title: Tempranillo

text: The grape plays a role in the production of wines in two regions of Portugal, central Alentejo and Douro. In Alentejo Central, it is known as Aragonez and used in red table wine blends of variable quality, while in the Douro, it is known as Tinta Roriz and mainly used in blends to make port wine.


title: Tempranillo

text: Tempranillo arrived in California bearing the name Valdepeñas, and it was grown in the Central Valley at the turn of the 20th century. Since the climate of the Central Valley was not ideal for the grape, it was used as a blending grape for jug wine. California has since started to use it for fine wines, particularly in Napa and Monterey. In Texas, the soils of the High Plains and Hill Country have been compared to those of northern Spain. Tempranillo has been well received in Texas and has grown to be considered the state's signature grape.


title: Tempranillo

text: In Oregon, the grape was introduced by Earl Jones of Abacela Vineyards and Winery, in the Umpqua Valley AVA. Their climate (hot during the summer day, and cool overnight) seems to be perfect for the Tempranillo grape. In Australia Tempranillo is grown in the McLaren Vale region, and also North East Victoria. Tempranillo has also been introduced by some wine producers in Thailand. The varietal is extensively grown in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico.


title: Tempranillo

text: In Washington state, Tempranillo was one of the varieties pioneered in the state by Red Willow Vineyard in the Yakima Valley AVA with its first commercial planting of the variety in 1993.


title: Tempranillo

text: Albillo Negro, Aldepenas, Aragon, Aragones, Aragonez, Aragonez 51, Aragonez da Ferra, Aragonez de Elvas, Araúxa, Arganda, Arinto Tinto, Cencibel, Cencibera, Chinchillana, Chinchillano, Chinchilyano, Cupani, De Por Aca, Escobera, Garnacho Fono, Grenache de Logrono, Jacibera, Jacibiera, Jacivera, Juan Garcia, Negra de Mesa, Negretto, Ojo de Liebre, Olho de Lebre, Pinuela, Sensibel, Tempranilla, Tempranillo de la Rioja, Tempranillo de Perralta, Tempranillo de Rioja, Tempranillo de Rioza, Tempranillo Rioja, Tinta Aragones, Tinta Corriente, Tinta de Madrid, Tinta de Santiago, Tinta de Toro, Tinta do Inacio, Tinta do Pais, Tinta Fina, Tinta Madrid, Tinta Monteira, Tinta Monteiro, Tinta Roris, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Santiago, Tinto Aragon, Tinto Aragonez, Tinto de la Ribera, Tinto de Madrid, Tinto de Rioja, Tinto de Toro, Tinto del Pais, Tinto del Toro, Tinto Fino, Tinto Madrid, Tinto Pais, Tinto Ribiera, Tinto Riojano, Ull de Liebre, Ull de Llebre, Valdepenas, Verdiell, Vid de Aranda.


title: Kinza Hashmi

text: Kinza Hashmi (born 7 March 1997) is a Pakistani actress who works in Urdu television. She made her debut in 2014 with "Adhura Milan" as Nayab and later on appeared in several serials. Hashmi is best known for playing Rushna in Hum TV's romantic "Ishq Tamasha" (2018) for which she was nominated for Best Actress in Negative Role at Hum Awards


title: Immortal Game

text: The Immortal Game was a chess game played by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky on 21 June 1851 in London, during a break of the first international tournament. The bold sacrifices Anderssen made have made it one of the most famous chess games of all time. Anderssen gave up both rooks and a bishop, then his queen, checkmating his opponent with his three remaining . In 1996, Bill Hartston called the game an achievement "perhaps unparalleled in chess literature".


title: Immortal Game

text: Anderssen was one of the strongest players of his time, and many consider him to have been the world's strongest player after his victory in the London 1851 chess tournament. Kieseritzky lived in France much of his life, where he gave chess lessons and played games for five francs an hour at the Café de la Régence in Paris. His strength was shown most favourably when giving substantial to weak players; against masters, he was less convincing.


title: Immortal Game

text: The Immortal Game was an informal one, played during a break in a formal tournament in London; the exact venue is uncertain. Kieseritzky was very impressed with Anderssen's performance; after the game was over, Kieseritzky telegraphed the moves of the game to his Parisian chess club. The French chess magazine "La Régence" published the game in July 1851. The Austrian Ernst Falkbeer nicknamed it "The Immortal Game" in 1855.


title: Immortal Game

text: This game is acclaimed as an exemplar of the 19th-century romantic style of chess, where rapid and attack were considered the most effective way to win, many gambits and countergambits were offered (and not accepting them would be considered slightly ungentlemanly), and was often held in contempt. These games, with their rapid attacks and counterattacks, are often entertaining to review, even if some of the moves are no longer considered optimal.


title: Immortal Game

text: In this game, Anderssen won despite sacrificing a bishop (on move 11), both rooks (starting on move 18), and the queen (on move 22) to produce checkmate against Kieseritzky, who lost only three pawns. Anderssen later demonstrated the same kind of approach in the Evergreen Game.


title: Mikey Musumeci

text: Michael Musumeci Jr. (born July 7, 1996) is an American submission grappler and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. A multiple time world and Pan champion in colored belts, Musumeci is a five-time IBJJF black belt world champion (four times in gi and once in no-gi), and the first American to win more than one IBJJF World title at black belt. He is currently signed to ONE Championship where he is the current flyweight submission grappling champion.


title: Mikey Musumeci

text: Michael Musumeci Jr. was born in Marlboro, New Jersey on July 7, 1996. Musumeci is of Italian ancestry. Musumeci began training at age 4 along with his sister Tammi Musumeci at Fatjo's Martial Arts Academy under coach Fernando "Cabeça". When he was 10 his family moved to Florida. While training at various academies in Florida, he met the Mendes brothers of Art of Jiu Jitsu (AOJ) while they were teaching a seminar starting a long relationship with the brothers and their academy. Musumeci won the IBJJF World championships at every belt level starting at juvenile blue belt. In 2014 Guilherme Mendes awarded him his brown belt right after his 2014 purple belt world title while on the podium. In 2015 aged 18, he received his black belt from Gilbert Burns.


title: Mikey Musumeci

text: The following year Musumeci won the 2016 Pan American Championship at roosterweight followed by the World No-Gi Championship. In 2016 he switched team joining Caio Terra's association. In 2017 Musumeci won the UAEJJF World Pro at black belt in the 62 kg weight class. In 2017 he won the World Championship in the Lightfeather division. In 2018 Musumeci became World Champion for the second time. Fighting in a lower weight division he won the World Championship two more times in 2019 and 2021. In 2022 he signed with ONE Championship. He is the 2022 WNO (Who's Number One) 135lb titleholder.


title: Mikey Musumeci

text: After signing with ONE Championship, Musumeci faced Masakazu Imanari in a grappling bout at on April 22, 2022. He submitted Imanari by the way of rear-naked choke.


