An early Australian Football League game was almost too big properly to be described as football. The teams had as many as 82 people running around on the field and the field was nearly 1.5 kilometres long. After about 1877, however, when Australian Rules started, and when people who still worked seven days a week took off a day just to watch the game, the playing fields were gradually reduced in size so that once in a while a team may actually score without passing out from exhaustion.
The Ashes
There are four kinds of 'ash', each fundamentally more perplexing than the other. There's Ash Wednesday, Ash Blonde, Ash Tree and then there are The Ashes. In 1883 Australia defeated England in test cricket for the first time. The ashes of a stump were burned as a sign of the death of English cricket. These ashes are now kept in a sealed urn at Lord's and the winners of Australian/England clashes are said to have symbolically "won the ashes".
The Olympics
Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every one of the Games. However, what no one knows is that often they were one and the same person.
Later on, when Greece couldn't afford a team, they used the Melbourne Greeks to participate in the events. Often against each other. It was quite difficult awarding gold and silver medals when there was only one person participating. But the person used to run up and down the blocks accepting the medallions.
When the anthem became a problem, Nana Mousskouri's White Rose was used, as this transcended the international borders.
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