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TEXT 14. RUGBY

 

Rugby is a sport that has many millions of fans around the world, even though there are some countries in which it is hardly played at all.

The old saying that rugby is ‘a ruffian’s game played by gentlemen’ was always partly a joke but it does indicate two things: first that rugby is a physically tough and occasionally violent game (although it can also be beautiful and spectacular), and second that it was developed in an ‘upper class’ environment. Indeed, its name comes from the fact that it is said to have been invented on the playing fields of Rugby school, an exclusive private school in England, in the 1820s.

There are now two main forms of rugby, the more widespread of which is played by two teams of fifteen players on a grass pitch about 100 metres long and 70 metres wide.

It’s probably fair to say that the rules are more complicated than those of football and that someone watching it for the first time might sometimes find it difficult to understand what’s going on.

The basic idea, however, is for each team to move the oval-shaped ball towards the end of the pitch defended by their opponents. The players can pick up, carry and throw the ball as well as kicking it (although they can only throw it backwards or sideways, not forwards), and when a player is carrying the ball forwards the opposing players are allowed to stop him by pulling him to the ground.

There are different ways to score points but the highest number (five) is for a ‘try’, which is when an attacking player manages to get through the defending players to put the ball down on the ground behind the line at the end of the pitch.

As with football and cricket, rugby spread around the world in the nineteenth century with the expansion of the British Empire. The game is popular in the ex-British colonies of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – three countries whose national teams are always among the best in the world. Not all the major rugby nations are English-speaking, though: France are one of the best teams and Argentina – better known for football, of course – have also been doing well.

Like football, rugby has a World Cup competition that takes place every four years. The last one was in 2007, in France, when the champions were South Africa, who beat England 15-6 in the final. The next World Cup will be in New Zealand in 2011, when the home team – known as the ‘All Blacks’ because of their black shirts, shorts and socks – will probably be the favourites.

THE BICYCLE

You might be surprised to know that bicycles have existed for less than two hundred years. No one is sure who invented this popular two-wheeled machine, but it was probably either the German Karl von Drais, in 1817, or the American W K Clarkson, in 1819.

The early models didn’t look much like the bicycles of today. The front wheel was much bigger than the back one, and also there weren’t any pedals – riders had to move themselves forward by pushing their feet against the ground.

Pedals finally arrived in the 1840s, and in 1879 an Englishman named Henry Lawson had the idea of connecting them to the back wheel with a chain. Gears, which made things much easier for those cycling uphill, first appeared in the 1890s.

There are now approximately one billion bicycles in the world – more than twice the total number of cars – and they are the main form of transport in some developing countries. They have to compete with cars on the streets of all the world’s cities, and the two forms of transport don’t always mix well. In London in 2005, for example, over 300 cyclists were either killed or seriously injured in accidents involving cars. Even though bicycles are much more environmentally friendly than cars, most governments don’t do much to encourage people to ride rather than drive. In China, which is famous for having a huge number of bicycles (about 200 million), the authorities in the city of Shanghai even banned cycling for a while in 2003.

Cycling is on the rise is the United Kingdom, and the number of annual journeys made by bike in London has increased 50% over the last five years. Experts say there is a mixture of reasons for this boom: concerns about the environment, the desire to keep fit, and also the fact that cycling is often not only cheaper but also quicker than travelling by car.

( Source : Стройков, С.А. Broaden Your Horizons /Учебное пособие по переводу общественно-публицистических текстов с английского языка на русский – Самара: Издательство «Офорт», 2011. – 192 с.)

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