title: Mikey Musumeci

text: Musumeci faced Cleber Sousa for the inaugural ONE Flyweight Submission Grappling World Championship on October 1, 2022 at . Musumeci won the match and the belt via unanimous decision at the end of the 10 minutes.


title: Trenitalia

text: Trenitalia is the primary train operator in Italy. A subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, itself owned by the Italian government, the company was established in 2000 following a European Union directive on the deregulation of rail transport.


title: Trenitalia

text: The Italian government formed Trenitalia to comply with European regulations. The European Commission's First Railway Directive from 1991 (91/440/EC) required separation of accounting between entities which manage the rail infrastructure and entities which provide the actual rail transportation. On 1 June 2000, therefore, Italy created Trenitalia as the primary rail transportation company and on 1 July 2001 established Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) as the company overseeing the rail network. However, the separation was only formal, since both are subsidiaries of the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane holding and are owned wholly by the government. Trenitalia operated freight rail services under the Trenitalia Cargo brand until 2017, when Mercitalia took over state-owned freight rail and logistics operations.


title: Trenitalia

text: As of July 2014, Adria Ferries has a partnership with Trenitalia wherein tickets can be booked at any train station for onward journey to Durrës, at a steeply discounted price with respect to both tickets separately purchased. This is for connections either in Ancona or in Trieste, and continues the historical link between the Via Appia Traiana and the Via Egnatia.


title: Trenitalia

text: Trenitalia offers national rail transport in Italy and international connections to Austria, France, Germany, and Switzerland. The company operates both regional and long-distance trains.


title: Trenitalia

text: Regional trains travel within an Italian region or between neighboring Italian regions, and are subsidized by local government at the regional level by "Contratto di servizio".


title: Trenitalia

text: Regional trains stop at more stations than other long-distance trains, and some stop at all stations. "Regionale veloce" (fast regional train) are trains stopping at about half of stations.


title: Trenitalia

text: There are no reservations for regional trains, and for this reason, there is no price advantage to acquiring regional tickets in advance online. Once bought, tickets for regional trains have to be validated at the station before departure. "Validation" in this case means placing a date/time stamp on the ticket by inserting into a (usually) green and white machine either in the station or along the track. This is because regional tickets are not for a particular date or time but are valid for a period (two months for tickets bought before 1 August 2016). The date/time stamp is to show that the ticket cannot be reused. From 1 August 2016, tickets are valid for the 24 hours chosen by online buyers; the date of use can be changed until the previous 24 hours of the later date. The date of use can be anticipated until the 24 hours following this adjusting operation. The omission about the period of use at paper shops will involve a one-way daily ticket issue. This change aims to hinder fare evasion.


title: Trenitalia

text: "Intercity" trains also serve medium-sized cities besides the big cities, thus are generally slower but are cheaper than the "Frecce".


title: Trenitalia

text: Night trains ("Intercity night") operate mainly between north and south of Italy and between Italy and its neighbouring countries and are comparable to "Intercity" level.


title: Trenitalia

text: High-speed rail (managed by RFI) service in Italy commenced in 2008 with about of new track on the Turin-Milan-Bologna-Rome-Naples-Salerno route that allow trains to reach speeds over , although current maximum commercial speed is . There are currently four generations of ElettroTreno in service on the network.


title: Trenitalia

text: They are long, non-articulated trains, with distributed traction, and capable of up to operation, although current service plans are limited to .


title: Trenitalia

text: Mauro Moretti, at the time chief executive of FS group, said FS was considering long-distance international services to France, Germany, or even Spain and the United Kingdom.


title: Trenitalia

text: In January 2017, Trenitalia won a bid from the Department for Transport (DfT) to run train operating company c2c from National Express which has a contract to operate the Essex Thameside franchise until November 2029. In the same month it took a 30% stake in a joint venture with FirstGroup, named First Trenitalia, that was later shortlisted to bid for the East Midlands Railway and West Coast Partnership franchises. It was also shortlisted to bid for the South Eastern franchise in its own right.


title: Trenitalia

text: In August 2017 Trenitalia withdrew from the South Eastern contest, citing a desire to concentrate its resources on its bid for the West Coast Partnership. Likewise in April 2018, along with FirstGroup, it withdrew from the East Midlands contest citing the same reason.


title: Trenitalia

text: In August 2019, the First Trenitalia consortium was awarded the West Coast Partnership contract. Avanti West Coast ran its first train between London and Manchester on 8 December.


title: Trenitalia

text: Tickets can be bought online, in the stations or from approximately 4,000 travel agencies including those outside Italy. It is common for people to buy tickets from the official website after looking up schedules.


title: Trenitalia

text: Since long-distance trains, unlike the regional trains, usually require a reservation, it is advantageous to buy tickets in advance. This also gives buyers access to a variety of discount schemes offered by Trenitalia. All "premium" long-distance trains generally share the same discount schemes, even though their fares may differ. Unlike mini fares, which existed before 2012 and required two days of notice, all tickets may be purchased at the last minute if they are still available. All large rail stations have staffed ticket windows and self-service ticket machines for this purpose. Such machines, which either say "Trenitalia" or "Rete Regionale" ("regional network"), differ in the types of payment accepted.


title: Trenitalia

text: In early 2012, Trenitalia released a web advertisement to promote its change from two classes of train compartments into four classes. Passengers travelling by the fourth class were not permitted to use the on-board cafeteria or enter the carriages reserved for the other three classes. This change alone reportedly caused controversy, but more followed with the release of the accompanying web advertisement. The web advertisement showed only white people seated in the upper three classes, as well as a black family in the fourth.


title: Trenitalia

text: Italian online media observed this and branded the advertisement as "grotesque". Other complaints of racial discrimination followed in UK newspapers, social media and online. Trenitalia withdrew the web commercial and quickly substituted it following the allegations of racism. Since 13 January 2012 the cafeteria is accessible also for passengers of lower classes.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley is a large market town and administrative centre in the county of West Midlands, England, southeast of Wolverhampton and northwest of Birmingham. Historically an exclave of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley; in 2011 it had a population of 79,379. The Metropolitan Borough, which includes the towns of Stourbridge and Halesowen, had a population of 312,900. In 2014 the borough council named Dudley as the capital of the Black Country.


title: Dudley

text: Originally a market town, Dudley was one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution and grew into an industrial centre in the 19th century with its iron, coal, and limestone industries before their decline and the relocation of its commercial centre to the nearby Merry Hill Shopping Centre in the 1980s. Tourist attractions include Dudley Zoo and Castle, the 12th century priory ruins, and the Black Country Living Museum.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley has a history dating back to Anglo-Saxon times, its name deriving from the Old English "Duddan Leah", meaning Dudda's clearing, and one of its churches being named in honour of the Anglo-Saxon King and Saint, Edmund.


