THE BADMINTON STORY
(From the book of the same name by Bernard Adams.)

Part I: The Beginnings ...

Badminton evolved from the ancient game of battledore and
shuttlecock, a game played by adults and children for at least
2000 years - in Ancient Greece, China, Japan, India and Siam.
Peasants played it in medieval England and by the late 16th
century, it had become a popular children's game.  By the 17th
century, battledore or jeu de volant, had become a pastime of the
leisured classes in many European countries.  The game simply
involved two players using simple bats to hit a shuttlecock back
and forth as many times as they could without letting it hit the
ground.  The record among members of the Somerset family appears
to be 2117 hits made in 1830. (Now that's some rally!)

How the shuttlecock itself evolved is something of a mystery.
One possibility is that individual feathers were stored - perhaps
for writing or some other purpose - by sticking them in cork or
some similar material.  It then only requires someone to throw,
or even drop, this ready-made collection of feathers to discover
the remarkable flight of the shuttlecock.

How precisely the game of battledore and shuttlecock evolved into
the game of badminton is also uncertain.  It is known however,
that badminton takes its name from Badminton House, the Duke of
Beaufort's residence in Gloucestershire (now Avon) where a new
version of battledore had emerged by the end of the 1850's.
(Isaac Spratt, a London toy dealer published a booklet,
"Badminton Battledore - a new game," in 1860, but unfortunately
no copy has survived.)  It is also known that a quite advanced
form of the game was being played by the British in India in the
1860's and 1870's, and the first rules were compiled there.

After the early 1870's, the picture of badminton's development
becomes a little clearer.  The Brits in India took the lead and
the game became very popular as an outdoor amusement.  In fact,
so much so that church leaders at the time began to see the
game's popularity as a threat to Sunday observance!

The first rules were framed at Poona in 1873, but the game in
India developed chiefly as a a social pastime rather than a
competitive indoor game.  In England too it was chiefly a
sociable garden recreation for its first two decades.  This crude
but entertaining form of badminton, sometimes known as "hit and
scream", was the dominant form in the 1870's and 1880's.

An early version of the rules was published in 1883 in a slim
volume entitled, "Lawn Tennis, Croquet, Racquets, etc."  One of
the etceteras consists of ten pages devoted to badminton which
the author described as "Lawn tennis played with shuttlecocks
instead of balls."(!!)

More serious badminton developed very gradually as many of the
Indian veterans returned to England and  an officer's club was
formed at Folkestone as early as 1875.  J.H.E. Hart was one of
the pioneers in India and when he came back to England he played
an important role in framing the rules.  He revised the rules in
1887 and then again in 1890 with the assistance of Mr Bagnel
Wild.

The first clubs of the 1870's and 1880's grew up chiefly in the
resort spas of southern England, but there were many obstacles to
satisfactory early inter-club competition as clubs made their own
rules and there were many differences in court sizes (for
example, Ealing played on a court about one and a half times the
size of a modern court!).  Singles was regarded as a selfish game
(!) and not all clubs played doubles - some played 'trebles' and
'quadruples'.  

To try to deal with some of these inconsistencies, a meeting was
convened at Southsea in Hampshire in 1893 and the Badminton
Association was consequently founded by representatives of 14
clubs who agreed on a uniform set of laws.

In March 1898, the first Open Tournament was held at Guildford
and the era of competitive badminton had begun.  This tournament
was so successful that the first 'All England' Championships were
held the following year.  

The fledgling sport of badminton proper was about to come of age.

["The Badminton Story", by Bernard Adams]

Part II: Badminton Comes of Age - Some Snapshots Through Time ...

The 1900's - The first decade of the 20th century saw the number
of clubs in the UK increase more than tenfold: the Edwardian
afternoon was to prove a halcyon period for badminton.

The 1920's and '30's - In the mid 1920's, organised badminton
began to take root in Northern Europe, North America and the
East.  But it was in Denmark and Canada that the game made its
biggest strides in the 1930's.   The Danes in particular took to
the game in a remarkable fashion, adopting it as a national
winter sport.

By 1935, badminton was beginning to attract big audiences in the
United States and the first US National Championships were held
in 1937.

The IBF (International Badminton Federation) was formed in July
1934 with the founder members including England, Wales, Ireland,
Scotland, Denmark, Holland, Canada, New Zealand and France, with
India affiliating with the IBF in 1936.

By the early 1930's, badminton - chiefly played out of doors -
had become immensely popular in the Malay States and the Malay
Badminton Association was formed in 1934.

In 1937, Devlin found Australian Badminton players had great
tactical awareness, but somewhat limited strokeplay.  He thought
that the tactical flair was due to the 'lawn tennis experience'
of many of the players.(!)

1949 - The first World (Thomas) Cup for men's teams was played in
1949.  The Malayan men routed Denmark 8-1 in a dominance that was
to last a decade before they in turn were engulfed by the
Indonesians.

1950's and '60's - The women's world team competition began in
the mid-1950's with the introduction of the Uber Cup.  The US won
the first Uber Cup in the 1956/7 season, defeating Denmark 6-1.
The US won the Cup twice more before losing to Japan in 1966.
Japan won four of the next five and Indonesia once.

The Chinese dominated the Danes in a tour of Denmark in 1965 and
defeated Indonesia at the Asian Games in Tehran in 1974.

1979 - Another milestone for world badminton was reached in 1979
with the first open, fully professional badminton tournament
being played at Albert Hall in London.

1992 - Badminton was admitted as a full medal sport at the games
of the XXVth Olympiad in Barcelona in 1992.  The decision was
made in 1985 and recognised the world-wide status of the IBF,
which has 114 member countries. Athletes competed in Mens and
Womens singles and Mens and Womens Doubles. Mixed doubles has
been added for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

The advent of badminton to the Olympics proved a boon to
Indonesia, which picked up 5 medals, and Malaysia which picked up
one.  Neither of these countries had won medals at an Olympics
before. 

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as posted to badmnton@login.dknet.dk by drr@harpo.ma.adfa.oz.au