United.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: Salas quickly became an idol of the Lazio tifosi, where they dedicated songs to him, the most traditional was: "Matador, Matador, che ce frega de Ronaldo noi c'avemo er Matador" (Matador, Matador, we care about Ronaldo if we have the Matador).


title: Marcelo Salas

text: After rejecting offers of US$30,000,000 from important football club as: Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Barcelona, Parma, A.C. Milan and Inter Milan. was in negotiations with Real Madrid to become, together with Zinedine Zidane, one of the two great "meringues" signings of 2001. However, the transfer failed, largely due to the exorbitant sum that the Spanish club had invested in the signing of Zidane. Finally, that same year he signed for Juventus, after paying the club €25,000,000 (US$28,500,000) for him, which at the time was the most expensive transfer of a Chilean player.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: In 2001, he was transferred to Juventus F.C. for 55 billion lire (€28.5 million by fixed exchange rate; 22 billion lire cash plus Darko Kovačević) his stay in Turin was cut short due to a torn ACL in his right knee against Bologna FC in a match valid for Serie A. Where Salas would endure the worst moments of his career; he was hampered by injuries, including a further issue with his knee meniscus, allowing him to participate in only 26 games and scoring just 4 goals.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: After Juventus unsuccessfully tried to transfer him to such high-profile European clubs as Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Barcelona, A.C. Milan, and Sporting Lisbon (in exchange for the transfer of a young Cristiano Ronaldo), in 2003 he was loaned back to River Plate.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: Hailed as "Saint Matador" by fans, Salas stood out especially in that year's Copa Sudamericana, but could not prevent his team's defeat in the final against Cienciano of Peru, despite scoring the tying goal 3–3 in the first leg. However, he later achieved a new title: the 2004 Clausura.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: A year later, he helped River Plate reach the semifinals of the 2005 Copa Libertadores, scoring a hat-trick against Liga de Quito. In his second stay at River Plate, Salas scored 17 goals in 43 games.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: Marcelo Salas is regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of River Plate, along with Ángel Labruna, Enzo Francescoli, Ramón Díaz, Norberto Alonso, Ubaldo Fillol and Amadeo Carrizo. In addition, he was one of the few foreign players who have worn the "Millonarios"' captain armband.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: Between 2004 and 2005 he received offers to return to European football from Barcelona in Spain and Inter Milan in Italy, among others.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: In late July 2005, it was confirmed that he would return to his original football team, Universidad de Chile on a temporary deal from Juventus team.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: Salas announced his retirement on 28 November 2008, at the age of 33. Before the 23 November game where the Universidad de Chile beat Cobreloa 3–2, with two goals from Salas at the National Stadium.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: Salas played his last game on 2 June 2009. Amongst the invited players were his friends from the 1993–1996 Universidad de Chile squads, River Plate, Juventus, plus members of Chile's France '98 World Cup squad. More than 60,000 people showed up to pay him one final salute. Playing for both sides, where he managed to score three goals.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: Salas represented Chile at under-20 level in 1993 alongside players such as Francisco Rojas, Claudio Lizama and Claudio Villan.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: On 30 April 1994 at the National Stadium, Salas made his debut for the Chile national football team at age 19, scoring his first international goal in a 3–3 draw with Argentina of Diego Maradona, who was preparing for the World Cup 1994.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: In 1995 his team won the Canada Cup, where Salas scored the "goal of the victory" in the final match against Canada (2–1).


title: Marcelo Salas

text: During the 1998 World Cup qualification campaign, Salas scored 11 goals. He also scored memorable goals: against Argentina of local, in Quito of visit against Ecuador and of local against Uruguay, including hat-tricks against Colombia and Peru, and a goal in the final match against Bolivia. Against Peru, he became the youngest Chilean footballer to wear the captain's belt, at just 22 years old.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: During the training for the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France, Chile played a friendly match with England in front of about 65,000 people at the legendary Wembley Stadium on 11 February 1998. In a memorable match, Chile won 2–0 with goals of "The Killer". The first, of great invoice, with perfect control, spin and definition, without letting the ball touch the ground after a pass of more than 60 meters. The second, a penalty that he created after brilliantly dribbling the English defender Sol Campbell.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: In 1998, Marcelo Salas had an outstanding performance in the 1998 FIFA World Cup, reaching the 16th round of the tournament. He scored 4 goals: two against Italy, one against Austria and one against Brazil positioning himself as the third-best scorer of the World Cup in that year, along with Brazilian striker Ronaldo, being only 1 away from the bronze boot, and 2 from the golden boot.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: In 1999, Chile national football team reached the semi-finals of the Copa América, where they won fourth place.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: On 15 August 2000, Salas was the great figure in Chile 3–0 victory over Brazil, scoring a great goal and being the most important player of the match, played in the 2002 World Cup qualification.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: Due to his injury problems, Salas's appearances for Chile were limited after 2001. He scored four goals in nine matches during the failed 2002 World Cup qualification campaign and during the 2006 World Cup qualification. He surpassed his attacking partner Iván Zamorano as the nation's all-time leading scorer for the second time (he had previously done so in 1998) with his 35th goal against Bolivia.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: On 18 November 2007, during a match for the qualification for 2010 World Cup where Chile played against Uruguay, Marcelo Salas scored his last 2 final goals at the majestic Estadio Centenario, the first with a header after Carlos Villanueva center and the second, penalty.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: He is the nephew-in-law of the former Chile international footballer since his wife, Carolina Messen, is the niece of him.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: In the year 2004 the River Plate club of Argentina honored and immortalized the figure of Marcelo Salas with a portrait of the image of the "Matador" in the dressing rooms of the Monumental de Nuñez Stadium, being included among the most prominent idols in the club's history. Also in the year 2009, at the inauguration of the museum of the Argentine club, the goals of Marcelo Salas are portrayed in videos and images (the goals of the titles of the Apertura 1996, Clausura 1997, Apertura 1997, Supercopa Sudamericana 1997, among others), in addition to the shirts and boots that Marcelo Salas wore while he played in River Plate.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: In the year 2013 Marcelo Salas received a tribute from the English Football Federation at Wembley Stadium for his "excellent performance" in the England vs Chile match from 11 February from 1998. Where his first goal of that match is portrayed in the museum of said stadium, as one of the best goals in all history scored at Wembley Stadium.


title: Marcelo Salas

text: Long is the list of public figures whose idol is the "Matador" where several of them have decided to honor Marcelo Salas by imitating his typical celebration after scoring a goal: knee to the ground, head bowed and one arm pointing to the sky. Among the players who have Salas as an idol, the following stand out:


title: Marcelo Salas

text: On 16 October 1997, Jay Kay, lead singer of the English band Jamiroquai, paid tribute to Marcelo Salas, in his presentation with the band at the Teatro Caupolicán, wearing the traditional shirt number 11 from Salas where he celebrated as the Matador on stage


title: Marcelo Salas

text: On 11 February 1998 the Irish band U2 performed in Chile for the first time. That day the vocalist and leader Bono went on stage at the National Stadium along with the rest of the members wearing Marcelo Salas' jersey number 11, where at the same time Salas' goals playing for Chile against England at Wembley Stadium were displayed on a giant screen.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: T9 is a predictive text technology for mobile phones (specifically those that contain a 3×4 numeric keypad), originally developed by Tegic Communications, now part of Nuance Communications. T9 stands for "Text on 9 keys."


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: T9 was used on phones from Verizon, NEC, Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Siemens, Sony Mobile, Sanyo, SAGEM and others, as well as PDAs such as Avigo during the late 1990s. The main competing technologies include iTap created by Motorola, SureType created by RIM, Eatoni's LetterWise and WordWise, and Intelab's Tauto.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: T9 is not available on Apple devices but is available on certain inexpensive phones without a touchscreen, and modern Android phones where it can be used to dial contacts by spelling the name of the contact one is trying to call.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: T9's objective is to make it easier to enter text messages. It allows words to be formed by a single keypress for each letter, which is an enormous improvement over the multi-tap approach used in conventional mobile phone text entry at the time, in which several letters are associated with each key, and selecting one letter often requires multiple keypresses.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: T9 combines the groups of letters on each phone key with a fast-access dictionary of words. It will then look up in the dictionary all words corresponding to the sequence of keypresses and order them by frequency of use. As T9 "gains familiarity" with the words and phrases the user commonly uses, it speeds up the process by offering the most frequently used words first and then letting the user access other choices with one or more presses of a predefined "Next" key.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: The dictionary is expandable. After introducing a new word, the next time the user tries to produce that word, T9 adds it to the predictive dictionary. The user database (UDB) can be expanded via multi-tap. The implementation of the user database is dependent on the version of T9 and how T9 is actually integrated on the device. Some phone manufacturers supply a permanent user database, while others do so for the duration of the session.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: Some T9 implementations feature "smart punctuation". This feature allows the user to insert sentence and word punctuation using the '1'-key. Depending on the context, smart punctuation inserts sentence punctuation (period or 'full stop') or embedded punctuation (period or hyphen) or word punctuation (apostrophe in can't, won't, isn't, and the possessive " 's"). Depending on the language, T9 also supports word breaking after punctuation to support clitics such as "l' " and "n' "in French and " 's" in English.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: The UDB is an optional feature that allows words that were explicitly entered by the user to be stored for future reference. The number of words stored depend on the implementation and the language.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: In later versions of T9, the order of the words presented is adapted to the usage pattern. For instance, in English, 4663 matches "good", "home", "gone", "hood", etc. Such combinations are known as "textonyms"; e.g., "home" is referred to as a "textonym" of "good". T9 is encoded to prefer the word that its programmers determined to be the most common "textonym", such as "good" over "home" or "gone", "hand" over "game", or "bad" over "cad" or "ace".


