A short history of the Olympics especially for Tim The Tadpole.

Read by Natasha. Duration 10.18

As you may know, there’s a young tadpole who lives in the palace pond with prince Bertie the frog, and his name is Tim. Tim goes to the school for tadpoles, and at the end of every term the school always holds swimming races. Just recently, Tim was very excited because he came second in the backstroke race and he won a silver star. The only problem was that the star wouldn’t stick to him because he was too wet. But all the same, he was very pleased and when he saw Bertie he said
Yippeee ! I won a prize. I’m a champion swimmer !”

“Well done little Tim,” said Bertie, “ When you grow up to be a big green frog like me, you’ll win a medal in the Olympics !”

“Will I? Will I? “ asked Tim. “That’s Grrrreat ! I going to win a medal in the Olympics Er, Bertie, What’s the Olympics?”

“Ah yes,” said Bertie, who likes showing off his knowledge,” It’s when all the fastest, strongest, and most agile athletes from all over the world meet up and see whose best at each sport. It happens every year in a different country and everyone watches it on television.”

“Rubbish !” said Colin the Carp who had been overhearing this conversation. “Don’t go believing anything that comes from Bertie , In actual fact, The Olympics only happen once every four years.”
“Ah yes, didn’t I say that?” asked Bertie?

“No, you didn’t,” said Colin, “Because you’re ignorant.’

“Will I be ignorant too when I grow up?” asked Tim, who didn’t know what it meant. But nobody was listening. Tim didn’t like not being noticed, so he grew more excited and his voice grew more squeaky: “Bertie Bertie do tell me more about the Olympics because you used to be a prince and princes know everything… Why do they only happen every four years. That’s an awfully long time to wait…?
And Bertie said: “Well little Tim. As a matter of fact, Princes don’t know quite everything, but they can find out anything. And I’ll find out the whole history of the Olympics for you. In fact, I’ll ask Natasha about it right away.”

And so Bertie asked me to tell Tim the entire history of the Olympics. As I didn’t actually know it all, I went to the Palace Library to look it up. And so here is the History of the Olympics, especially for Tim.
The Olympics began over two and half thousand years ago in Ancient Greece. In those days Greece was made up of several different states including Athens, Sparta and Corinth, and they were often at war with each other.

But when the games were on, they held a truce, The greatest event was held at a place called Olympia, and that’s why the games were called the Olympics. They were held once every four years in honour of Zeus, Lord of all the gods. But the Olympics weren’t the only important games – there were three other great festivals of sport too – which is why the Olympics only came round once in every four years.

The longest race and toughest race of all, the Marathon, also takes its name from ancient Greece. In 490 BC, the Greek states came together to fight off a vast and powerful army of invaders from the Persian Empire. The battle took place at Marathon, and a soldier called Pheidippides, ran all the way back to the city of Athens. After he had given the people the news that they were saved, he died of exhaustion.

Eventually the ancient Olympics were abolished by the Roman Emperor, Theodosus the First, who was a Christian and didn’t like the games because they were dedicated to a pagan god. But the Olympics were always remembered as a symbol of human achievement and peace.

Almost 1,500 years later, a French aristocrat called Pierre de Coubertin campaigned to restart the games in the cause of peace between nations.

The first modern Olympics were held in 1894 in Athens , the capital of Greece. The Greek hosts were delighted when the Marathon race was won by a Greek Shepherd, , Spyridon Louis.

The next games were hold in 1900 in Paris, which was at that time hosting a World Fair showing off all the most advanced inventions that people thought would change the world in the Twentieth Century. But the organisers decided to spread the games over five months, and so they lacked any focus and hardly got noticed.

The Olympic Games continued to be held every four years, and they grew and grew in popularity. , In 1936, the Olympics were held in Berlin, the capital of Germany. The African American Jesse Owens won four gold medals for sprinting and long-jumping.

The games were held again in Germany, this time in Munich in 1972. In those days, the Olympics were almost seen as a kind of competition between the Soviet Union – which was the Communist empire of Russia – and the western world, especially the United States. Many of the Athletes of the Soviet Union, although brilliant at their sports, did not often smile very much in public. But one, a tiny young gymnast called Olga Korbut won the hearts of everyone on both sides of the divide with her charm and skill. She was the first person ever to do a backward somersault on the balance beam during a competition. On the American side, the mustachioed swimmer, Mark Spitz , won seven gold medals, and still holds the record for the most gold medals won in a single Olympic games.

In 1980 the games were held in Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union. America refused to let its athletes go to the games as a protest against the recent Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But even without the Americans, the sport was memorable, especially the middle distance races in which the two English runners, Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe competed against each other for gold and glory. The two athletes really didn’t like each other – and their private differences added plenty of interest to the competition on the track.

In recent times, a big problem has been the suspicion that some athletes take drugs to make them stronger and faster. In 1988, in Seoul, Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal after he failed a test for drugs. At the Athens Olympics in 2004, 24 athletes were discovered to have taken drugs.
Now that China is growing in wealth and power, there is a hint of a return to the old East West Rivalry. But as in the times of Ancient Greece, most people see that it’s much better to compete in the sports arena than to fight outside it.

