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Gaelic Football is a 15-a-side variation of football somewhat like a compromise between Association Football and Rugby.
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A gaff is a ring used for cock-fighting.
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A gaffle is a metal spur fitted to a cock for fighting.
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Games is a name of certain sports or amusements carried on under regular rules and methods, as with cards or dice, billiards, tennis, etc. Among the ancients there were public games or sports, exhibited on solemn occasions, in which various kinds of contests were introduced. The Grecian games were national festivals attended by spectators and competitors from all parts of Greece, the chief being the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian. They consisted of chariot races, running, wrestling, and boxing matches, etc, and to be victorious in one of these contests was esteemed one of the highest honours of a Greek citizen. The Roman games (ludi) were held chiefly at the festivals of the gods. They might, however, be exhibited by private persons to please the people, as the combats of gladiators, theatrical representations, combats of wild beasts in the amphitheatre, etc.
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Garmisch is a bobsleigh course at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps. It was built for the 1936 winter Olympic games but opened in time to stage the world championships in 1934.
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Garryowen RFC is a rugby union football club in Doorodoyle, County Limerick founded in 1884.
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The Gezira Club is the main sporting club in Egypt and is situated close to the centre of Cairo.
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A gig is a whipping top, made in the form of a 'V'. Gigs were popular children's toys before the discovery of electricity.
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Gilera are an Italian manufacturer of racing motorbikes.
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The Gillette Cup is a trophy awarded annually to the winner of the
Gillette Cup competition in English cricket. The competition is conducted on a knock-out basis between the 17 first-class county sides and the 5 leading counties in the Minor Counties championship of the previous season. The competition was instituted in 1963 as an antidote to flagging interest in the county championship proper and was an immediate success with the public.
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Gilli Danda is an indigenous outdoor team or individual game played in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan with slight variations. Basically the game involves two sticks, one of which is propelled into the air by the other and the opposing team try to catch it.
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The Giro D'Italia (Tour of Italy) is an annual stage race for professional cyclists. It was first held in 1909 and was modelled on the Tour de France.
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The Glaciarium was the world's first mechanically-refrigerated ice skating rink. It was built in 1876 near the King's Road in London by John Gamgee.
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Gleek, also known as cleek, is a three player card game that was popular in England in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Gleek is played with a deck of cards without the two and threes, twelve cards being dealt to each player, eight cards being left for the stock which is offered in rotation to the players for purchase. The trumps are called Tiddly, Tumbler, Tib, Tom and Towser. A set of three cards all alike is called a gleek, and four of a kind is called a mournival.
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Gleneagles is a Scottish hotel golf course in the Grampian foothills.
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Glentoran FC is an Association Football club in Belfast formed in 1882. Their home ground is the Oval which is in the east of Belfast. A successful team, they have been Irish league Champions more than 19 times, Irish Cup Winners 16 times, and Gold Cup Winners 11 times.
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Go Fish is a card game the object of which is to collect books, which are sets of four cards of the same rank, by asking other players for cards you think they may have. Whoever collects most sets wins. The basic idea is very simple and it is often thought of as a children's game.
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In quoits and pitch-and-toss, the target mark is known as a 'gog'.
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The Golden Gloves is a famous American amateur boxing match. It was started in 1928 as an inter- cities competition between Chicago and New York, sponsored by the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News. Winners received a gold medal and a pair of miniature golden gloves.
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The Golden Slipper Stakes is the most valuable and important horse-race for two-year-olds in Australia. It is run over six furlongs at the Rosehill track, Sydney, in March.
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Golden Ten is a card game for three to seven players, related to Hearts, played with a Rook deck of 56 cards. The cards are of four colours: red, yellow, blue and black. In each colour there are cards numbered from 14 (high) to 1 (low). The aim is to avoid winning tricks containing red cards (especially the 5 and 10), while trying to win the trick containing the yellow 10 if you can.