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: When the user tends to use "home" more often than "good", eventually the two words switch position, and "home" is presented as the default option instead. Information about common word combinations can also be learned and stored for future predictions (so, "I'm feeling" followed by 4663 will be offered as "good" instead of "home", whereas "I went back" and 4663 would be "home", not "good").


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: For words entered by the user, word completion can be enabled. When the user enters matching keypresses, in addition to words and stems, the system also provides completions.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: In later versions of T9, the user can select a primary and secondary language and access matches from both languages. This enables users to write messages in their native language, as well as a foreign one.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: Some implementations learn commonly used word pairs and provide word prediction (e.g. if one often writes "eat food", after entering "eat" the phone will suggest "food", which can be confirmed by pressing Next).


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: T9 can automatically recognize and correct typing/texting errors, by looking at neighboring keys on the keypad to determine an incorrect keypress. For example, the word "testing" is entered with the key combination "8378464". Entering the same number but with two incorrect keypresses of neighboring keys, e.g., "8278494" results in T9 suggesting the words "tasting" (8278464), "testing" (8378464), and "tapping" (8277464).


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: In order to achieve compression ratios of close to 1 byte per word, T9 uses an optimized algorithm that maintains word order and partial words (also known as stems); however, because of this compression, it over-generates words that are sometimes visible as "junk words". This is a side effect of the requirements for small database sizes on the lower end embedded devices.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: On a phone with a numeric keypad, each time a key (1-9) is pressed (when in a text field), the algorithm returns a guess for what letters are most likely for the keys pressed to that point. For example, to enter the word 'the', the user would press 8 then 4 then 3, and the display would display 't' then 'th' then 'the'. If the less-common word 'fore' is intended (3673) the predictive algorithm may select 'Ford'. Pressing the 'next' key (typically the '*' key) might bring up 'dose', and finally 'fore'. If 'fore' is selected, then the next time the user presses the sequence 3673, fore will be more likely to be the first word displayed. If the word "Felix" is intended, however, when entering 33549, the display shows 'E', then 'De', 'Del', 'Deli', and 'Felix.' This is an example of a letter changing while entering words.


title: T9 (predictive text)

text: Many smart keyboards now exist, such as Swype or Swiftkey, that have taken the idea of T9 and married it with the advanced touchscreen technology found in Android phones and iPhones. These advances have made T9 obsolete in newer cellphones for many users, since it is predicated on the use of a keypad with nothing besides numbers, the asterisk and the pound key (known as the hash key in Commonwealth countries). Many features, such as predictive text, have been adopted by and improved by future generations of keyboard software. However, T9 remains viable. For example, those with larger fingertips still use the T9 based keyboard on smartphones for text entry, because key press accuracy increases with the larger screen area per key on a numeric-style 4×3 keyboard. Such T9 formats for text entry therefore remain available in all latest [as of August 2020] iterations of LG keyboards, certain Samsung keyboards, and third party T9 keyboards such as Go keyboard for Androids and Type Nine for iPhones, as shown on this LG V60.


title: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

text: "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" is a popular English language nursery rhyme and counting-out rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 11284.


title: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

text: The rhyme is one of many counting-out rhymes. It was first recorded in "Songs for the Nursery", published in London in 1805. This version differed beyond the number twelve, with the lyrics:


title: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

text: A version published five years later in "Gammer Gurton's Garland" (1810) was titled "Arithmetick" and had the following different lines:


title: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

text: According to Henry Bolton, collector of counting rhymes in the 1880s, the rhyme was used in Wrentham, Massachusetts as early as 1780.


title: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

text: A different version was published in 1833 from "The Only True Mother Goose Melodies" which preserved some of the changes in previous versions and contained variations for the lyrics for "open the door" and "I hope you're well":


title: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

text: A version titled "Numerical Nursery Rhyme" was published in 1899 from "A History of Nursery Rhymes" and introduces the unique lyrics "shut the door". This particular line appears to be regional, with "shut the door" being better known at present in the United States and Canada and "knock at the door" in the United Kingdom:


title: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

text: The rhyme was sometimes published alone in illustrated editions. That with lithographs by Caroline R. Baillie (Edinburgh, 1857) had an oblong format showing domestic 18th-century interiors. There were also two editions of the rhyme published from London, both illustrated by Walter Crane. The first was a single volume picture-book (John Lane, 1869) with end-papers showing a composite of the 1 – 10 sequence and of the 11 – 20 sequence. It was followed in 1910 by "The Buckle My Shoe Picture Book", containing other rhymes too. This had coloured full-page illustrations: composites for lines 1-2 and 3-4, and then one for each individual line.


title: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

text: In America the rhyme was used to help young people learn to count and was also individually published. Of the 21 pages in Hurd and Houghton’s edition, published in New York about 1870, there were ten taken up by Augustus Hoppin’s nonsense drawings. In "Old Mother Goose’s Rhymes And Tales" (London and New York, 1889) there was only a single page given to the rhyme, illustrated by Constance Haslewood in the style of Kate Greenaway.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Sport is an important part of Australia that dates back to the early colonial period. Australian rules football, rugby league, rugby union, association football, cricket and tennis are among the earliest organised sports in Australia. Sport has shaped the Australian national identity through events such as the Melbourne Cup and the America's Cup. Australia also holds the record for the largest attendance at a Rugby Union match with almost 110 000 watching the Wallabies play the All Blacks in 2000.


title: Sport in Australia

text: There are a number of professional sport leagues in Australia, including the Australian Football League (AFL) and AFL Women's (Australian rules football), National Rugby League (NRL) and NRL Women's (rugby league), Super Rugby Pacific (Australia/New Zealand) (Rugby Union), the National Basketball League and the Women's National Basketball League, A-League Men and A-League Women (soccer), the Australian Baseball League, the Big Bash League (cricket), Women's Big Bash League (cricket) and Sheffield Shield (cricket), Suncorp Super Netball and the Supercars Championship (touring car racing). Attendance for the AFL in 2019 attracted more than 7.5 million people to games, while the NRL draws just over 3 million people in a single season.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Historically, rugby league and rugby union football codes have been more popular than Australian rules football in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland, whereas Australian rules football has been more popular in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australia.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Major professional sports leagues in Australia are similar to major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada in that they do not practice promotion and relegation, unlike sports leagues in Europe and South America.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australia boasts 7 former world number one squash players, along with a history of success in the Commonwealth Games.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The media plays an important part in Australia's sporting landscape, with many sporting events televised or broadcast on radio. The government has anti-siphoning laws to protect free-to-air stations. Beyond televising live events, there are many sport-related television and radio programs, as well as several magazine publications dedicated to sport. Australian sport has also been the subject of Australian-made films such as "The Club", "Australian Rules", "The Final Winter" and "Footy Legends".


title: Sport in Australia

text: As a nation, Australia has competed in many international events, including the Olympics and Paralympics. The country has also twice hosted the Summer Olympics in Melbourne (1956) and Sydney (2000), as well as the Commonwealth Games on five occasions. A third Olympics will be held in Brisbane in 2032, and a sixth Commonwealth Games across rural Victoria state in 2026.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australia is one of six countries to have played in the world cups of cricket, soccer and rugby, along with England, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Scotland. Australia as a team have won World Cups or Championships in rugby union (men twice), rugby league (men 12 times, women three times), both limited over formats of cricket (men five times, T20 once; women seven times, T20 five times), basketball (women once), Hockey (men three, women two), tennis (men 28, women seven), water polo (women three times) and netball (women 11 times).


title: Sport in Australia

text: The city of Melbourne is famous for its major sports events and has been described as the 'sporting capital of the world', and one of its stadiums, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, is considered the home Australian rules football and one of the world's premier Cricket grounds.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Sport came to Australia in 1810 when the first athletics tournament was held; soon after cricket, horse racing and sailing clubs and competitions started. Australia's lower classes would play sports on public holidays, with the upper classes playing more regularly on Saturdays. Sydney was the early hub of sport in the colony. Early forms of football were played there by 1829. Early sport in Australia was played along class lines. In 1835, the British Parliament banned blood sports except fox hunting in a law that was implemented in Australia; this was not taken well in the country as it was seen as an attack on the working classes. By the late 1830s, horse racing was established in New South Wales and other parts of the country, and enjoyed support across class lines. Gambling was part of sport from the time horse racing became an established sport in the colony. Horse racing was also happening in Melbourne at Batman's Hill in 1838, with the first race meeting in Victoria taking place in 1840. Cricket was also underway with the Melbourne Cricket Club founded in 1838. Sport was being used during the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s as a form of social integration across classes. Victorian rules football (later known as Australian rules) was codified in 1859. Australian football clubs still around in the current Australian Football League were founded by 1858. Originally formed as the South Australian Football Association on 30 April 1877, the SANFL (South Australian National Football League) is the oldest surviving football league of any code in Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia's largest sporting arena, opened in 1853. The Melbourne Cup was first run in 1861. A rugby union team was established at the University of Sydney in 1864. Regular sport did not begin to be played in South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia until the late 1860s and early 1870s.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The first Australian cricket team to go on tour internationally did so in 1868. The Australian side was an all Aboriginal one and toured England where they played 47 games, where they won 14 games, drew 19 and lost 14.Australia's adoption of sport as a national pastime was so comprehensive that Anthony Trollope remarked in his book, "Australia", published in 1870, "The English passion for the amusements which are technically called 'sports', is not a national necessity with the Americans, whereas with the Australians it is almost as much so as home."