title: Dudley

text: Mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Dudelei", in the hundred of Clent in Worcestershire, the town was listed as being a medium-sized manor in the possession of Earl Edwin of Mercia prior to the Norman Conquest, with William Fitz-Ansculf as Lord of the Manor in 1086. Dudley Castle, constructed in 1070 by William's father Ansculf de Picquigny after his acquisition of the town, served as the seat of the extensive Barony of Dudley, which possessed estates in eleven different counties across England.


title: Dudley

text: Of historical significance, the town was attacked by King Stephen in 1138, after a failed siege of the castle following the Baron's decision to support Empress Matilda's claim to the throne during The Anarchy.


title: Dudley

text: The castle provided the centre from which the town and borough grew, with early coal and iron workings helping establish Dudley as a major market town during the Middle Ages, selling not only agricultural produce, but also iron goods at a national level. Working iron and mining for coal was in practice as early as the 13th century. The first mention of Dudley's status as a borough dates from the mid-13th century, when Roger de Somery, then Baron of Dudley, approved of the establishment of a market in nearby Wolverhampton. An inquisition after his death further established the value and importance of the borough, with mentions to the town's growing coal industry.


title: Dudley

text: By the early 16th century the Dudley estate, now held by the Sutton family, had become severely in debt and was first mortgaged to distant relative John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, before being sold outright in 1535. Following Dudley's execution in 1553, the estate returned to the Sutton family, during whose ownership the town was visited by Queen Elizabeth during a tour of England.


title: Dudley

text: In 1605, conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot fled to Holbeche House in nearby Wall Heath, where they were defeated and captured by the forces of the Sheriff of Worcestershire.


title: Dudley

text: During the English Civil War Dudley served as a Royalist stronghold, with the castle besieged twice by the Parliamentarians and later partly demolished on the orders of the Government after the Royalist surrender. It is also from around this time that the oldest excavated condoms, found in the remains of Dudley Castle, were believed to have originated.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley had become an incredibly impoverished place during the 16th and 17th centuries, but the advent of the Industrial Revolution began to reverse this trend. In the early 17th century, Dud Dudley, an illegitimate son of Edward Sutton, 5th Baron Dudley and Elizabeth Tomlinson, devised a method of smelting Iron ore using coke at his father's works in Cradley and Pensnett Chase, though his trade was unsuccessful due to circumstances of the time. Abraham Darby was descended from Dud Dudley's sister, Jane, and was the first person to produce iron commercially using coke instead of charcoal at his works in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire in 1709. Abraham Darby was born near Wrens Nest Hill near the town of Dudley and it is claimed that he may have known about Dud Dudley's earlier work.


title: Dudley

text: Dud Dudley's discovery, together with improvements to the local road network and the construction of the Dudley Canal, made Dudley into an important industrial and commercial centre. The first Newcomen steam engine, used to pump water from the mines of the Lord Dudley's estates, was installed at the Conygree coal works a mile east of Dudley Castle in 1712, though this is challenged by Wolverhampton, which also claims to have been the location of the first working Newcomen engine.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley's population grew dramatically during the 18th and 19th centuries because of the increase in industry, with the main industries including coal and limestone mining. Other industries included iron, steel, engineering, metallurgy, glass cutting, textiles and leatherworking.


title: Dudley

text: During this time living conditions remained very poor, with Dudley being named "the most unhealthy place in the country" in 1851. Health Inspector William Lee stated that "In no other part of England and Wales is the work of human extermination effected in so short a time as … in Dudley". The report led to the installation of clean water supplies and sewage systems. Later the extensive development of council housing during the early 20th century relocated the occupants of local slum housing.


title: Dudley

text: Following the Reform Act of 1832, Dudley returned one Member of Parliament (MP), a privilege first enacted in the Parliament of 1295. The town was re-incorporated as a Municipal Borough in 1865, later becoming a County Borough in 1889.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley was developed substantially in the early 20th century, with the construction of many entertainment venues including a theatre and cinemas, with two indoor shopping centres being added later in the century. The grounds of Dudley Castle were converted into a zoo in 1937 by the Earl of Dudley, with buildings designed by architect Berthold Lubetkin. A reported 250,000 people attempted to visit the site upon the first day of opening.


title: Dudley

text: In World War II, Dudley was bombed on several occasions. On 19 November 1940 a Luftwaffe bomb demolished a public house in the town centre and damaged several nearby buildings including St Thomas's Church and the new Co-Operative department store, but there were no fatalities. However, on the same night a landmine was dropped in the Oakham area of the town and demolished a section of council houses in City Road, resulting in the deaths of 10 people and injuring many others. On 12 August 1941, four people were killed when another landmine was dropped in nearby Birch Crescent. These were the only fatal air raids on Dudley.


title: Dudley

text: Following local government reforms in 1966, Dudley was expanded to include the majority of the former urban districts of Brierley Hill and Sedgley, along with parts of Coseley, Amblecote and Rowley Regis; an area in the eastern section of the town was also transferred into the new borough of Warley. Most of this land had been held by the Lords of Dudley, and contained within the Dudley registration district and parliamentary borough. In 1974, further reorganization led to the creation of the present-day metropolitan borough, which included the nearby towns of Stourbridge and Halesowen.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley was struck by an F1/T2 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day. The tornado touched down in Woodsetton, subsequently passing through Dudley town centre, causing moderate damage, before dissipating.


title: Dudley

text: The declining industry in Dudley has given rise to high unemployment, resulting in the closure of many businesses in the town. The development of the Merry Hill Shopping Centre between 1985 and 1990 also saw the loss of most of the town centre's leading name stores, which relocated to take advantage of the tax incentives offered by Merry Hill's status as an Enterprise Zone. The financial crisis and recession resulted in even more of the retail units in the town centre becoming vacant, with the Woolworths store on Market Place closing in December 2008 when the company went bankrupt, and Beatties closing its store – the last department store in the town – in January 2010, after more than 40 years due to falling trade.


title: Dudley

text: The town had been a manorial borough from the end of the 13th century, and from at least the 16th century until the passing of the Dudley Town Act of 1791, was governed by the Court Leet of the Lords of Dudley. From 1791, the Town Commissioners were the main local authority although the Court Leet continued to meet until 1866. In 1836 the Dudley Poor Law Union was formed, consisting of Dudley itself, and the parishes of Sedgley, Tipton, and Rowley Regis. In 1853 the Town Commissioners were superseded by the Board of Health, before the town was eventually incorporated into a municipal borough in 1865. It became a county borough in 1888 under the Local Government Act.