The modern games still keep the ideal of peace, harmony and good sportsmanship, even if they don’t always quite live up to it. History shows that it’s a real struggle for peace and sport to triumph over war and politics, but it’s a goal worth striving for.

And that’s the story of the Olympics – not quite the entire history – but I hope that both you and Tim found it interesting.

And don’t forget there are loads more stories at Storynory.com For now, from me, Natasha, Bye Bye!

Download History of Football Audio

Tim is a very curious Tadpole, and so the other day when Bertie was trying to kick a piece of round slime about, he asked what was the purpose of soccer…

As it happens, the most popular game in the world has a long and interesting history.

We present a short history for kids of the game that some people call Soccer, but which Bertie and his friends call “footie”.

You might also be interested in these external links:

• The Essential History of Soccer
• Fifa World Cup 2006
• A Short History of football for Kids
• BBC Football World Cup 2006 (watch the matches live on the net).

Read on for our

A History of Soccer for Kids

Hello everybody. My name is Natasha, and I’m dropping by to tell you the true storynory of the history of Soccer, or the game which Bertie and his pond life friends call “footie”.

As you probably know, Bertie the frog used to be a handsome prince – and in those days he was the top goal scorer on the Palace team. But now he’s a frog, he doesn’t find it so easy to kick a ball, because his legs are too bendy – but at least he’s better than his friend Tim the Tadpole, who hasn’t got any legs at all, and can only do headers.

Tim is a very curious Tadpole, and so the other day when Bertie was trying to kick a piece of round slime around, he asked what was the purpose of soccer.

“Why?” boomed Bertie. “If you didn’t have football what would we watch on TV?”

“But didn’t it start before TV,” said Tim.

“Er, well, maybe,” said Bertie, starting to wonder what life was like before TV was invented. “Maybe Natasha knows.”

And indeed I do, but only because I went and asked the Palace Teacher who knows all about everything.

Football, like Cricket, came from England. Some historians think that the game goes all the way back to time of the ancient Romans, who lived a long time ago and spoke Latin, and who once conquered Britain.

Some people think that the Celts, who lived in England at the time, used to play football to celebrate each time they won a battle against the Romans – which didn’t happen very often. The England Football team has continued to this day with the tradition of noble defeats.

After the Romans left, football became more and more popular. In the year 1477, a law was passed banning it, because it distracted boys from practising with bows and arrows. But they soon found that not even the law can stop a boy kicking a ball.

But it wasn’t much like the football we watch today. It was really just a disorganised game, with groups of boys kicking a ball from side to side.

In fact, modern football emerged in the nineteenth century at British schools such as Eton and Rugby and Charterhouse.

The trouble was, all the schools developed slightly different rules. At some, you could pick up the ball with your hands.. At others that was considered to be cheating. Indeed, that is where the idea of half-time came from. Often, the first half would be played to one set of rules, and the second half to the another.

It was all very confusing. Then in 1863, which is an awfully long time ago, there was a meeting in London , the capital of Britain. At the meeting The Rule Book of Association Football was drawn up.

There were only 13 rules, which makes it easy-peasy to understand. There are 11 people on each team, and you have to try and kick the ball through the other team’s goal. Nobody is allowed to touch the ball with their hands except for the goalie.

If you push someone over, you get in trouble. Of course Bertie never pushed anybody – except when the Referee wasn’t looking.

And that is the true storynory of where football comes from. Except some people call it soccer — which is short for ‘As-soc-iation’ from that very first rule book written nearly 150 years ago.

I’ll be back soon with another story. And don’t forget, you can hear all of Bertie’s stories at www.storynory.com. So tell all your friends to drop by too.

.Until then, from me Natasha…bye bye.

This morning on the Pond, Little Tim, who is a very curious tadpole, looked out of the green water and spotted a rabbit hopping around the Vegetable patch.

Hey, Bertie, Tim called out excitedly, Is that The Easter Bunny?

—
The sighting of a rabbit by the pond leads Tim to ask a question of great interest to many of our listeners – where do Easter Eggs come from?

This short history of Easter Eggs is the first of our True Storynories. We hope that you will enjoy Tim’s Lessons as much as our fairy tales and poems.

Read by Natasha Lee Lewis. Duration 6.25

And now for something slightly different. What are your favourite stories? Hugh, who is a friend of Bertie and Natasha, visited the Downs Church of England Primary School in the South East of England to find out what the favourite stories of the children there are, and to report back to Bertie. He was helped by Lucy who is one of the DJs on the the fabulous podcast made by the School, Downs FM. The picture shows some of the children in Year Six making their podcast under the guidance of their teacher, Mark Warner. You may also be interested to watch the Downs FM TV show, staring various puppets.

Bertie and Storynory are interested in collaborating with Schools around the world. One of the things you can do is to send us your artwork, which we will post to our gallery (scroll down the page to find it). We may also let you upload directly to our Flickr blog. If you would like to do this, or if you have any other ideas for collaboration, drop Bertie a line. Bertie@storynory.com.

Introduced by Natasha Lee Lewis. Duration 4 minutes.