American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

• College football national championship
  NCAA Division I FBS National Football Championship
  A college football national championship in the highest level of collegiate play in the United States, currently the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Bowl Subdivision , is a designation awarded annually by various third-party organizations to their selection of the best...
  
   – none

• The 1871 college football season
  1871 college football season
  The 1871 college football season is the only one since the first season in 1869 up until present day that there were no games played for the entire season....
  
   is the only one since the first season in 1869
  1869 college football season
  The 1869 college football season was the first season of intercollegiate football. It is considered the inaugural college football season, and consisted of only two total games, both of which occurred between the and ; The first was played on November 6 at Rutgers' campus, and the second was...
  
   until the present day that no games are played in the entire season. Due to no games being played, 1871 is the only year since play began in which no college football national champion
  NCAA Division I FBS National Football Championship
  A college football national championship in the highest level of collegiate play in the United States, currently the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Bowl Subdivision , is a designation awarded annually by various third-party organizations to their selection of the best...
  
   can be named, retrospectively or otherwise.

Association football

• Inaugural FA Cup
  FA Cup
  The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
  
   competition begins with four matches played on 11 November. The 15 clubs entering the competition are all amateur and mainly from the London area: Barnes
  Barnes R.F.C.
  Barnes Rugby Football Club, formerly known simply as the Barnes Club, is a rugby union club which is claimed by some sources to be the world's first and oldest club in any code of football...
  
  , Civil Service, Clapham Rovers
  Clapham Rovers F.C.
  Clapham Rovers was from its foundation in 1869 a leading English sports organisation in the two dominant codes of football, association football and rugby union. It was a prominent club in the late 19th century but is now defunct...
  
  , Crystal Palace (1861), Donnington School, Hampstead Heathens, Harrow Chequers, Hitchin, Maidenhead, Marlow, Reigate, Priory, Royal Engineers
  Royal Engineers A.F.C.
  The Royal Engineers Association Football Club is an association football team representing the Corps of Royal Engineers, the "Sappers", of the British Army. In the 1870s it was one of the strongest sides in English football, winning the FA Cup in 1875 and being Cup Finalists in four of the first...
  
  , Upton Park
  Upton Park F.C.
  Upton Park Football Club were an amateur football club from Upton Park, London in the late 19th and early 20th century, now defunct. As well as being one of the fifteen teams that played in the inaugural FA Cup, they also represented Great Britain at the 1900 Summer Olympics football tournament,...
  
  , The Wanderers
  Wanderers F.C.
  Wanderers Football Club is an English amateur football club, based in London, that plays in the Surrey South Eastern Combination. Founded as Forest Football Club in 1859, the club changed its name to Wanderers in 1864....
  
   and Queen's Park (Glasgow).

Baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

• National Association of Professional Base Ball Players
  National Association of Professional Base Ball Players
  The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players , or simply the National Association , was founded in 1871 and continued through the 1875 season...
  
   champion – Philadelphia Athletics

• March — ten NABBP clubs found the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players
  National Association of Professional Base Ball Players
  The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players , or simply the National Association , was founded in 1871 and continued through the 1875 season...
  
  , the first professional sports league
  Professional sports league organization
  Professional sports leagues are organized in numerous ways. The two most significant types are a European model, characterised by a tiered structure using promotion and relegation to determine participation in a hierarchy of leagues or divisions and a North American model characterized by its use...
  
  . (Today it is commonly considered the first major league
  Major League Baseball
  Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
  
   and usually called simply the "National Association" or "NA".) Thirty-three clubs establish a parallel amateur NAABBP that withers away.
• There are nine NA teams in the field and Athletic of Philadelphia wins the championship

Boxing

Boxing

Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

• With the main American Championship title claimant Mike McCoole
  Mike McCoole
  Mike McCoole was a boxing champion.He claimed the Heavyweight Championship in 1866 after Joe Coburn retired. He lost the title to Tom Allen in 1873.-External links:*...
  
   inactive this year, attention focuses on two fights between Jem Mace
  Jem Mace
  Jem Mace was an English boxing champion. He was born at Beeston, Norfolk. Although nicknamed "The Gypsy", he denied Romani ethnicity in his autobiography...
  
   and Joe Coburn
  Joe Coburn
  Joe Coburn was an Irish-American boxer. In 1862 he claimed the Heavyweight Championship from John Carmel Heenan based on Heenan refusing to fight him. Mike McCoole claimed Coburn's title in 1866 after Coburn retired. Coburn came out of retirement in 1871 against Jem Mace...
  
  . Both fights are drawn and Mace continues to state his claim to the American Championship. However, having suffered a hand injury in his second fight with Coburn, Mace relinquishes all his title claims and returns to exhibition boxing.
• McCoole is now generally regarded as the champion by default, his main challenger being Tom Allen
  Tom Allen (boxer)
  Tom Allen was a boxing champion who claimed the Heavyweight Championship from 1873, when he defeated Mike McCoole, until 1876, when he lost to Joe Goss.-External links:*...
  
   who was defeated by McCoole in 1869.

Cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

• Derbyshire plays its initial first-class
  First-class cricket
  First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
  
   match v. Lancashire at Old Trafford on 26 & 27 May.

• Champion County – Nottinghamshire
• Most runs – W G Grace 2739 @ 78.25 (HS 268), a staggering feat on the pitches of the time. Richard Daft
  Richard Daft
  Richard Daft was an English cricketer. He was one of the best batsmen of his day, the peak of his first-class career being the 1860s and early 1870s...
  
   has the next highest average among batsmen playing 10 innings or more, with 37.66, less than half of Grace's figure. Harry Jupp
  Harry Jupp
  Henry Jupp was an English professional cricketer, who was the opening batsman for Surrey County Cricket Club from 1862 to 1881. Renowned for his defensive technique, Jupp was known as "Young Stonewaller"....
  
   has the next highest runs aggregate, with 1068. Grace makes ten centuries in the season, while no other player can manage more than one.
• Most wickets – James Southerton
  James Southerton
  James Southerton was a professional cricketer who played first-class cricket between 1854 and 1879....
  
   151 @ 15.72 (BB 8–63)

Gaelic football

Gaelic football

Gaelic football , commonly referred to as "football" or "Gaelic", or "Gah" is a form of football played mainly in Ireland...

• During the 1860s and 1870s, rugby and association football have started to become popular in Ireland. According to Gaelic football historian Jack Mahon
  Jack Mahon
  Jack Mahon was a famous Irish sportsperson who played Gaelic football for Galway in the 1950s.A native of Dunmore, where his father was a National School teacher, Jack Mahon had a distinguished career as a player, at the highest level....
  
  , caid
  Caid (sport)
  Caid is the name given to various ancient and traditional Irish football games. "Caid" is now used by people in some parts of Ireland to refer to modern Gaelic football.The word caid originally referred to the ball which was used...
  
   has begun to give way to a "rough-and-tumble game" which even allows tripping.
• County Limerick
  County Limerick
  It is thought that humans had established themselves in the Lough Gur area of the county as early as 3000 BC, while megalithic remains found at Duntryleague date back further to 3500 BC...
  
   is the stronghold of the native game around this time and the Commercials Club, founded by employees of Cannock’s Drapery Store, is one of the first to impose a set of rules that is later adopted by other clubs in the county.

Golf

Golf

Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

• British Open
  The Open Championship
  The Open Championship, or simply The Open , is the oldest of the four major championships in professional golf. It is the only "major" held outside the USA and is administered by The R&A, which is the governing body of golf outside the USA and Mexico...
  
   – no competition.
• The Open has been administered since 1860 by Prestwick Golf Club
  Prestwick Golf Club
  Prestwick Golf Club is located in the town of Prestwick, South Ayrshire, Scotland. It is approximately southwest of Scotland's largest city, Glasgow. Prestwick is a classic links golf course, being built on the rolling sandy land that "links" the beach and the land further inland...
  
   but controversy arises in 1871 which prevents the tournament being held. Finally, it is agreed that the tournament will henceforth be organised jointly by The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers.

Horse racing

Horse racing

Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...

• Grand National
  Grand National
  The Grand National is a world-famous National Hunt horse race which is held annually at Aintree Racecourse, near Liverpool, England. It is a handicap chase run over a distance of four miles and 856 yards , with horses jumping thirty fences over two circuits of Aintree's National Course...
  
   – The Lamb (second win, having also won in 1868)
• 1,000 Guineas Stakes – Hannah
• 2,000 Guineas Stakes – Bothwell
• Epsom Derby
  Epsom Derby
  The Derby Stakes, popularly known as The Derby, internationally as the Epsom Derby, and under its present sponsor as the Investec Derby, is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies...
  
   – Favonius
• Epsom Oaks
  Epsom Oaks
  The Oaks Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred fillies. It is run at Epsom Downs over a distance of 1 mile, 4 furlongs and 10 yards , and it is scheduled to take place each year in early June....
  
   – Hannah
• St. Leger Stakes
  St. Leger Stakes
  The St. Leger Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain which is open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies. It is run at Doncaster over a distance of 1 mile, 6 furlongs and 132 yards , and it is scheduled to take place each year in September.Established in 1776, the St. Leger...
  
   – Hannah

• Melbourne Cup
  Melbourne Cup
  The Melbourne Cup is Australia's major Thoroughbred horse race. Marketed as "the race that stops a nation", it is a 3,200 metre race for three-year-olds and over. It is the richest "two-mile" handicap in the world, and one of the richest turf races...
  