title: Sport in Australia

text: The first team formally organised soccer team was formed in Sydney in 1880 and was named the Wanderers. Sport was receiving coverage in Australian newspapers by 1876 when a sculling race in England was reported in the "Sydney Morning Herald". In 1877, Australia played in the first Test Cricket match against England. In 1882, The Ashes were started following the victory of the Australia national cricket team over England. Field hockey teams for men and women were established by 1890. The Sheffield Shield cricket competition was first held in 1891 with New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia participating in the inaugural competition. The remaining states would not participate until much later, with Queensland first participating in 1926–27, Western Australia in 1947–48 and Tasmania in 1982–83. In 1897 the Victorian Football League, which later became the AFL the Australian Football League, was founded after breaking away from the Victorian Football Association.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The first badminton competition in Australia was played in 1900. The first ice hockey game was played in Melbourne on 12 July 1906 between a local Melbourne team and a team from the crew of the visiting US warship .


title: Sport in Australia

text: Motor racing began in the first years of federation with motorcycle racing beginning at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1901 with automobile motorsport following in 1904 at Aspendale Racecourse in Melbourne. A dedicated race track was added to Aspendale's horse racing track in 1906, although it fell into disuse almost immediately.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Rugby league has been the overwhelmingly dominant rugby code in Australia since 1908 (this position remains unchallenged to this day). When Messenger and the All Golds returned from Great Britain in 1908, they helped the new clubs adapt to the rules of rugby league prior to the inaugural 1908 NSWRFL season. The Queensland Rugby Football League also formed early in 1908 by seven rugby players who were dissatisfied with the administration of the Queensland Rugby Union. The Australia national rugby union team had their first international test against New Zealand in 1903, and first international tour in 1908, earning their nickname of the Wallabies after two British journalists used it to refer to the team. The team won gold at the 1908 Summer Olympics; however the majority of the squad joined rugby league clubs upon returning to Australia.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Women represented Australia for the first time at the Olympics in 1912. Surfing came to Australia by 1915 with the first surf life saving competition being held that year. Les Darcy began his boxing career in 1915, with some of his later fights taking place at Sydney Stadium. The following year, an American promoter encouraged Darcy to go to the United States at a time when Australia was actively recruiting young men for the armed services. Controversy resulted and Darcy died at the age of 21 in the United States. When his body was returned to Australia, 100,000 people attended his Sydney funeral. Darcy would remain significant to Australians into the 2000s, when Kevin Rudd mentioned his story.


title: Sport in Australia

text: In 1922, a committee in Australia investigated the benefits of physical education for girls. They came up with several recommendations regarding what sports were and were not appropriate for girls to play based on the level of fitness required. It was determined that for some individual girls that for medical reasons, the girls should probably not be allowed to participate in tennis, netball, lacrosse, golf, hockey, and cricket. Football was completely medically inappropriate for girls to play. It was medically appropriate for all girls to be able to participate in, so long as they were not done in an overly competitive manner, swimming, rowing, cycling and horseback riding. Dick Eve won Australia's first Olympic diving gold medal in 1924. In 1924 the Australian Rugby League Board of Control, later to be known as the Australian Rugby League, was formed to administer the national team (the Kangaroos), and later as the national governing body for the sport of Rugby league. In 1928 the team also adopted the national colours of green and gold for the first time, having previously used blue and maroon, making the Kangaroos the third national sporting body to do so after cricket (from 1899) and the Australian Olympic team (from 1908). Netball Australia was founded in 1927 as the All Australia Women's Basket Ball Association.


title: Sport in Australia

text: During the 1930s, the playing of sport on Sunday was banned in most country outside South Australia. The Bodyline cricket series between Australia and England took place in 1932–33. The English side were very determined to win, using physical intimidation against Australia to insure it. The bowling style used by the team known body-line bowling was devised by Douglas Jardine with advice from Frank Foster in England ahead of the series in order to defeat Australian batsman Donald Bradman. Going into the start of the series, Bill Voce told the media "If we don't beat you, we'll knock your bloody heads off." The style of play was such that the Australians contemplated cancelling the series after the Adelaide test.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Following a successful Australian racing career, the race horse Phar Lap went to the United States where he died. There were many conspiracy theories at the time and later that suggested people in the United States poisoned the horse to prevent him from winning.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australian women's sports had an advantage over many other women's sport organisations around the world in the period after World War II. Women's sports organisations had largely remained intact and were holding competitions during the war period. This structure survived in the post war period. Women's sport were not hurt because of food rationing, petrol rationing, population disbursement, and other issues facing post-war Europe. In September 1949, Australian Canoeing is founded as the Australian Canoe Federation.


title: Sport in Australia

text: By the 1960s, Australia had an international identity as a sport-obsessed country, an identity which was embraced inside the country. This was so well known that in a 1962 edition of "Sports Illustrated", Australia was named the most sports-obsessed country in the world. In 1967, Australia hosted the second World Netball Championships in Perth. That same year, South Australia became the last state to lift its ban on the playing of sports on Sunday.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Starting in the early 1970s, Australian sport underwent a paradigm shift with sponsorship becoming one of the fundamental drivers of earnings for Australian sport on amateur and professional levels. By the mid-1980s, the need for the ability to acquire sponsorship dollars in sport was so great that job applicants for sport administrator positions were expected to be able to demonstrate an ability to get it.


title: Sport in Australia

text: During the 1970s, Australia was being routinely defeated in major international competitions as Eastern Bloc countries enjoyed strong government support for sport. The Liberal governments at the time were opposed to similar intervention in Australia's sporting system as they felt it would be government intrusion into an important component of Australian life. In the 1974 elections, several Australian sporting competitors endorsed the Liberal party in advertisements that ran on television. Competitors involved included Ron Barassi, NSWRL player Johnny Raper and horse trainer Tommie Smith. That year, the Australian team qualified for the 1974 FIFA World Cup, the first successful qualification to the FIFA World Cup in the country's history after failing to qualify to the 1966 and 1970 tournaments. It would prove to be the only appearance for the Australian team for more than three decades.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The regional football code divide in Australia was still present in the 1980s, with rugby league football being the dominant code in Queensland, ACT and New South Wales while Australian rules football dominated in the rest of the country. When codes went outside of their traditional geographic home, they had little success in gaining new fans and participants. The Australian Institute of Sport was founded in 1981. In the lead up to and during the 1982 Commonwealth Games, the police were called upon to stop protests by Aboriginal land rights activists who staged protests timed with the event in order to politicise the event. Australia had competitors in the America's Cup yacht race for a number of years. Going into the 1983 race, the Australian media was not that interested in the race as they expected a similar result and in the media lead-up to the event, made it out to be a race for rich people. This lack of interest continued throughout the early races. Near the end, when Australia finally appeared poised to win it, millions of Australians turned on their television to watch the Australia II win the competition. That year, the Liberals used Australian tennis star John Newcombe and race car drivers Peter Brock and Alan Jones in their political advertising. Athletes would again be used, this time by the Labor Party, in the 1989 elections. During the 1980s, Australian soccer players began to start playing regularly in overseas professional leagues, with the most successful player of the decade being Craig Johnston who scored a goal in the 1986 FA Cup Final for Liverpool. During the 1980s, the federal government created a number of sport programs including Aussie Sports and Active Australia. The Australia women's national field hockey team began their run as one of the top teams in the world in 1985, a place they would hold until 2000.


title: Sport in Australia

text: In 1990, the Victorian Football League changed its name to the Australian Football League. During the 1990s, soccer in Australia faced a challenge in attracting youth players because of the ethnic nature of the sport at the highest levels of national competition. The sport's governing body made an effort to make the game less ethnically oriented. At the same time, rival football codes were intentionally trying to bring in ethnic participants in order to expand their youth playing base. Doping became a concern during the 1980s and more active steps were taken to combat it in Australia in the early 1990s. In 1990, the "Australian Sports Drug Agency Act 1990" was passed and took control of doping test away from the Australian Sport Commission and put it into the hands of an independent doping control agency as of 17 February 1991.


title: Sport in Australia

text: In 2006, Melbourne hosted the 2006 Commonwealth Games. Later that year, the Australian team competed in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, their second FIFA World Cup appearance after 32 years of failing to qualify for the tournament.


title: Sport in Australia

text: In 2012, the Australian Rugby League Commission was formed, bringing to an end the involvement of News Limited in the administration of Rugby League and the media companies' conflict of interests in the sport, finally concluding the fall-out from the Super League war in the 1990s. From 2008 until 2013, the Australian thoroughbred mare Black Caviar was undefeated for her entire 25-race career, a record not equaled in over 100 years. Notable wins include the 2012 Diamond Jubilee Stakes, as well as being named the top sprinter from 2010 to 2012 in the World Thoroughbred Racehorse Rankings and entering the Australian Racing Hall of Fame while still in training. Another thoroughbred mare, Winx, though not finishing unbeaten for her career, surpassed Black Caviar's record for consecutive wins by winning the last 33 races of her career, a streak running from May 2015 to April 2019. She also entered the Hall of Fame while in training, and set a world record for most Group 1 wins with 25. Among her wins were four consecutive Cox Plates.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The organisation of sport in Australia has been largely determined by its Federal system of government – Australian Government and six states and two territories governments and local governments.