title: Dudley

text: For many years the town (but not the castle, which was outside the boundary in Staffordshire) formed part of an exclave of the county of Worcestershire. Despite the more recent changes in county boundaries, the town and borough still remain part of the Anglican Diocese of Worcester.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley Council House in Priory Road was financed by the then Earl of Dudley, and was officially opened by Duke of Kent in December 1935. Dudley Town Hall (an events venue) opened on St James's Road in 1928; it stands next to council offices which were converted from the old Police Station in 1939, after the construction of a new building on nearby New Street.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley is the administrative centre of the Dudley Metropolitan Borough, governed by Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council. The borough, which also includes the towns of Halesowen and Stourbridge, had a population of 312,925 as of the 2011 census.


title: Dudley

text: In 2012 the Dudley Metropolitan Borough made an unsuccessful bid to receive city status, losing out to Chelmsford, Perth, and St. Asaph.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley presently has two parliamentary constituencies, Dudley North and Dudley South, which cover the town and its surrounding area. In October 2017, proposals to revise constituency boundaries were published that would reduce Dudley to just one constituency. The town itself would be divided between multiple constituencies, including ones predominantly based in neighbouring council areas such as Wolverhampton and Sandwell. The proposals were criticised by then MP for Dudley North, Ian Austin As of the 2019 general election, the current Members of Parliament (MPs) elected from these seats to the House of Commons are


title: Dudley

text: The 13th-century ruins of Dudley Castle overlook the town; it is a Grade I listed structure. Dudley Zoo is built into the castle grounds, and houses a large collection of endangered species, and also the largest collection of Tecton buildings in the world. Under proposals by Dudley Zoo, in partnership with Dudley Council, St. Modwen, and Advantage West Midlands, the zoo is to be regenerated, which will see a former freightliner site redeveloped with a tropical dome, Asiatic forest, two aquatic facilities and walkthrough aviaries. It was expected to cost £38.7 million in 2007.


title: Dudley

text: There are many canals in and around Dudley, the main one being the Dudley Canal – most of which passes beneath the town in the Dudley Tunnel and is accessible only by boat because there is no towpath. The open sections of canal are popular with walkers, cyclists, fishermen, and narrowboat users. Many of the canalside towpaths have been upgraded for cycling, and some sections are part of the National Cycle Network.


title: Dudley

text: St James's Church at Eve Hill had a church school from the mid-19th century, but this was closed during the 1970s and was used as a community centre for several years before being transferred to the Black Country Museum in 1989. The site of the school remained undeveloped until 2008, when work began on a new health centre.


title: Dudley

text: There are 11 scheduled ancient monuments in Dudley and the surrounding district, and 260 listed buildings, including 6 Grade I listed and 19 Grade II* listed buildings.


title: Dudley

text: The town was formerly home to a number of cinemas and theatres, including the Criterion, Gaumont, Odeon, and Plaza. The Dudley Hippodrome was one of the largest theatres in the West Midlands, built along with the adjacent Plaza Cinema just prior to the Second World War in 1938. The 1,600-seat Art Deco venue was constructed to replace the earlier Opera House, which had burned down in 1936. After its closure in 1964, the building was in use as a bingo hall until 2009, when it was purchased by Dudley Council with a view for demolition. After long public opposition the building was leased to campaigners in December 2016, with the intent to restore it to theatre use; however the lease was revoked by the council in February 2018, citing a lack of progress.


title: Dudley

text: The Plaza Cinema remained open until October 1990. The building was then taken over by Laser Quest, until its closure and demolition in 1997. As of January 2017 the site remains undeveloped.


title: Dudley

text: The Odeon Cinema was converted into a Kingdom Hall for Jehovah's Witnesses in 1976. A present-day Odeon currently exists at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley is currently home to a multiplex Showcase Cinema and Tenpin bowling alley, located in the Castle Gate complex north-east of the town centre. The Town Hall also acts as an entertainment venue, hosting dances, theatrical performances, and concerts.


title: Dudley

text: Until 2011, the JB's nightclub was situated on Castle Hill, after relocating from an earlier site in King Street (behind Pathfinders clothes store) in the 1990s. Claimed to have been the longest-running live music venue in the UK, the club hosted early performances by acts such as U2, Dire Straits, and Judas Priest. It closed after going into administration and has since reopened as a banqueting centre.


title: Dudley

text: The museums in Dudley celebrate the geological and industrial heritage of the town and the surrounding Black Country region, and its role in the Industrial Revolution. The Black Country Living Museum is an open-air living museum, which consists of reconstructed buildings from the surrounding area forming a living replica of an industrial village, with demonstrators portraying life in the region from that time. Work began in 2022 to recreate a typical Black Country town centre using original buildings such as the Woodside Library and replicas of other lost buildings such as the Elephant & Castle pub which stood at the junction of Stafford Street and Cannock Road in Wolverhampton. The pub, whose lower section is clad in traditional Victorian glazed tiles, opened within the museum's village in Autumn 2022.


title: Dudley

text: The Dudley Museum and Art Gallery was formerly located in the town centre, having first opened in 1912, but was closed by Dudley Council in 2016 as part of cost-cutting measures, despite widespread public opposition. Some of the museum collections were later relocated to a permanent exhibit at the local archives centre on Tipton Road, adjacent to the Black Country Living Museum.


title: Dudley

text: According to ONS, there are two railway stations in Dudley, both just over a mile from Dudley town centre, these are Dudley Port and Tipton. They are within the town of Dudley but outside the borough boundary as parts of Sandwell are considered within Dudley Town. The nearest station to the town within the Dudley borough is Coseley. All of these stations are on the same line, served by local services operated by West Midlands Trains. The nearest regular intercity services run from the Sandwell & Dudley in Oldbury, which was rebuilt in 1984 to serve the two boroughs.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley railway station located in the town centre was closed under the Beeching cuts in 1964. It opened in 1860 on the junction between the South Staffordshire and the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton lines, and in its heyday was a hub of services east to Birmingham (via a junction at Great Bridge), Walsall and Lichfield; north to Wolverhampton, Tipton and Coseley; and south-west to Stourbridge, as well as a line that served the small communities on the way to Old Hill and Halesowen. The site was later used as a Freightliner terminal by Freightliner, until an unpopular closure on 26 September 1989.


title: Dudley

text: A proposal to re-open the segment of line between Dudley and Dudley Port was unveiled in December 2014, to allow for a light rail link from the town centre to the main line, but this plan was scrapped in May 2016 as Dudley Council favoured keeping the line available for the now confirmed West Midlands Metro extension to Brierley Hill, then later Stourbridge.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley bus station is in the town centre and has many connections to surrounding towns, cities, and communities, including Birmingham, Halesowen, Smethwick, Stourbridge, Walsall, West Bromwich, and Wolverhampton, amongst others. The bus station also has coach services run by National Express, mostly to and from London or Wolverhampton. Other places served include holiday destination Blackpool, and London Heathrow and London Gatwick airports. There are also small bus stations located at Russells Hall Hospital and the Merry Hill Shopping Centre.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley town centre has been served by a bus station at the junction of Birmingham Street and Fisher Street since 1952. The original bus station was cleared in 1984 and replaced by the current bus station, which became fully operational in 1987. The original bus station was on the slope at right angles to the current bus station. It was replaced by a "temporary car park" which remains in use today.