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Golf is a game played with clubs and balls over large commons, downs, or links. It is said to have originated in Holland, and the word golf itself is doubtfully derived from the Dutch kolf, a club. It has been played in Scotland for centuries, and there are several references to the game in Scottish Acts of Parliament, as in one passed in 1491 under James IV, which classes football and 'gouff' with 'uthir sic unproffitable sportis'. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that the game really began to take root in England, although the golf club with the oldest records is that at Blackheath, founded by James I, or his Scottish courtiers. Apart from this, the first English golf club was started at Westward Ho, Devon, in 1864; and gradually this was followed by other clubs all over the country. The Royal and Ancient Club of St Andrews (founded in 1754) is the recognized head-quarters of the game in the United Kingdom, and long laid down the law for the golfing community. Towards the start of the 20th century a Rules of Golf Committee was formed; but all its members were members of the St Andrews club, which
thus practically maintained its supremacy. Other well-known golf courses or links are at North Berwick, Prestwick (near Ayr), and Muirfield (Haddingtonshire), in Scotland ; Westward Ho, Hoylake, and Sandwich, in England; and Portrush, in Ireland. A golf club was founded at Calcutta in 1829, Bombay and Pau (in the south of France) coming next in order. The game spread to the United States, through Canada, about 1890, and quickly become amazingly popular there within the next fifteen years.
A golf-course of full size is divided into eighteen sections by a series of small round holes, 4.25 inches in diameter, sunk in the turf at distances of from 100 to 500 yards from each other, so as to form a circuit or round; many courses have only nine holes. The ground between the holes must be varied in character, being diversified by obstacles, whether natural or artificial, such as sand or other 'bunkers', hillocks, ditches, streams, etc. Round each hole a grass-grown space, known as the 'putting-green', is kept perfectly smooth. The object of the game is, starting from the first 'teeing-ground' (or place from which the balls are driven off towards each hole), to drive the ball into the next hole in as few strokes as possible, and so on with all the holes in succession, the side which 'holes out' on any occasion in the fewest strokes being said to win the hole. The match is decided either by the greatest number of holes won, or by the aggregate number of strokes for the whole round. In medal play, and in some championships, the score is always reckoned by strokes. Often what are known as 'Bogey' competitions are held. 'Colonel Bogey', who is a kind of 'Mrs. Harris' of golf, has a fixed score allotted to him for each hole, this score being approximately that of a good player who accomplishes the round without making any bad blunders - the term par later being applied, thus a hole which should be completed in four strokes is known as a par 4 hole. The competitors contest each hole with this mythical opponent, and the winner is he who finishes the greatest number of holes 'up', or more generally the least number 'down', on 'Bogey' (under par).
Ordinarily the ball may not be touched otherwise than with the club during the game, except to take it out of the hole and place it in position on the teeing-ground (the 'tee' being a little mound of sand, on which the ball is placed for the first drive to each hole). Sometimes, however, the local rules of a club recognize certain places on the course from which the ball is practically unplayable, and if a ball lodges in one of these places the player is allowed to take it out and drop it behind him under penalty of one stroke.
The varying nature of the ground on a golf-course, and the different obstacles to be surmounted, necessitate the use of a number of different clubs. The chief clubs are the driver, brassy, deck, mashie, iron, niblick, and putter. Of these the first two have wooden heads, the rest iron, though the putter is often made of aluminium. The heads of wooden clubs are made of beech, persimmon, or logwood, weighted with lead behind, and protected with horn at the bottom. The shafts were usually of hickory and were spliced to the heads and bound with strong twine - later carbon fiber became common place. The driver is the club used for the first drive from the teeing-ground, but may also be used for other strokes if the 'lie' of the ball is good. It is the longest club of all, and has an exceedingly springy and supple shaft. A good driver will send the ball, if accurately hit, more than 200 yards. The brassy is a somewhat similar club, but is shorter, less springy, and is shod with a brass plate. Its face is laid back somewhat, so as to 'loft' the ball, and it is used in fairly good 'lies' on grass. The deck, an iron club with a flat face, is used for drives of from 100 to 150 yards, or where the lie of the ball is such that a wooden club cannot be used. Both the mashie and the iron are used for lofting the ball out of bunkers or over obstacles, or for short 'approaches', and accordingly have their faces laid back, the mashie having the shorter head of the two. The niblick has a very short spoon-shaped head, and serves to extricate the ball from deep sand, small holes, and formerly cart-ruts, etc. The putter is used on the putting-green for coaxing the ball into the hole from short distances.
The ball, which was originally of feathers covered with leather, was latterly always made of gutta-percha, and by 1910 usually consisted of a core round which india-rubber thread is wound, the whole being cased with gutta-percha, later balls were very similar, the outer casing being plastic however. These balls have been found to be more springy, and can be driven farther than the older gutta-percha balls.
As early as 1905 golf was a popular game with women, competitions being played among both men and among women seperately. The popularity of golf with women caused a great deal of excitement among Victorian society.