title: Sport in Australia

text: State and Territory governments have a department with responsibility for sport and recreation. These departments provide assistance to state sports organisations, develop and manage sporting facilities, provide financial assistance for major sporting events and develop policies to assist sports across their state or territory. Each Australian State and Territory has established its own institute/academy of sport – ACT Academy of Sport (established 1989), New South Wales Institute of Sport (1996), Northern Territory Institute of Sport (1996), Queensland Academy of Sport (1991), South Australian Sports Institute (1982), Tasmanian Institute of Sport (1985), Victorian Institute of Sport (1990) and Western Australian Institute of Sport (1984).


title: Sport in Australia

text: There are 560 local councils across Australia. Local governments generally focus on the provision of facilities such as swimming pools, sporting fields, stadiums and tennis courts.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Government involvement in sport up until the 1970s was fairly limited with local governments playing a major role through the provision of sporting facilities. However, this changed over the next two decades with an Australian Bureau of Statistics survey in 2001–2002 finding that approximately $2 billion was spent on sport by three levels of government – 10 per cent from the Australian Government, 40 per cent from state and territory governments, and the remaining 50 per cent from local government. State, territory and local government spending was predominantly directed to facilities and their upkeep. In 1973, the Recreation Minister's Council was established to provide a forum for Australian Government and State and Territory Minister's responsible for sport and recreation to discuss matters of interest. With government's taking an increased involvement in sport, it became the Sport and Recreation Minister's Council. More recently is referred to as Meeting of Sport and Recreation Ministers. The Meeting is assisted by the Committee of Australian Sport and Recreation Officials (CASRO) previously called the Standing Committee on Sport and Recreation (SCORS). The Meeting works cooperatively on issues such as match fixing, sport participation and water safety. In 2011, Minister's signed the "National Sport and Active Recreation Policy Framework". The framework "provides a mechanism for the achievement of national goals for sport and active recreation, sets out agreed roles and responsibilities of governments and their expectations of sport and active recreation partners." In 1993, National Elite Sports Council was established to provide a forum for communication, issues management and national program coordination across the high performance in Australia. It includes representatives from AIS, State Institute /Academies, Australian Olympic Committee, Australian Paralympic Committee, and the Australian Commonwealth Games Association.


title: Sport in Australia

text: In 2011, "National Institute System Intergovernmental Agreement" provides "guidance on how the sector will operate, with a principal focus on the delivery of the high performance plans of national sporting organisations."


title: Sport in Australia

text: The Australian government provided small amounts of funding in the 1950s and 1960s through the support of the National Fitness Council and international sporting teams such as the Australian Olympic team. The Australian Government's serious involvement and investment into sport came with it establishing the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in 1981. AIS was set up to improve Australia's performances in international sport which had started to decline in the 1960s and 1970s culminating in Australia winning no gold medals at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. In 1985, the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) was established to improve the Australian Government's administration of sport in terms of funding, participation and elite sport. The 1989 Senate Inquiry into drugs in sport resulted in the establishment of the Australian Sport Drug Agency (now called Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA)) in 1990 to manage Australia's anti-doping program.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The highest rates of participation for Australian sport and recreation are informal, non-organised sports with bike riding, skateboarding, rollerblading or riding a scooter topping the list of activities for children, with 66% of all boys bike riding and 55.9% of all boys skateboarding, rollerblading or riding a scooter in 2009 and 2010. Girls also participated in these activities at high rates with 54.4% of them doing bike riding and 42.4% skateboarding, rollerblading or riding a scooter. Other sports popular for Australian girls include dancing, which had 26.3% participation, swimming with 19.8% participation and netball at 17%. For boys, the other popular sports for participation included soccer with a rate of participation of 19.9%, swimming with a participation rate of 17.2%, Australian rules at 16%.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Participation rates for adults in Australia were much lower than that of Australian children. For adult women in Australia, the number one sport activity they participate in is walking with 30% having done this in 2009 and 2010. The second most popular form of exercise and sport was Aerobics/fitness/gym with a rate of 16.7%. The third most popular for adult women was swimming and diving with 8.4%. For men, the most popular sport activity was also walking with a participation rate of 15.6%. This was followed by Aerobics/fitness/gym with 11.2%. The third most popular sport for adult males was cycling/BMXing with a participation rate of 8.2%.


title: Sport in Australia

text: There are 34,000 athletes, officials and coaches currently registered with the Athletics Australia. A 2007 estimate claimed that Australian football had 615,549 participants, Basketball has become one of the most popular participation sports in Australia. In Victoria, and Melbourne, particularly, it has more participants than any other sport. Australia's warm climate and long coastline of sandy beaches and rolling waves provide ideal conditions for water sports such as swimming. The majority of Australians live in cities or towns on or near the coast, and so beaches are a place that millions of Australians visit regularly.


title: Sport in Australia

text: According to the National Cricket Census, a record 1,650,030 people played Cricket across Australia in 2018–19. Women participation also reached record figures in growing to 496,484 players.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Amateur sport in Australia follows a corporate management system, with the national tier composed of national sport organisations that support and fund elite sport development. These organisations include the Australian Institute of Sport and the Australian Sports Commission. Below them is the state level, which includes state sporting organisations, state institute of sport and state departments of sport. The last level is district/regional associations and local clubs and community sports along with local government. At the national level, the national sport organisations govern most sports in Australia, with over 120 different national sports organisation overseeing sport in Australia. The role of government in this structure is important as government funding for most sport in Australia comes from the national government, state and territory governments, and local governments. In the late 1990s, government support for sport was double that of public non-financial corporations.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Amateur sport was transformed in Australia in the 1980s with the creation of the Australian Institute of Sport. The institute, formally opened by Malcolm Fraser in 1981, was designed to make Australian amateur sport at major world competitions, like the Olympics, competitive with the rest of the world and increase the number of medals won by the country. A few years later, in 1984, the Australian Sports Commission was created to better address the distribution of funds to support sport. It had a budget of A$109 million in 2000. By 2009, the Australian Sports Commission had a budget of A$150 million, up from A$5 million when it first was created.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Amateur sport has been able to draw large audiences. In the 1950s, 120,000 fans would go to the MCG to watch major athletics events.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australian amateur sport has dealt with financial problems. In the 2000s, Athletics Australia was facing duel problems of financial problems and failure for the sport to consistently medal at major international sporting events compared to other sports and their representative organisations like Swimming Australia and Rowing Australia.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australian sport fans have historically attended events in large numbers, dating back to the country's early history. An early football game played in Melbourne in 1858 had 2,000 spectators. By 1897, tens of thousands of spectators attended an early Australian rules football match at a time when top level soccer matches in England would draw six thousand fans. A finals match between the Carlton Football Club and Collingwood in 1938 drew 96,834 fans. In 1909, at a time when rugby union had not yet become professionalised, 52,000 people in Sydney attended a game between New South Wales and New Zealand. The spectators accounted for 10% of the total population of Sydney at the time. A world record was set for cricket attendance on 30 December 1932 when 63,993 fans watched England take on Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Total average game attendance for the Australian Football League and the National Rugby League increased between 1970 and 2000, with the AFL going from an average attendance of 24,344 people per match in 1970 to 27,325 by 1980 to 25,238 in 1990 and 34,094 by 2000. The National Rugby League had an average per game attendance of 11,990 in 1970, saw a decrease in 1980 to 10,860 but increased to 12,073 by 1990 and improved on that to 14,043 by 2000. Founded later, the National Basketball League had an average per game attendance of 1,158 in 1985, increased this to 4,551 by 1990, and kept attendance steady with 4,636 average fans per game in 2000.


title: Sport in Australia

text: In March 1999, 104,000 fans attended a double header match in the National Rugby League at Stadium Australia four days after the venue formally opened. In 2000, during the soccer gold medal match between Cameroon and Spain, 114,000 fans watched the game live inside Stadium Australia. In the 2006–07 season, the A-League Melbourne Victory averaged 27,728 people to their home matches throughout the season. The 2009–10 regular season was considerably lower. In 2011, the Australian Football League had a cumulative attendance of 7,139,272, a record for the competition and an average attendance of 36,425. Spectator numbers dropped since then and in 2013 average attendance fell below that of the leading domestic motor racing series International V8 Supercars Championship. In 2010, the National Rugby League's premiership set a record for regular season attendance to NRL matches.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The Big Bash League (BBL) was established in 2011. The first season attracted an average of 18,021 spectators per match. In the 2014–15 season, the average attendance for each match was 23,590 with the Adelaide Strikers attracting a record average home crowd of 36,023 spectators each game. The 2015 Cricket World Cup final was played in front of 93,013 spectators, a record crowd for a day of cricket in Australia. BBL in its sixth season in 2016–17, drew an average crowd in excess of 30,000 for the first time in history, with overall count crossing 1 million for 35 matches.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Media coverage of Australian sport and athletes predates 1876. The first all Australian sport publication, "The Referee", was first published in 1886 in Sydney. The major newspapers for sport coverage in the country include the Sydney Morning Herald, The Courier Mail, the Herald Sun and The West Australian.