title: Dudley

text: Midland Red used to operate bus services in the town, mostly from its own bus depot, which opened in 1929. This depot was located on Birmingham Road and passed to West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive in 1973, along with operation of all bus services in Dudley. The depot was closed in 1993 and demolished a year later to make way for the Castle Gate roundabout, at the eastern end of the town's new southern by-pass. The island was built in 1997 and the bypass opened on 15 October 1999.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley is served by main roads which give a direct route to neighbouring towns. The longest of these roads are the B4176 (which runs to Wombourne, Bridgnorth and Telford) and the A461 (which passes through Wednesbury and Walsall, finally reaching Lichfield).


title: Dudley

text: The nearest motorway is the M5, with the closest junction situated in Oldbury, south-east of the town.


title: Dudley

text: The nearest international airport is Birmingham Airport, around to the east. The nearest local airport is Wolverhampton Airport, which is about to the west of the town.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley was the terminus point of two tram routes which opened in the later part of the 19th century. The first route, linking the town with Tipton and Wednesbury, opened on 21 January 1884 operating steam trams, the route being electrified in 1907 before being closed in March 1930 and replaced by Midland Red buses along the route. The second route opened a year later, linking the town with Birmingham and heading through the centre of nearby Tividale village on the Dudley-Tipton border. This line was electrified in 1904 and remained open until 30 September 1939, when it too was replaced by Midland Red buses.


title: Dudley

text: An long line bringing 2 new lines of the West Midlands Metro, running from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill via Dudley, will re-instate a tram service through the town centre and will open in stages on two metro lines to Birmingham and Wolverhampton from 2022-2023.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley covers an area of the South Staffordshire Coalfield, which contributed heavily to its growth and industrialisation during the 18th century Industrial Revolution.


title: Dudley

text: North-west of the town centre lies the Wren's Nest Nature Reserve, the first British nature reserve in an urban area and a site of special scientific interest (SSSI), considered to be one of the most notable geological locations in the British Isles. A part of the Much Wenlock Limestone Formation, it was heavily mined for centuries because of its large limestone deposits, and is also the location of one of the largest fossil sites in England. The town lends its name to the "Dudley locust", (also 'Dudley Bug'), a trilobite with the scientific name "Calymene blumenbachii" that was found in these limestone pits in 1749 by Charles Lyttleton.


title: Dudley

text: In the 1830s, Scottish geologist Sir Roderick Murchison visited the Wren's Nest to collect fossils as part of his research. 65% of his palaeontological evidence featured in the 1839 publication "The Silurian System" was from Dudley.


title: Dudley

text: The current figure for the population of Dudley is 79,379. This figure differs considerably from that given at the 2001 census (194,919), which led to it being considered one of the largest towns in Britain without city status. However, this change is not due to large population movements but to a redefinition of the town's boundaries (for example, Kingswinford with a population of over 50,000, included as Dudley in the 2001 census, is now considered a separate town). In addition, the 2001 Urban Subdivision included Brierley Hill, which the local authority considers a separate town. It also included other local centres such as Sedgley and Gornal.


title: Dudley

text: The English Defence League demonstrated in the town centre on 3 April 2010, to protest against a planning application put forward by local Muslims to build a mosque just outside the town centre. Although there were no injuries at the event, eight people were arrested and there were several instances of criminal damage. On 17 July 2010, members of the English Defence League again gathered in Dudley. This time there were several confrontations between the demonstrators and the police, and also at a counter-demonstration attended mainly by local anti-racists. English Defence League members threw bottles, cans, coins and pieces of wood as they pulled down metal railings placed there to contain the demonstration. Some supporters were treated at the scene for injuries, including one of the EDL leaders that day who suffered a head wound in an incident. In the days after the event, twenty offences were pursued by police, including those of acts vandalism on cars, local homes, restaurants, and a Hindu temple.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley is served by a range of primary schools. Several of these are church schools. For example, Jesson's Church of England Primary School, St Chads Roman Catholic School, St Edmund's and St John's Church of England Primary School and Netherton Church of England Primary School are all Church of England primary schools.


title: Dudley

text: Other primary schools in the town include Dudley Wood Primary School, Priory Primary School, Kates Hill Primary School, Sledmere Primary School, Russells Hall Primary School, Milking Bank Primary School, Highgate Primary School, Northfield Road Primary School, Dudley Wood Primary School, Foxyards Primary School, Netherbrook Primary School (in Netherton), Blowers Green Primary School and Wrens Nest Primary School. Many of these schools are named after the housing estates they are located within.


title: Dudley

text: Primary schools throughout the Dudley borough all provide education for pupils aged 5 to 11 years. Some schools also have nursery units for pupils aged 3 and 4 years. From 1972 to 1990, schoolchildren in Dudley, Sedgley, Coseley and Brierley Hill stayed at primary school until the age of 12. Halesowen ran a 5–13 first and middle school system from 1972 to 1982, while Stourbridge and Kingswinford have always had a traditional 5–11 infant and junior system.


title: Dudley

text: There are several secondary schools in and around Dudley. The Dudley Academies Trust, created in association with Dudley College, runs four of these: Beacon Hill Academy in Sedgley, The Link Academy in Netherton, Pegasus Academy in Holly Hall, and St James Academy near the town centre.


title: Dudley

text: Bishop Milner Catholic College is a Roman Catholic secondary school in the town. Opened in 1960, it became one of the first Roman Catholic secondary schools in the region and is the oldest existing secondary school – by name – in Dudley.


title: Dudley

text: All of the town's grammar schools were changed to comprehensives in 1975. Casualties of this change included Dudley's girls and boys grammar schools, which merged with the nearby Park Secondary School to form The Dudley School (which in turn became Castle High upon a merger with The Blue Coat School in 1989, and now comprises the St James Academy). Several other grammar schools, such as the High Arcal School (now Beacon Hill Academy), survived merely with a change in status.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley traditionally ran a system of 5–7 infant, 7–11 junior and 11+ secondary schools, but in September 1972 the system was altered to create 5–8 first, 8–12 middle and 12+ secondary schools; though this system was not introduced in the Kingswinford area. The traditional school system was restored in September 1990, since Stourbridge (which had become part of the borough in 1974) had retained the traditional system, and Halesowen (also part of the borough since 1974) had reverted in 1982. At this time all of the town's remaining sixth forms were closed in favour of concentrating post-16 education in the borough's further education colleges.


