History Of Hockey.
Field Hockey is the oldest known
stick-and-ball game.
Historical records show that game was
played in various antique civilizations, although it is not possible
to know exactly when and where the game began. 4,000-year-old
drawings found in the Beni-Hasen tombs, in the Nile Valley, Egypt
depicted men playing the sport.
Other traces show that the Arabs, the
Greeks, the Persians, the Romans, the Ethiopians, as well as the
Aztecs were playing their own variation of the game. In the Middle
Ages, a French form of the game, called hoquet was played. Other
early games can be identified to field hockey, such as hurling and
Shinty.
While modern hockey appears in the mid-18th century
in England, primarily around schools institutions.
Not until the first half of the 19th
century that hockey became firmly established, when the first club,
Blackheath, was created in 1849 in Southeast London, England.
Blackheath and its fellow clubs have introduced most of the current
characteristics of the hockey we know today, such as the use of a
spherical ball, and the striking circle. A little while after, in
1889, the first women's hockey club appeared in East Mosley,
England. For a long time, hockey was considered as the only sport
proper for women.
In the late 19th century, largely due to the British army, the game
spread throughout the British Empire, leading to the first
international competition in 1895. Hockey first appeared at the
Olympic Games as a men's competition at 1908 Olympic Games in
London, with only three teams: England, Ireland and Scotland. Men's
hockey became a permanent fixture at the Olympics at the 1928
Olympic Games, at Amsterdam. Women had to wait until Moscow Games,
in 1980, to be incorporated in the Olympic program.
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