Word: amateurness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...General of Canada, purchased the Cup for $50 in 1893, he never anticipated that a goalie would use it as a popcorn bowl in a movie theater, like the New Jersey Devils' Martin Brodeur did over a century later. Stanley bought the Cup as a prize for the best amateur hockey club in Canada. The NHL took control of it in 1926, but the tradition of abuse started at the outset. In 1905, a member of the Ottawa Silver Seven drop-kicked the Cup into a canal. The boys kept the party going through the night, and rescued...
...Huilongguan Super League takes its inspiration from the Community Shield, an English trophy that matches England's best professional team against its best amateur team for charity. "We came up with a slogan for the championship last year - 'Return sportsmanship to football, and let the people's sport remain a people's sport.' " Wang is not alone in his conviction. In recent years, amateur football leagues have started to catch on in larger neighborhoods in Beijing. On May 17, as 12 teams in the Huilongguan Super League played their 9th round, at least four other community championships were being played...
...streets, football has never had a wide popular following in China. "Huilongguan Super League is still building the first stage of grassroots football, while in England, grassroots football is the base of the whole football pyramid," says Rowan Simons, a U.K. citizen who runs China's only legally registered amateur football club in China with about 3,500 members. According to FIFA's 2006 "big count," a survey of all its member associations, there were only 382,762 junior players in China. In England, there are 820,000. "Football talent is not manufactured in sports schools. The English Football Association...
...founded in 1949, authorities took control of the development of all sports and turned them into yet another political project to achieve international recognition. Almost all resources for sports development went to élite sports schools that serve as talent pools to represent China in international sports events. Amateur sports, with little political significance, have been largely ignored. China established its first professional football league in 1994, following the example of European leagues. The system, however, never fully embraced the market values that made its European counterparts such a success. Although teams are sponsored by major companies like Samsung...
Read about how amateur soccer is catching on in China...