title: Dudley

text: There are several special schools within Dudley, to cater for students with special educational needs. The Old Park School serves pupils from the age of 3 to 19, and was originally located in the Russells Hall Estate, but relocated to new premises in Quarry Bank in 2011. The Rosewood School also caters for children within the age range. It was built on the Russells Hall Estate during the 1960s, but relocated to the former Highfields Primary School site in Coseley in March 2008.


title: Dudley

text: As well as The Dudley School, Sir Gilbert Claughton School and The Blue Coat School, which merged to form Castle High School, other defunct schools in the town include Rosland Secondary School, which became part of The Blue Coat School in 1970, and Park Secondary School. The Mons Hill School also shut down as a result of falling pupil numbers; it had originally opened in 1965 to replace the Wolverhampton Street School.


title: Dudley

text: Primary schools that no longer exist include St James' School (erected in 1842), St John's Primary School and St Edmund's Primary School, which merged to form St Edmund's and St John's Church of England Primary School in the 1970s. The St Edmund's building still exists on the corner of Castle Hill and Birmingham Street, and is now used as a mosque.


title: Dudley

text: Sycamore Green Primary School shut down in July 2006 as a result of falling pupil numbers. Staff and pupils were transferred to the nearby Wrens Nest Primary School, and the school buildings are now used as a Pupil Referral Unit for students studying at Key Stage 3.


title: Dudley

text: Originally established as a Mechanics' Institute in 1862, Dudley College of Technology provides further education for the town. Plans to establish a 'learning quarter' saw several new campuses built in the town centre in 2012, replacing previous sites elsewhere in the borough.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley Training College for Teachers was opened in 1909 on a site on Eve Hill. In 1965 it was renamed Dudley College of Education, a period when it trained over 600 students a year. It was taken over by Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1977, which then became the University of Wolverhampton. The campus was closed in 2002 and the main college building was demolished, leaving the town and borough without higher education provision. A new Institute of Technology, offering higher education courses, was due to open in 2021 in the Castle Hill area.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley Library is situated on St. James's Road, in the town centre. The present building, a Grade II listed Edwardian baroque, was designed by George H. Wenyon, and opened in 1909 to replace the older site in Priory Street. The statuary above the main entrance depicts "philosophy, science and the arts" and was put in place by H. H. Martyn & Co. The town has had a public library since 1878. The library underwent a major expansion in 1966, and significant refurbishment in 2002 and 2012.


title: Dudley

text: The library service also operates eight branch libraries and four self-service 'Library Links', along with four other main libraries situated throughout Dudley Borough, including Netherton Library, which moved buildings to the Savoy centre in 2012. A controversial re-structuring and modernisation of the service between 2006 and 2009 lead to the closure of several smaller borough libraries in favour of the 'Library Links'.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley is served by several National Health Service facilities. The main general hospital is Russells Hall, located to the south of the town. It was constructed in 1976, though financial difficulties prevented it from opening until 1983. A major expansion of the hospital was completed in 2005 when it incorporated all inpatient services from the other hospitals in the borough.


title: Dudley

text: The Guest Hospital was initially created as a charity hospital by the Earl of Dudley in 1849 to accommodate blinded miners. It was taken over by local chainmaker Joseph Guest in 1871, and converted for general hospital use. It remained in use throughout the twentieth century, but was downgraded to an outpatient-only centre in the 2000s following the construction of a new block; the original hospital site was re-developed for private housing in 2018.


title: Dudley

text: Bushey Fields Hospital provides psychiatric care for the area. It was developed adjacent to Russells Hall Hospital in the 1980s and early 1990s to replace facilities at Burton Road Hospital. Approximately one mile west of the town centre, Burton Road Hospital was built in the mid-19th century, initially as a workhouse, before becoming a hospital in 1859. It closed in December 1993, and was demolished the following year for re-development.


title: Dudley

text: Law enforcement in Dudley is carried out by West Midlands Police, with the borough's sole police station located in Brierley Hill. Closure of Dudley Police Station was announced in 2017 as part of cost-cutting measures, though a small number of officers are set to remain in the town centre from a shared base with the local council. The police station had originally opened in 1939 to replace a 19th-century structure on Priory Street, which now forms part of the civic centre.


title: Dudley

text: In 2019 plans were put forward to build a new police station in the town centre, although disputes between Dudley Council and West Midlands Police have delayed the project.


title: Dudley

text: Fire and rescue services are provided by the West Midlands Fire Service, with the fire station situated on Burton Road on land previously occupied by Burton Road Hospital. The former fire station site on Tower Street now forms part of a campus of Dudley College. West Midlands Ambulance Service provides emergency medical care, with the ambulance station also on Burton Road, near to the fire station.


title: Dudley

text: There is also a Dudley Detachment of the Army Cadet Force, Air Cadet Squadron, and Sea Cadet unit based in Dudley. The Army Reserve Centre on Vicar Street houses both Army Cadets and Air Cadets.


title: Dudley

text: Part of the Anglican Diocese of Worcester, Dudley has its own Archdeaconry and suffragan bishop. The town is served by numerous parish churches, including the Church of St. Edmund, Church of St. James, and Church of St. Thomas within the town centre. In the Kate's Hill area of Dudley, one can find St John's church, whose graveyard contains the burial place of William Perry a 19th-century Prizefighter, known as the "Tipton Slasher".


title: Dudley

text: The oldest church in the town is St. Edmund's, dating back to Anglo-Saxon times, although the present building was not constructed until 1724, following its demolition during the English Civil War. St. Thomas' church dates from the 12th century, and was rebuilt in the 1815 after the original building was declared 'unsafe'. Both sites are now Grade II* listed.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley Priory was a Cluniac priory founded circa 1160 by the Lord of Dudley, Gervase de Paganel, and controlled several churches in the surrounding area. After its initial dissolution in 1395, it reopened as a denizen priory, and remained in use until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Today the ruins form part of the surrounding Priory Park.


title: Dudley

text: The Revd Robert Jones, present Archdeacon of Worcester, inducted in November 2014, was previously Vicar of St. Francis Church in Dudley for eight years.


title: Dudley

text: Roman Catholics in the town are served by a church dedicated to Our Blessed Lady and St Thomas of Canterbury situated in St Joseph Street near the bus station. The church, designed by architect Augustus Pugin, dates from 1842 and has been Grade II listed since 1949.


title: Dudley

text: There are two Methodist Churches in Dudley: Central Church is at Cross Street near the town centre and there is another church at Dixon's Green. Dudley Baptist Church is on Priory Road in the centre of town. There is also a thriving Salvation Army Church in Dudley on North Street.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley also has places of worship for other religious groups and Christian denominations, including a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall, two Sikh gurdwaras, and a Hindu temple. The old St Edmund's Church School, which closed in 1970 on a merger with St John's Church School, was converted into a mosque for the town's Islamic community, with an additional mosque also opening in the Queen's Cross area of the town.