title: Sport in Australia

text: There is a long history of television coverage of sports in Australia. From 1957 to 2001, the Seven Network was the network for the Australian Football League. The only year that Seven was not the network for the league was in 1987 when the AFL was on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). An exclusive deal was agreed upon by Seven in 1976 for a five-year deal worth A$3 million.


title: Sport in Australia

text: World Series Cricket was a break away professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 and organised by Kerry Packer for his TV network, Nine. The matches ran in opposition to international cricket. It drastically changed the nature of cricket and its influence continues to be felt today.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Not all sports have had favourable deals with networks. The first television offer for the National Basketball League was worth A$1 in an offered made by Seven that the league accepted. The deal made by Ten Network to the New South Wales Rugby League was worth considerably more, worth A$48 million for a five-year deal that also included broadcasting rights for the State of Origin and the Australia national rugby league team. This deal was terminated early because the network could not afford to pay out.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The 1967 NSWRFL season's grand final became the first football grand final of any code to be televised live in Australia. The Nine Network had paid $5,000 for the broadcasting rights.


title: Sport in Australia

text: SBS and FoxSports are two of the most important television networks in Australia in terms of covering all Australian sports, not just the popular professional leagues. Administrators for less popular spectator sports, such as basketball and netball, believe that getting additional television and newspaper coverage is fundamental for the growth and success of their sports going forward.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Anti-siphoning laws in Australia regulate the media companies' access to significant sporting events. In 1992, when the country experienced growth in paid-subscription media, the Parliament of Australia enacted the Broadcasting Services Act that gave free-to-air broadcasters preferential access to acquire broadcasting rights to sporting events. The anti-siphoning list is a list of major sporting events that the Parliament of Australia has decided must be available for all Australians to see free of charge and cannot be "siphoned off" to pay TV where people are forced to pay to see them. The current anti-siphoning list came into effect in 2006 and expires 31 December 2010. The Minister for Communications can add or remove events from the list at his discretion. There are currently ten sports on the anti-siphoning list plus the Olympic and Commonwealth Games. Events on the anti-siphoning list are delisted 12 weeks before they start to ensure pay TV broadcasters have reasonable access to listed events, if free-to-air broadcasters decide not to purchase the broadcast rights for a particular event. Any rights to listed sporting events that are not acquired by free-to-air broadcasters are available to pay TV. For multi-round events where it is simply not possible for free-to-air networks to broadcast all matches within the event (e.g. the Australian Open) complementary coverage is available on pay television. The Federal Government is obliged by legislation to conduct a review of the list before the end of 2009. The current anti-siphoning list requires showing listed sports on the broadcaster's main channel.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Rugby league, which includes NRL, State of Origin and national team matches, had the highest aggregate television ratings of any sport in 2009 and 2010. Also, in a world first, the Nine Network broadcast free-to-air the first match of the 2010 State of Origin series live in 3D in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Rugby union is currently aired on numerous Nine Entertainment platforms, including Channel 9, 9Gem, and Stan Sport, as part of a A$100 million deal starting in 2021. Super Rugby games are broadcast on 9Gem every Saturday, while all other games are available on Stan Sport. Within a year of the deal starting, the Super Rugby Final had increased its ratings by 13-fold to 1.3 million, with Wallabies International games also experiencing growth.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Cricket Australia announced an unprecedented $590 million deal with free-to-air television networks Nine and Ten in 2013 to broadcast the sport – a 118 per cent increase on the previous five-year contract.


title: Sport in Australia

text: BBL games are currently broadcast in Australia by the free-to-air Network Ten. In 2013 Ten paid $100 million for BBL rights over five years, marking the channel's first foray in elite cricket coverage. Fox Sports had previously covered the Big Bash League.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Network Ten's BBL coverage has become a regular feature of Australian summers and last season attracted an average audience of more than 943,000 people nationally in 2014–15 season, including a peak audience of 1.9 million viewers for the final between the Perth Scorchers and Sydney Sixers.


title: Sport in Australia

text: There are a number of Australian sport films. They include "The Club". The film was based on a play produced in 1977, in Melbourne. It has been in the senior English syllabi for four Australian states for many years. The film was written by David Williamson, directed by Bruce Beresford and starring John Howard, Jack Thompson, Graham Kennedy and Frank Wilson. Another Australian sport film is "The Final Winter", released in 2007. It was directed by Brian Andrews and Jane Forrest and produced by Anthony Coffee, and Michelle Russell, while independently produced it is being distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was written by Matthew Nable who also starred as the lead role 'Grub' Henderson. The film, which earned praise from critics, focuses around Grub who is the captain of the Newtown Jets football team in the early 1980s and his determination to stand for what rugby league traditionally stood for while dealing with his own identity crisis. Other Australian sport films include "Australian Rules" and "Footy Legends".


title: Sport in Australia

text: Sport is popular on the radio. "This Sporting Life" was a culturally iconic Triple J radio comedy program created by actor-writer comedians John Doyle and Greig Pickhaver, who performed as their characters Roy and HG. Broadcast from 1986 to 2008, it was one of the longest-running, most popular and most successful radio comedy programs of the post-television era in Australia. It was the longest-running show in Triple J's programming history and commanded a large and dedicated nationwide audience throughout its 22-year run. 2KY is a commercial radio station based in Sydney, broadcasting throughout New South Wales and Canberra on a network of over 140 narrowcast transmitters as well as the main 1017 AM frequency in Sydney. 2KY broadcasts live commentary of thoroughbred, harness and greyhound racing. Over 1500 races are covered each week, including the pre and post race form and TAB betting information.


title: Sport in Australia

text: There are a number of Australian sport magazines. One is the "AFL Record". The magazine is published in a sports magazine style format. Eight different versions, one for each game, are published for each weekly round, 60,000 copies in total, and Roy Morgan Research estimates that the "Record" has a weekly readership of over 200,000. As of 2009, the week's records are published and are able to be viewed in an online magazine format. Another Australian sporting magazine is "Australia's Surfing Life", a monthly magazine about surfing published in Australia. It features articles about surf trips in Australia and overseas, surfing technique, board design and wetsuits. The magazine was founded in 1985.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australia participate in many international competitions, such as the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Cricket World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Rugby League World Cup, FIFA World Cup, the Basketball World Cup for both men's and women's, Netball World Cup, World Baseball Classic and the Hockey World Cup.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The Australian national cricket team have participated in every edition of the Cricket World Cup. Australia have been very successful in the event, winning the tournament five times, the record number.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The Australian national Rugby league team have also participated in every edition of the Rugby League World Cup. Australia have been very successful in the event, winning the tournament 11 times, the record number.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The Australian national Rugby union team have participated in every Rugby World Cup. Australia have been very successful in the tournament, winning it two times despite it not being a major sport in Australia.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australia's women have repeatedly won at the highest level. The Australian national netball team have won the Netball World Cup a record 11 times. The Australian women's national cricket team have won the Women's Cricket World Cup a record five times. The Australian women's national field hockey team have won the gold medal at the Olympics and the Women's Hockey World Cup three and two times respectively.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The Australia women's national basketball team, known as the Opals, regularly compete well against the world elite at the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup, having won the event in 2006, finished second in 2018 and finished third three times, and at the Summer Olympics Basketball Tournament, where they have won silver medals three times and bronze medals twice.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The Australia national soccer team have appeared at the FIFA World Cup in 1974, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022. At the 2006 World Cup, the Socceroos surprised many by reaching the Round of 16, losing 1–0 in injury time to the eventual champions, Italy. They also hold the unusual distinction of having won continental soccer championships of two confederations – Oceania's OFC Nations Cup four times between 1980 and 2004 and, after moving to the Asian Football Confederation in 2005, the AFC Asian Cup in 2015. The Australia women's national soccer team, the Matildas, have appeared in all FIFA Women's World Cups except the first in 1991. They have advanced past the group stage in each of the last four editions of the competition (2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019), losing in the quarter-finals in the first three of these editions and the round of 16 in 2019. In 2015, they became the first senior Australian national team of either sex to win a World Cup knockout stage match, specifically in the round of 16, newly instituted for the Women's World Cup in that year. The Matildas have also enjoyed success at the AFC Women's Asian Cup, advancing at least to the semi-finals in all five competitions since joining the AFC in 2006 and winning in 2010. Australia will co-host the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup alongside New Zealand.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australia are the most successful side at the Underwater Hockey World Championships, winning 25 titles including 11 men's elite championships and 8 women's elite championships.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australia has also hosted a number of major international sporting events, including the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2000 Summer Olympics. The country also regularly hosts a major tennis Grand Slam event, the Australian Open, an FIA Formula One World Championship round (Australian Grand Prix), motorcycle MotoGP round (Australian motorcycle Grand Prix), as well as rounds of the Superbike World Championship, World Rally Championship alongside major domestically created, internationally recognised events including the Melbourne Cup and the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australia has hosted the 1992 Cricket World Cup and the 2015 Cricket World Cup along with New Zealand. The 2015 Cricket World Cup generated more than A$1.1 billion in direct spending, created the equivalent of 8,320 full-time jobs, and had a total of 2 million bed nights across the two host countries. Australia has also hosted the 2003 Rugby World Cup, with the event generating around A$1 billion in economic activity while bringing in 2 million visitors to the country.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The Olympic movement in Australia started out during the 1900s and 1910s. The first organisations for the Olympics in Australia came out of the athletics governance system and resulted in the creation of state based Olympic committees. The first national governing body for Australian Olympics was created in 1914 and was a joint effort with New Zealand though New Zealand was a less than able partner. The movement in Australia then stagnated as a result of the Great War. The New Zealand and Australian organisation was disbanded and an Australian only national organisation was founded in 1920 called the Australian Olympic Federation. The early goals of the organisation were to ratify team selection and to fundraise to assist Olympians in paying for their travel to compete at the Games. By the 1980s, the organisation had issues on the international level as the IOC wanted them to re-structure; until this time, the organisation followed governance models similar to that of other Australian sporting organisations with a federated model of governance. Changes were made the organisation ended up with an executive board with a president, two vice presidents, a secretary general and a 14-member executive board which had 10 elected members, 4 IOC members and 2 members of the Athlete's Commission.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australia has hosted the Olympics twice, in 1956 in Melbourne and in 2000 in Sydney. These were the first Games hosted in the southern hemisphere. Brisbane will host the 2032 Summer Games.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australia has been influential in the Olympic movement, with four Australian representatives who are members of the International Olympic Committee.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The government has provided monetary support for the Olympics. In the lead up to the 1924 Games, they provided 3,000 pounds and in 1936 provided 2,000 pounds. This support was seen as a way of supporting national identity, but no formal system existed for the funding wider sport at the time.