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Gong Zhu is a Chinese version of the card game hearts, in which the queen of spades is the penalty card known as the pig.
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The Gophers is the nickname of the University of Minnesota American college football team.
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Gornik Zabrze is an Association Football club in Zabrze, Poland.
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Gorton Athletic was an English Association Football club founded in 1884. It was amalgamated with West Gorton in 1887 to form Ardwick.
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Gran Criterium is an important horse-race for two-year olds in Italy. It is run in mid-October over 1500 meters at Milan and forms the second leg of the big Italian two-year old double.
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Gran Premio D'Italia is a classic horse-race for three-year olds run in early June at Milan over 2400 meters.
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The Gran Premio De Madrid is an important horse-race for three-year olds and upwards run over 2500 meters on the Zarzuela course at Madrid.
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The Gran Premio Di Milano is a horse-race which is the first leg of the Italian triple crown of weight-for-age events.
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Gran Premio Nacional is a horse-race in the Argentine Derby run over 2500 meters on the Palermo trace at Buenos Aires in October.
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Grand Criterium is an important horse-race for two-year olds held in France. It is run over 1600 meters at Longchamp in October forming the third leg of the French triple crown for two-year olds.
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The Grand National Steeplechase is the most famous horse-race in the world for jumpers. It was first run in England in 1839 and is now a handicap for horses, geldings and mares, six years old and upwards who have fulfilled certain qualifications in their previous appearances on the race-course. It is run near the end of March at Aintree near Liverpool over a course of 4 miles 856 yards with thirty jumps.
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The Grand National Archery Society is the governing body for archery in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1861 with the sole object of organising the Grand National Archery Meetings which began in 1844.
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The Grand Prix de Paris is a horse-race founded in 1863 and is the French classic for three-year olds. It is run over 3100 meters in late June at Longchamp.
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The Green Bay Packers are an American professional football team based in Wisconsin. They joined the NFL in 1922 and won the first two Super Bowl competitions.
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Greyhound Racing is a sport in which greyhounds compete in pursuit of a mechanical imitation of a hare. The racing takes place on an elliptical or oval shaped track with a circumference of about 400 to 550 yards.
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The Grosser Preis Von Baden is an important international weight-for-age horse-race held at the Iffezheim course at Baden-Baden, Germany in early September over 2400 meters.
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The Grosser Preis Von Nordrhein-westfalen is a horse-race run at Dusseldorf, Germany in July over 2400 meters and comprises the first leg of the German triple crown for older weight-for-age horses.
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GS Varnamo is a Swedish walking club located midway between Goteborg and Stockholm. The club dominated Swedish Race Walking from 1948 to 1960.
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Gurning is the ancient British pastime of pulling grotesque faces. Once the pastime was popular at British fairs, but now seems only really to survive at the Egremont crab-apple fair, which holds the British national championships each year. Competitors put their head through a horse's collar and pull a grotesque face. The winner is the competitor who receives the greatest audience applause.
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Guy's Hospital RFC is the oldest Rugby Union football club in existence, founded in 1843 and a founder member of the Rugby Football Union in 1871. It was the first club to win the Hospital's Cup which was introduced in 1875.
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Gymnastics is the technical term used to designate any system of exercises specially designed to promote the development of physical, and especially of muscular powers. An excellent gymnastic training is given by cricket, football, rowing, and similar amusements, but the special value of formal gymnastic exercises is that they are capable of being scientifically arranged so as to secure not only a general development of muscular power, but also an accurate knowledge of the uses of the various muscles, and further that they are capable of being applied to each individual case. so as to meet, allow for, and as far as possible overcome defects in physical organization. For these purposes an elementary course of gymnastics is of great value to all, especially to the sedentary student.
With regard to gymnastic exercises two general rules may be laid down, which will form an efficient guide in self-imposed exercises. The first is the universal rule in mechanics that the strength of any machine is the strength of its weakest part; the second is the fundamental law of muscular exercise, that it is exercise within the extreme power of the muscle which develops and improves, while straining weakens and injures, and excessive exercise develops particular muscles abnormally at the expense of the general health. Places fitted up with special appliances for gymnastics are called gymnasiums, the appliances being such as horizontal and parallel bars, trapezes, vaulting-horses, ladders, climbing-poles and ropes, etc. Various apparatus are also made for being readily fitted up in private houses. Gymnastics have formed a regular portion of the training of soldiers in Britain for many years.
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Abbreviations
Recreation