title: Dudley

text: In 2003, plans were unveiled for the construction of a new mosque (which become known as the "Super Mosque" locally) in Hall Street, a site that had been leased by Dudley Council to the Dudley Muslim Association, in exchange for a site impacted by a proposed bypass. The mosque proposals were scrapped in May 2010, after a long dispute, in favour of an expansion to the existing Dudley Central Mosque in Castle Hill, an appeal was made by the Dudley Muslim Association against the High Court ruling, and failed in February 2014.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley is served by a number of local newspapers. The town has its own version of the "Express & Star", published daily Monday to Saturday. There are also "Dudley News", which is published weekly, and (based at Dudley Archives and Local History Centre on Tipton Road in Dudley) the "Black Country Bugle", which looks at the history of Dudley and the rest of the Black Country. Dudley was also served by the Dudley Evening Mail until its absorption into the Birmingham Evening Mail in late 1986. Televised local news is provided through Midlands Today and Central Tonight, which also serve the wider area of the West Midlands.


title: Dudley

text: BBC Radio WM, Free Radio (formerly Beacon Radio), Heart West Midlands, Greatest Hits West Midlands, and Smooth Radio 105.7 are some of the local radio stations that can be received in Dudley, also serving the wider West Midlands. Black Country Community Radio broadcasts online from its Dudley Studios serving The Central and Northern Black Country. The Kates Hill Press, founded in 1992 and named after a famous Dudley landmark, is a small press concentrating on the publishing of fiction and non-fiction of mainly local and regional interest.


title: Dudley

text: As a commercial centre, Dudley's town centre has become increasingly run down; in 2012 nearly a third of its shop units lay vacant, the highest figure for a centre of its size in England. Retailing was particularly hard hit by the opening of the Merry Hill Shopping Centre away, between 1985 and 1990. This led to the exit of the majority of major retailers, including British Home Stores (June 1990), Marks & Spencer (August 1990), Sainsbury's (August 1989), C&A (January 1992), and Littlewoods (January 1990), all of which closed before or soon after new stores opened at Merry Hill. Although the town was already in slight decline at the time following the recession of the early 1980s, the opening of the Merry Hill Centre resulted in a 70% decline of the town's market share in retail between 1985 and 1990.


title: Dudley

text: Successive economic downturns have led to most remaining major retailers leaving the town centre. Department store Beatties closed in 2010, WH Smith in 2013, River Island in 2020, and Argos in 2021; the town centre is now largely occupied by take-away restaurants, charity shops, and gambling centres. The variety of businesses left led to Dudley being named 'the worst place to shop in the UK' in a 2014 study, which drew condemnation from the local council.


title: Dudley

text: The town's market remains a prominent local shopping destination. Established in the 12th century, it is situated on a wide part of the High Street. It has undergone numerous developments in its history, including pedestrianisation in 1982, removal of 12th-century cobblestone paving, and a large-scale redevelopment scheme in 2015.


title: Dudley

text: The Bean Cars factory was opened in the first years of the twentieth century and remained in use until the 1930s, but survives to this day for other industrial use.


title: Dudley

text: The town's key football teams, Dudley Town F.C. and Dudley Sports F.C. have never progressed beyond the Southern League.


title: Dudley

text: Dudley Town is the older of the town's two clubs, and have enjoyed the most success. Their most notable success came in 1985 when they won promotion to the Southern Premier League, but in the same year they were forced to quit Dudley Sports Centre (at the junction of Tipton Road and Birmingham Road) due to mining subsidence. They played at Round Oak Sports Ground in Brierley Hill for the next 11 years, and then spent a season ground-sharing at Halesowen Town, before resigning from the Southern League due to financial difficulties. The club was reformed in 1999 to compete in the West Midlands Regional League, and ground-share with Stourbridge at the War Memorial Athletic Ground.


title: Dudley

text: In 1981, when still playing at Dudley Sports Centre, Dudley Town played a prestigious game against Wolverhampton Wanderers to commemorate a refurbishment of the stadium, with the new floodlights being switched on by legendary former Wolves player Billy Wright.


title: Dudley

text: For some time after leaving Dudley Sports Centre, there were hopes that it could be made safe for Dudley Town to return, but these plans never materialised and the site was instead redeveloped as a business and leisure complex which has been developing since 2000. The club play at the Dell Stadium in Pensnett.


title: Dudley

text: The Dudley Kingswinford Rugby Club is the local rugby team, which play at their grounds in Wall Heath.


title: Dudley

text: For a short period, a speedway team called Dudley Heathens attempted to find a site to race in Dudley.


title: Dudley

text: The team plays in Wolverhampton and Birmingham due to the lack of a speedway track within the Dudley borough. The team were originally called the Cradley Heath Heathens, due to the proximity of their home track at Dudley Wood Stadium to the Cradley Heath/Dudley boundary. The stadium was demolished in the mid-1990s to make way for housing development, with the club disbanding shortly afterwards, before it re-formed with the name Dudley Heathens in 2010. Though there have been attempts by the club to move back into the town, they have so far been rejected by the local authority. The team re-adopted the name Cradley Heathens in 2013. Former World Champion riders from the team include Erik Gundersen and Bruce Penhall.


title: Dudley

text: Following a merger with the Coseley Volleyball Club, Wombourne V.C. play at the Evolve campus of Dudley College, in the town centre. They compete in the West Midlands Volleyball Association.


title: World Football League

text: The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest the WFL reached was placing a team – the Hawaiians – in Honolulu, Hawaii. The league folded midway through its second season, in 1975. A new minor football league began play as the World Football League in 2008 after acquiring the rights to its trademarks and intellectual property; it folded in 2011.


title: World Football League

text: Gary Davidson, a California lawyer and businessman, was the driving force behind the World Football League. He had helped start the moderately successful American Basketball Association and World Hockey Association, some of whose teams survived long enough to enter the more established National Basketball Association and National Hockey League, respectively. Unlike his two previous efforts, the World Football League did not bring any surviving teams into the National Football League.


title: World Football League

text: To get the league off the ground, Davidson knew that he needed investors. At a press conference held in Chicago on October 2, 1973, Davidson announced his core of investors, a group of men he called the "founding fathers". These men were Robert Schmertz, who owned the WHA's New England Whalers and NBA's Boston Celtics; a former hockey prospect named Howard Baldwin (future owner of the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins), who ran the Boston Bulls charter; Ben Hatskin, who owned the WHA's Winnipeg Jets; and R. Steve Arnold, another WHA associate.


title: World Football League

text: Perhaps one of the biggest of the "founding fathers" was a Canadian movie producer, John F. Bassett. A former tennis prodigy and owner of the WHA's Toronto Toros, Bassett came from a wealthy Canadian family. The family owned (among other entities) the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, two Toronto newspapers and interests in television stations. The younger Bassett had been mulling over starting his own professional football league when he happened to meet Davidson and he was given a franchise for Toronto. Bassett would later go on to own a team in another alternative football league, the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits in the mid-1980s.