title: Sport in Australia

text: The 1956 Games were the first time Australia had an Equestrian competitor when Victorian Ernie Barker competed. Australia has generally been a world power in Olympic swimming since the 1956 Melbourne Olympics: swimmers like Shane Gould, Dawn Fraser, Ian Thorpe, Kieren Perkins and Ariarne Titmus have taken multiple gold medals.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australia performed relatively poorly at the 1976 Summer Olympics. This upset the nation as it challenged a fundamental part of Australian identity. The following Olympics, the 1980 Summer Olympics, some Australian sports sat out as part of a boycott and the country earned only nine medals, two of them gold, in Moscow. To prevent a recurrence of this, the Australian Institute of Sport was created to help improve Australia's medal tally at the Games.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Channel Seven had exclusive Australian free-to-air, pay television, online and mobile telephone broadcast rights to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The live telecast of the 2008 Summer Olympics was shared by the Seven Network and SBS Television. Seven broadcast the opening and closing ceremonies and mainstream sports, including swimming, athletics, rowing, cycling, and gymnastics. In contrast, SBS TV provided complementary coverage focused on long-form events such as soccer, road cycling, volleyball, and table tennis.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australia has attended every Summer Paralympics and hosted the 2000 Sydney Games. Australia sent a delegation of 170 athletes to compete at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, and a team of 11 competitors to compete in two disciplines at the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. A team of 161 members was sent to the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.


title: Sport in Australia

text: Australians take the Commonwealth Games seriously because, on one level of national thinking, the event offers the country an opportunity to prove they are superior to the "original country", the United Kingdom. By the 1938 British Empire Games, Australia's combined medal total was already greater than that of the Home Nations tallies combined. Australia would go on to beat England in total medals at the Commonwealth Games in 1950, 1962, 1970, 1974 and 1982. This rivalry with England continues to be an important component of the games for the country.


title: 2003 NFL season

text: Regular-season play was held from September 4, 2003, to December 28, 2003. Due to damage caused by the Cedar Fire, Qualcomm Stadium was used as an emergency shelter, and thus the Miami–San Diego regular-season match on October 27 was instead played at Sun Devil Stadium, the home field of the Arizona Cardinals. This was the first season in NFL history where every team won at least 4 games.


title: 2003 NFL season

text: The playoffs began on January 3, 2004. The NFL title was won by the Patriots when they defeated the Panthers, in Super Bowl XXXVIII at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas, on February 1.


title: 2003 NFL season

text: This was the last season until the 2016 NFL season where neither of the previous Super Bowl participants made the playoffs.


title: 2003 NFL season

text: The 2003 NFL Draft was held from April 26 to 27, 2003 at New York City's Theater at Madison Square Garden. With the first pick, the Cincinnati Bengals selected quarterback Carson Palmer from the University of Southern California.


title: 2003 NFL season

text: Dick Hantak and Bob McElwee retired in the 2003 off-season. Hantak joined the league as a back judge (the position title was changed to field judge in 1998) in 1978, and was assigned Super Bowl XVII in that position. He was promoted to referee in 1986, working Super Bowl XXVII. McElwee joined the NFL in 1976 as a line judge, and became a referee in 1980. He was the referee for three Super Bowls: XXII, XXVIII, and XXXIV. Walt Anderson and Pete Morelli were promoted to referee to replace Hantak and McElwee.


title: 2003 NFL season

text: This was the sixth year under the league's eight-year broadcast contracts with ABC, CBS, Fox, and ESPN to televise "Monday Night Football", the AFC package, the NFC package, and "Sunday Night Football", respectively.


title: 2003 NFL season

text: At Fox, Tony Siragusa joined Dick Stockton and Daryl Johnston on the network's #2 broadcast team in a sideline analyst role instead of the traditional sideline reporter.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: Kaoru Ishibashi (born November 4, 1975), who performs as Kishi Bashi, is an American singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter currently based in Athens, Georgia. He was a founding member of Jupiter One and, for a few years, was a member of the band of Montreal. He embarked on his career as a solo artist in 2011, releasing his debut album "151a" at Joyful Noise Recordings in 2012 to immediate fanfare and critical acclaim.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: Born in Seattle, Washington, Kishi Bashi grew up in Norfolk, Virginia where both of his parents were professors at Old Dominion University. His mother is from Naha, Okinawa Prefecture and his father is from Iga, Mie Prefecture. After graduating from Matthew Fontaine Maury High School in 1994, he went to Cornell University College of Engineering. At Cornell he co-founded a band named Tamarisk. After flunking out of Cornell, he went to study film scoring at Berklee College of Music before becoming a violinist.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: Kishi Bashi is also the singer and founding member of the New York electronic rock outfit, Jupiter One. In 2011, he started to record and perform as a solo artist, recorded and toured internationally as a violinist with diverse artists such as Regina Spektor, opening for Sondre Lerche, Alexi Murdoch, and of Montreal. He supported of Montreal on their spring 2012 tour.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: Shortly after Ishibashi debuted his full-length solo album "151a" on Indianapolis label Joyful Noise Recordings, NPR All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen listed Kishi Bashi as his favorite new artist of 2012 noting that he created "a radiant, uplifting soundscape" with songs such as "Bright Whites." In the same year, Microsoft licensed "Bright Whites" for use in a commercial for Windows 8. Around the same time, Sony used Kishi Bashi's song "It All Began With A Burst" from the same album for a commercial introducing their Xperia Tablet S. In addition to these placements, Smart licensed "Chester's Burst Over The Hamptons" for their line of smart cars in the United States.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: Kishi Bashi has since been invited to play in major festivals such as SXSW and Austin City Limits and gone on an extensive US tour with supporting acts such as The Last Bison (from his native Hampton Roads, Virginia). In early 2013, Kishi Bashi held a North American tour across the United States and Canada, continuing in EU and UK in spring 2013.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: In 2014 Kishi Bashi released his own line of coffee through Jittery Joe's called Royal Daark Blend. Each purchase comes with an exclusive song download.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: Kishi Bashi's songs are frequently synced. His music also appears in "Banana Split", "The Babysitter's Club", "God Friended Me", "Into The Dark", Atypical, the DC Universe's "Titans" series, and others. He composed the soundtrack for the Apple + TV series "Stillwater", and wrote the theme song to the television series "Shrill". In July 2021, Kishi Bashi's song "I Am the Antichrist to You" was featured in season 5 episode 3 "A Rickconvenient Mort" of the animated television series "Rick and Morty".


title: Kishi Bashi

text: Kishi Bashi's first EP, "Room For Dream", came out in May 2011 on Aerobic International. "Room For Dream" features four songs, including a duet with Kevin Barnes and can only be purchased from downloading platforms such as iTunes or Bandcamp.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: His live show is a solo performance based on live violin and vocal looping and beat boxing. He has often been compared to Andrew Bird and Owen Pallett.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: Kishi Bashi's first full-length record, "151a", was released by Joyful Noise Recordings on April 10, 2012 after receiving partial funding through Kickstarter. The title '151a' refers to the Japanese term 一期一会 (pronounced the same way '151a' is in Japanese), which carries a meaning similar to "once in a lifetime". The three b-sides from the "Room For Dream" EP ("Conversations at the End of the World," "Evalyn, Summer has Arrived," and "Unicorns Die When You Leave") are included on the Australian/NZ edition of '151a' as bonus tracks. The Australian/NZ edition also replaces "Intro / Pathos, Pathos" with an instrumental version of the same track.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: Kishi Bashi's second full-length album, "Lighght" (pronounced "light") was released on Joyful Noise Recordings on May 13, 2014. The album's title is a one-word poem by Aram Saroyan.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: His third studio album, "Sonderlust", was released on September 16, 2016 by Joyful Noise Recordings. It was produced by Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear.


title: Kishi Bashi

text: On December 7, 2017, Ishibashi started a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for a documentary film titled "Omoiyari: A Songfilm by Kishi Bashi", which was released on March 14, 2022. The film details the struggles faced by incarcerated Japanese Americans during World War II. An album of songs created for the film was released by Joyful Noise Recordings on May 31, 2019, marking it as his fourth studio album.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Dame Florence Marjorie Wilcox ("née" Robertson; 20 October 1904 – 3 June 1986), known professionally as Anna Neagle, was an English stage and film actress, singer, and dancer.