   – The Pearl

• Queen's Plate
  Queen's Plate
  The Queen's Plate is Canada's oldest thoroughbred horse race. It is run at a distance of 1¼ miles for 3-year-old thoroughbred horses foaled in Canada. The race takes place each summer in June or July at Woodbine Racetrack, Etobicoke , Ontario...
  
   – Floss

• Irish Grand National
  Irish Grand National
  The Irish Grand National is a National Hunt chase in Ireland which is open to horses aged five years or older. It is run at Fairyhouse over a distance of about 3 miles and 5 furlongs , and during its running there are twenty-four fences to be jumped...
  
   – The Doe
• Irish Derby Stakes
  Irish Derby Stakes
  The Irish Derby is a Group 1 flat horse race in Ireland open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies. It is run at the Curragh over a distance of 1 mile and 4 furlongs , and it is scheduled to take place each year in late June or early July.It is Ireland's equivalent of the Epsom Derby,...
  
   – Maid of Athens

• Belmont Stakes
  Belmont Stakes
  The Belmont Stakes is an American Grade I stakes Thoroughbred horse race held every June at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. It is a 1.5-mile horse race, open to three year old Thoroughbreds. Colts and geldings carry a weight of 126 pounds ; fillies carry 121 pounds...
  
   – Harry Bassett

Rowing

Rowing (sport)

Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...

• 1 April — Cambridge
  Cambridge University Boat Club
  The Cambridge University Boat Club is the rowing club of the University of Cambridge, England, located on the River Cam at Cambridge, although training primarily takes place on the River Great Ouse at Ely. The club was founded in 1828...
  
   wins the 28th Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race
  The Boat Race
  The event generally known as "The Boat Race" is a rowing race in England between the Oxford University Boat Club and the Cambridge University Boat Club, rowed between competing eights each spring on the River Thames in London. It takes place generally on the last Saturday of March or the first...
  
  

Rugby football

Rugby football

Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...

• 26 January — the Rugby Football Union
  Rugby Football Union
  The Rugby Football Union was founded in 1871 as the governing body for the sport of rugby union, and performed as the international governing body prior to the formation of the International Rugby Board in 1886...
  
   (RFU) is founded at the Pall Mall Restaurant, which is situated near Trafalgar Square
  Trafalgar Square
  Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of...
  
   at 1 Cockspur Street, London. The formation of the RFU establishes the "handling game" as a different sport to the "dribbling game" that is increasingly being played under FA auspices.
• 21 clubs are represented at the meeting: Blackheath, Richmond, Ravenscourt Park, West Kent, Marlborough Nomads, Wimbledon Hornets, Gipsies, Civil Service, Law Club, Wellington College, Guy’s Hospital, Flamingoes, Clapham Rovers, Harlequins, King’s College, St Paul’s School, Queen’s House, Lausanne, Addison, Mohicans, Belsize Park. Algernon Rutter of Richmond is elected the first president. A committee is selected to produce a definitive national set of Rugby Football laws.
• 27 March — the first ever official international fixture
  1870-71 Home Nations rugby union matches
  The 1870-71 Home Nations rugby union matches was a single international friendly held between the England and Scotland national rugby union teams...
  
   in any kind of football takes place with a rugby football game between Scotland and England. Scotland (i.e., Scottish members of the RFU) defeats England (i.e., English members of the RFU) by 1 goal & 1 try to 1 try at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh. The match is played by teams of 20–a–side and the game lasts for 50 minutes each way.
• Foundation of Rochdale Hornets
  Rochdale Hornets
  Rochdale Hornets RLFC is an English professional rugby league club from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. They currently play in Championship One...
  
   and Worcester RFC

Yacht racing

Yacht racing

Yacht racing is the sport of competitive yachting.While sailing groups organize the most active and popular competitive yachting, other boating events are also held world-wide: speed motorboat racing; competitive canoeing, kayaking, and rowing; model yachting; and navigational contests Yacht racing...

• The New York Yacht Club
  New York Yacht Club
  The New York Yacht Club is a private social club and yacht club based in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1844 by nine prominent sportsmen. The members have contributed to the sport of yachting and yacht design. The organization has over 3,000 members as of 2011. ...
  
   retains the America's Cup
  America's Cup
  The America’s Cup is a trophy awarded to the winner of the America's Cup match races between two yachts. One yacht, known as the defender, represents the yacht club that currently holds the America's Cup and the second yacht, known as the challenger, represents the yacht club that is challenging...
  
   as Columbia
  Columbia (1871 yacht)
  Columbia was the successful defender of the second America's Cup race in 1871 against English challenger Livonia.-Design:Columbia, a wooden centerboard schooner, was designed and built in 1871 by Joseph B. Van Deusen in Chester, PA for owner Franklin Osgood of the New York Yacht...
  
  defeats British challenger Livonia, of the Royal Harwich Yacht Club