title: Anna Neagle

text: She was a successful box-office draw in the British cinema for 20 years and was voted the most popular star in Britain in 1949. She was known for providing glamour and sophistication to war-torn London audiences with her lightweight musicals, comedies, and historical dramas. Almost all of her films were produced and directed by Herbert Wilcox, whom she married in 1943.


title: Anna Neagle

text: In her historical dramas, Neagle was renowned for her portrayals of British historical figures, including Nell Gwyn ("Nell Gwyn", 1934), Queen Victoria ("Victoria the Great", 1937 and "Sixty Glorious Years", 1938), Edith Cavell ("Nurse Edith Cavell", 1939), and Florence Nightingale ("The Lady with a Lamp", 1951).


title: Anna Neagle

text: Neagle was born in Forest Gate, Essex, daughter of Florence Neagle and her husband, Herbert William Robertson, a Merchant Navy captain. Her elder brother was the bass-baritone and actor Stuart Robertson (1901–1958). Robertson attended primary school in Glasgow and then St Albans High School for Girls. She made her stage debut as a dancer in 1917, and later appeared in the chorus of C.B. Cochran's revues and also André Charlot's revue "Bubbly". While with Cochran, she understudied Jessie Matthews.


title: Anna Neagle

text: In 1931, she starred in the West End musical "Stand Up and Sing" with actor Jack Buchanan, who encouraged her to take a featured role. For this play, she began using the professional name Anna Neagle (the surname being her mother's maiden name). The play was a success with a total run of 604 performances. "Stand Up and Sing" provided her big break when film producer and director Herbert Wilcox caught the show to consider Buchanan for an upcoming film, but also took note of her cinematic potential.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Forming a professional alliance with Wilcox, Neagle played her first starring film role in the musical "Goodnight, Vienna" (1932), again with Jack Buchanan. With this film, Neagle became an overnight favourite. Although the film cost a mere £23,000 to produce, it was a hit at the box office, with profits from its Australian release alone being £150,000.


title: Anna Neagle

text: After her starring role in "The Flag Lieutenant" (also 1932), directed by and co-starring Henry Edwards, she worked exclusively under Wilcox's direction for all but one of her subsequent films, becoming one of Britain's biggest stars.


title: Anna Neagle

text: She continued in the musical genre, co-starring with Fernand Gravey (later known as Fernand Gravet) in "Bitter Sweet" (1933). This first version of Noël Coward's tale of ill-fated lovers was later obscured by the better known Jeanette MacDonald–Nelson Eddy remake in 1940.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Neagle had her first major success with "Nell Gwyn" (1934), which Wilcox had previously shot as a silent starring Dorothy Gish in 1926. Neagle's performance as Gwyn, who became the mistress of Charles II (played by Cedric Hardwicke) prompted some censorship in the United States. The Hays Office had Wilcox add a (historically false) scene featuring the two leads getting married and also a "framing" story resulting in an entirely different ending. Graham Greene, then a film critic, said of "Nell Gwyn": "I have seen few things more attractive than Miss Neagle in breeches".


title: Anna Neagle

text: Two years after "Nell Gwyn", she followed up with another real-life figure, portraying Irish actress Peg Woffington in "Peg of Old Drury" (1936). That same year, she appeared in "Limelight", a backstage film musical in which she played a chorus girl. Her co-star was Arthur Tracy, who had gained fame in the United States as a radio performer known as the Street Singer. The film also featured Jack Buchanan in an uncredited cameo. performing "Goodnight Vienna".


title: Anna Neagle

text: Neagle and Wilcox followed with a circus trapeze fable "Three Maxims" (1937), which was released in the United States as "The Show Goes On". The film, with a script featuring a contribution from Herman J. Mankiewicz (later to co-write "Citizen Kane" with Orson Welles), had Neagle performing her own high-wire acrobatics. Although now highly successful in films, Neagle continued acting on stage. In 1934, while working under director Robert Atkins, she performed as Rosalind in "As You Like It" and Olivia in "Twelfth Night". Both productions earned her critical accolades, despite the fact that she had never performed Shakespearean roles before.


title: Anna Neagle

text: In 1937, Neagle gave her most prestigious performance so far – as Queen Victoria in the historical drama "Victoria the Great" (1937), co-starring Anton Walbrook as Prince Albert. The script by Robert Vansittart and Miles Malleson (from Laurence Housman's play "Victoria Regina") alternated between the political and the personal lives of the royal couple. The Diamond Jubilee sequence that climaxed the film was shot in Technicolor. "Victoria the Great" was such an international success that it resulted in Neagle and Walbrook playing their roles again in an all-Technicolor sequel entitled "Sixty Glorious Years" (1938), co-starring C. Aubrey Smith as the Duke of Wellington. While the first of these films was in release, Neagle returned to the London stage and entertained audiences with her portrayal of the title role in "Peter Pan".


title: Anna Neagle

text: The success of "Victoria the Great" and "Sixty Glorious Years" caused Hollywood studios to take notice. Neagle and Wilcox began an association with RKO Radio Pictures. Their first American film was "Nurse Edith Cavell" (1939), a remake of "Dawn", a Wilcox silent that starred Sybil Thorndike. In this, another Neagle role based on an actual British heroine, she played the role of the nurse who was shot by the Germans in World War I for alleged spying. The resulting effort had a significant impact for audiences on the eve of war.


title: Anna Neagle

text: In a turnabout from this serious drama, the couple followed with three musical comedies, all based on once-popular stage plays. The first of these was "Irene" (1940), co-starring Ray Milland. It included a Technicolor sequence, which featured Neagle singing the play's most famous song, "Alice Blue Gown". She followed this film with "No, No, Nanette" (1940) with Victor Mature, in which she sang "Tea For Two", and "Sunny" (1941), with Ray Bolger.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Neagle and Wilcox's final American film was "Forever and a Day" (1943), a tale of a London family house from 1804 to the 1940 blitz. This film boasts 80 performers (mostly expatriate British), including Ray Milland, C. Aubrey Smith, Claude Rains, Charles Laughton, and – among the few North Americans – Buster Keaton. Wilcox directed the sequence featuring Neagle, Milland, Smith, and Rains, while other directors who worked on the film included René Clair, Edmund Goulding, Frank Lloyd, Victor Saville, and Robert Stevenson. During the war, the profits and salaries were given to war relief. After the war, prints were intended to be destroyed, so that no one could profit from them, but this never occurred.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Returning to the UK, Neagle and Wilcox commenced with "They Flew Alone" (1942; shot after but released before "Forever and a Day"). Neagle this time played aviator Amy Johnson, who had recently died in a flying accident. Robert Newton co-starred as Johnson's husband, Jim Mollison. The film intercut the action with newsreel footage.


title: Anna Neagle

text: They continued with "Yellow Canary" (1943), co-starring Richard Greene and Margaret Rutherford. In this spy story, Neagle plays a German-sympathiser (or at least that is what she seems to be at first), who is forced to go to Canada for her own safety. In reality, of course, she is working as an undercover agent out to expose a plot to blow up Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia. "Yellow Canary" received positive comment for its atmospheric recreation of wartime conditions.


title: Anna Neagle

text: In 1945, Neagle appeared on stage in "Emma", a dramatisation of Jane Austen's novel. That same year, she was seen in the film "I Live in Grosvenor Square", co-starring Rex Harrison. She wanted Harrison for the lead in her next film, "Piccadilly Incident" (1946). However, he (as well as John Mills) proved to be unavailable at the time, so Wilcox cast Michael Wilding in the lead. Thus was born what film critic Godfrey Winn called "the greatest team in British films". The story – of a wife, presumed dead, returning to her (remarried) husband – bears a resemblance to the Irene Dunne–Cary Grant comedy "My Favorite Wife". "Piccadilly Incident" was chosen as "Picturegoer's" Best Film of 1947. Despite the fact that Neagle was some eight years senior to Wilding, they proved to be an extremely bankable romantic pairing at the British box office. By now in her mid-40s, Neagle continued to have success in youthful and romantic lead roles.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Neagle and Wilding were reunited in "The Courtneys of Curzon Street" (1947), a period drama that became the year's top box-office attraction. The film featured Wilding as an upper-class dandy and Neagle as the maid he marries, only to have the two of them driven apart by Victorian society.


title: Anna Neagle

text: The third pairing of Neagle and Wilding in the "London Films", as the series of films came to be called, was in "Spring in Park Lane" (1948). A drama, this depicted the romance between a millionaire's niece and a footman (actually a nobleman who has seen better days). The script was written by Nicholas Phipps, who also played Wilding's brother. Although not a musical, it contains a dream sequence featuring the song "The Moment I Saw You". "Spring in Park Lane" was the 1949 "Picturegoer" winner for Best Film, Actor, and Actress. Neagle and Wilding were together for a fourth time in the Technicolor romance "Maytime in Mayfair" (1949). The plot is reminiscent of "Roberta", as it had Wilding inheriting a dress shop owned by Neagle.


title: Anna Neagle

text: By now, Neagle was at her peak as Britain's top box-office actress, and she made what reputedly became her own favourite film, "Odette" (1950), co-starring Trevor Howard, Peter Ustinov, and Marius Goring. As Odette Sansom, she was the Anglo-French resistance fighter who was pushed to the edge of betrayal by the Nazis. In 1950, Neagle and Wilcox moved to the top-floor flat in Aldford House overlooking Park Lane, which was their home until 1964. She played Florence Nightingale in "The Lady with a Lamp" (1951), based on the 1929 play by Reginald Berkeley.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Returning to the stage in 1953, she scored a success with "The Glorious Days", which had a run of 476 performances. Neagle and Wilcox brought the play to the screen under the title "Lilacs in the Spring" (1954), co-starring Errol Flynn. In the film, she plays an actress knocked out by a bomb, who dreams she is Queen Victoria and Nell Gwyn, as well as her own mother. As she begins dreaming, the film switches from black-and-white to colour. In Britain, where Neagle had top billing, the film was reasonably successful. In the United States, however, where Flynn had top billing, the title was changed to "Let's Make Up", and it flopped, with limited bookings.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Neagle and Flynn reteamed for a second film, "King's Rhapsody" (1955), based on an Ivor Novello musical and also starring Patrice Wymore (Flynn's wife at the time). Although Neagle performed several musical numbers for the film, most of them were cut from the final release, leaving her with essentially a supporting role. Shot in Eastmancolor and CinemaScope with location work near Barcelona, Spain, "King's Rhapsody" was a major flop everywhere. Neagle's (and Flynn's) box-office appeal, it seemed, was fading.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Neagle's last box-office hit was "My Teenage Daughter" (1956), which featured her as a mother trying to prevent her daughter (Sylvia Syms) from lapsing into juvenile delinquency.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Neagle and Syms worked together again on "No Time for Tears" (1957), also starring Anthony Quayle and Flora Robson. As directed by Cyril Frankel, this was the first film for over 20 years where Neagle was directed by someone other than Herbert Wilcox. Set in a children's hospital, the film features Neagle as a matron dealing with the problems of the patients and the staff, notably a nurse (Syms) infatuated with one of the doctors (George Baker).


title: Anna Neagle

text: With her husband, Neagle began producing films starring Frankie Vaughan, but these were out of touch with changing tastes, and lost money, resulting in Wilcox going heavily into debt. Neagle herself made her final film appearance in "The Lady Is a Square" (1959), also Wilcox's last film as director.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Neagle was the subject of "This Is Your Life" on two occasions, in February 1958 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre, and in March 1983, when Andrews surprised her at London's Royal National Hotel.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Herbert Wilcox was bankrupt by 1964, but his wife soon revived his fortunes. She returned to the stage the following year and made a comeback in the West End musical "Charlie Girl". In it, she played the role of a former "Cochran Young Lady" who marries a peer of the realm. "Charlie Girl" was not a critical success, but it ran for six years and 2,047 performances. It earned Neagle an entry in the "Guinness Book of World Records" for her enduring popularity.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Two years after "Charlie Girl" – which she also performed in Australia and New Zealand – Neagle was asked to appear in a revival of "No, No, Nanette", at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, having appeared in the screen version three decades earlier. Later, in 1975, she replaced Celia Johnson in "The Dame of Sark" and, in 1978 (the year after her husband's death), she was acting in "Most Gracious Lady", which was written for the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Although affected by Parkinson's disease in her last years, Neagle continued to be active. She appeared in Cameron Mackintosh's revival of "My Fair Lady" and in 1985 she appeared as the Fairy Godmother in a production of "Cinderella" at the London Palladium.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Neagle died aged 81 from breast cancer on 3 June 1986. A Memorial service at Westminster Abbey followed on 20 October 1986. She was interred alongside her husband in the City of London Cemetery. Their grave was recommemorated by Princess Anne, the Princess Royal on 6 March 2014.


title: Anna Neagle

text: A memorial plaque on her former home at Aldford House, Park Lane was unveiled on 30 May 1996, by Princess Anne and Lana Morris. She also has a memorial plaque in St Paul's Church, the Actors' Church in Covent Garden.


title: Anna Neagle

text: Neagle was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1952 New Year Honours and, for her contributions to the theatre, a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1969 Birthday Honours.


title: Anna Neagle

text: The following list contains all of Neagle's acting credits in feature-length films with the exception of "Queen Victoria" (1942), which is actually a compilation of two earlier films, "Victoria the Great" and "Sixty Glorious Years". All of her films were directed by Herbert Wilcox and produced in the United Kingdom unless otherwise noted.


title: Anna Neagle

text: In addition, Neagle also appeared briefly as herself in a documentary short entitled "The Volunteer" (1943), and served as narrator for the films "The Prams Break Through" (1945) and "Princess's Wedding Day" (1947). Neagle also produced, but did not appear in, three films starring Frankie Vaughan: "These Dangerous Years" (1957), "Wonderful Things" (1957), and "The Heart of a Man" (1959).


title: Anna Neagle

text: Annual polls of British exhibitors for the "Motion Picture Herald" consistently listed Neagle as a leading box office star in her home country.


title: Ahir

text: Ahir or Aheer are a community of traditionally non-elite pastoralists in India, most members of which identify as being of the Indian Yadav community because they consider the two terms to be synonymous. The Ahirs are variously described as a caste, a clan, a community, a race and a tribe.


title: Ahir

text: The traditional occupations of Ahirs are cattle-herding and agriculture. Since late 19th century to early 20th century, Ahirs have adopted "Yadav" word for their community and have claimed descent from the mythological king Yadu as a part of a movement of social and political resurgence through Sanskritisation process under the influence of Arya Samaj. They are found throughout India but are particularly concentrated in the northern area. Apart from India, Ahirs have significant population in Nepal, Mauritius, Fiji, South Africa and the Caribbean especially Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. In Mauritius and Caribbean they are mostly the descendants of settlers who arrived between the 19th and 20th centuries from the former pre-partitioned sub-continent of India during the time of the British Raj. Ahirs in India are known by numerous other names, including Gauli and Ghosi or Gop in North India. In Gujarat and South India as Ayar, Golla and Konar. Some in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh are known as Dauwa. The Ahirs have more than 20 sub-castes.


title: Ahir

text: Gaṅga Ram Garg considers the Ahir to be a tribe descended from the ancient Abhira community, whose precise location in India is the subject of various theories based mostly on interpretations of old texts such as the "Mahabharata" and the writings of Ptolemy. He believes the word "Ahir" to be the Prakrit form of a Sanskrit word, "Abhira", and he notes that the present term in the Bengali and Marathi languages is "Abhir".


title: Ahir

text: Garg distinguishes a Brahmin community who use the "Abhira" name and are found in the present-day states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. That usage, he says, is because that division of Brahmins were priests to the ancient Abhira tribe.


title: Ahir

text: Theories regarding the origins of the ancient Abhira – the putative ancestors of the Ahirs – are varied for the same reasons as are the theories regarding their location; that is, there is a reliance on interpretation of linguistic and factual analysis of old texts that are known to be unreliable and ambiguous.


title: Ahir

text: Some, such as A. P. Karmakar, consider the Abhira to be a Proto-Dravidian tribe who migrated to India and point to the "Puranas" as evidence. Others, such as Sunil Kumar Bhattacharya, say that the Abhira are recorded as being in India in the 1st-century CE work, the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea". Bhattacharya considers the Abhira of old to be a race rather than a tribe. The sociologist M. S. A. Rao and historians such as P. M. Chandorkar and T. Padmaja say that epigraphical and historical evidence exists for equating the Ahirs with the ancient Yadava tribe.


title: Ahir

text: Whether they were a race or a tribe, nomadic in tendency or displaced or part of a conquering wave, with origins in Indo-Scythia or Central Asia, Aryan or Dravidian – there is no academic consensus, and much in the differences of opinion relate to fundamental aspects of historiography, such as controversies regarding dating the writing of the "Mahabharata" and acceptance or otherwise of the Indo-Aryan migration (which is universally accepted in mainstream scholarship). Similarly, there is no certainty regarding the occupational status of the Abhira, with ancient texts sometimes referring to them as pastoral and cowherders but at other times as robber tribes.


title: Ahir

text: The British rulers of India classified the Ahirs of Punjab as an "agricultural tribe" in the 1920s, which was at that time synonymous with being a "martial race". This was a designation created by administrators that classified each ethnic group as either "martial" or "non-martial": a "martial race" was typically considered brave and well built for fighting, whilst the remainder were those whom the British believed to be unfit for battle because of their sedentary lifestyles. However, the martial races were also considered politically subservient, intellectually inferior, lacking the initiative or leadership qualities to command large military formations. The British had a policy of recruiting the martial Indians from those who has less access to education as they were easier to control. According to modern historian Jeffrey Greenhunt on military history, "The Martial Race theory had an elegant symmetry. Indians who were intelligent and educated were defined as cowards, while those defined as brave were uneducated and backward". According to Amiya Samanta, the marital race was chosen from people of mercenary spirit (a soldier who fights for any group or country that will pay him/her), as these groups lacked nationalism as a trait. Ahirs had been recruited into the army from 1898. In that year, the British raised four Ahir companies, two of which were in the 95th Russell's Infantry. In post-independence India, some Ahir units have been involved in celebrated military actions, such as at Rezang La in the 1962 Sino-Indian War that saw the last stand of Charlie company, consisting of 114 Ahirs of 13 Kumaon, and in the 1965 India-Pakistan War.