title: World Football League

text: Along with the original founding fathers, the rest of the owners would soon fall into place, including a man whose own dreams of playing football were ended by a heart ailment, Thomas Origer, who would run the Chicago Fire.


title: World Football League

text: Several prospective owners were forced to drop out. Davidson was willing to sell his Philadelphia team to investor Harry Jay Katz, before learning that Katz didn't have the strong resources that he claimed, and was in fact the target of several lawsuits, and rescinded his offer to sell the rights to Philadelphia. He nearly sold the Detroit franchise to Bud Huchul, but it was later discovered Huchul had been arrested 30 times and faced 27 lawsuits related to his previous business dealings.


title: World Football League

text: Davidson had initially planned for his league to commence play in 1975. However, the league came under pressure to accelerate its timetable, largely on account of strained labor relations affecting both established professional leagues. In the spring of 1974, players were threatening to go on strike in both the NFL and CFL, which could have delayed the start of their seasons and/or caused the quality of their product to deteriorate if owners attempted to bring in replacement players.


title: World Football League

text: The possibility of being the only major professional football league in operation (or, at least, the possibility that the quality of WFL football might be compared favorably with that of established league rosters filled with "scab" players) appeared to be too good an opportunity to pass up – combined with rumors of another upstart league, it persuaded Davidson to advance the new league's planned debut to 1974.


title: World Football League

text: One team went through several identities. The team slated to play in Maryland was to be called the Washington Capitals, but the expansion NHL team had already trademarked the rights to the nickname. A contest held to name the team came up with the name Ambassadors. The team then became the Baltimore-Washington Ambassadors, and then the Baltimore name was dropped, and the team simply became known as the Washington Ambassadors. In order to boost ticket sales, Washington owner Joe Wheeler offered former Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas a contract as head coach and general manager of the team, but Unitas declined as he was already under contract with the San Diego Chargers; he retired at the end of the 1973 season. Wheeler then made the same offer to Redskins linebacker Jack Pardee, who quickly signed with the new league.


title: World Football League

text: In the meantime Wheeler had engaged in a war for territory with Pardee's old boss, Redskins owner Edward Bennett Williams. Wheeler wanted the Ambassadors to play at RFK Stadium, but Williams refused to allow it, and the Ambassadors were on the move. Without ever stepping on the field, the team went through their third relocation, starting off as the Baltimore-Washington Ambassadors, then becoming the Washington Ambassadors, and finally the Virginia Ambassadors.


title: World Football League

text: The fledgling WFL did succeed in raising stagnant salaries in the NFL. Average salaries in professional football were among the lowest in the four major North American sports, and the National Football League Players Association and the Canadian Football League Players Association had both gone on strike prior to their leagues' respective 1974 seasons in an effort to lift many of the rules suppressing free agency and player salaries. In addition, the NFL did not have a free agency system in place then (and one would not be established until 1993).


title: World Football League

text: With the uncertain labor situation, the WFL had the opportunity to provide players with a better deal than the established leagues would give them, along with the promise of employment. Davidson's league garnered major publicity when the Toronto Northmen, led by John F. Bassett, signed three Miami Dolphins players, fullback Larry Csonka, halfback Jim Kiick, and wide receiver Paul Warfield to what was then the richest three-player deal in sports, an astounding US$3.5 million to start in 1975. The pact was a guaranteed, personal-services contract, so the trio would be paid even if the WFL did not survive its first season.


title: World Football League

text: The NFL took notice, as did their players when they were approached to jump leagues. The Oakland Raiders nearly lost both their quarterbacks. Ken Stabler signed with the Birmingham Americans, and Daryle Lamonica penned a contract to play for the Southern California Sun starting in 1975. John Wilbur left the Over-the-Hill Gang as a Washington Redskin to invest, coach special teams, and play for the Hawaiians. The Dallas Cowboys also took roster hits when WFL teams in Hawaii and Houston signed running back Calvin Hill and quarterback Craig Morton respectively. The Hawaiians also signed Minnesota Vikings Pro Bowl WR John Gilliam and San Francisco 49ers All-Pro TE Ted Kwalick; however, Gilliam ended up with the Chicago Winds and Kwalick signed with the Philadelphia Bell prior to the 1975 season.


title: World Football League

text: By early June 1974, the WFL claimed they had some 60 NFL players under contract. Many of these defections came in the form of futures contracts. The players would play out their existing deals with the NFL, then jump to the WFL when those deals expired. Thus, Stabler would stay with the Raiders through 1975, then would have joined Birmingham in 1976 had the team and league survived that long.


title: World Football League

text: The top minor leagues in the United States at the time, the Atlantic Coast Football League and Seaboard Football League, were also tremendously affected as it caused them to fold. The ACFL had survived a suspension of operations in 1972 to return to play in 1973, only to have the WFL lure away most of the ACFL's and SFL's players with the prospect of playing in a "major" league. Both leagues were forced to fold; the ACFL and half the SFL folded immediately, with two teams joining the four remaining SFL teams to play in 1974; the SFL folded after an abbreviated 1974 season.


title: World Football League

text: Playing a 20-game regular season schedule in 1974 – six games longer than the NFL's then 14-game slate – the WFL staged no exhibition games (although their teams did participate in preseason scrimmages).


title: World Football League

text: The season was scheduled to begin on Wednesday, July 10 and end on Wednesday, November 13. This was a 20-game season in 19 weeks – a schedule accomplished by having double games (primarily Monday and Friday) on Labor Day weekend.


title: World Football League

text: Some complained that the schedule was poorly drafted: although most teams played on Wednesday nights with a national TV game slated for Thursday nights, the Hawaiians played their home games on Sunday afternoons, meaning when the Hawaiians had a home game, they played an opponent who flew to Honolulu after having played just four days earlier. In addition, back-to-back meetings between two teams were common.


title: World Football League

text: The WFL held a college draft. The first six rounds were held on January 22, 1974, with the remaining 30 rounds held on February 5. David Jaynes, quarterback from Kansas, was the first player selected in the draft by the original Memphis franchise that became the Houston Texans by the time the season started.


title: World Football League

text: As was common with many upstart leagues, the WFL's intended lineup of teams changed several times before they even played a down. Most notably, Bassett's Toronto Northmen were forced to find a new home after the Canadian government threatened to ban any American football team from competing with the CFL. Though the Canadian Football Act never passed, the mere threat of it prompted Bassett to move the team to Memphis, where it became the Memphis Southmen. It was generally referred to by fans, local media, and even some official team materials as the Grizzlies, which they officially renamed themselves to the following season (not to be confused with the current NBA team of the same name). The WFL suffered an even more serious blow when the CFL and NFL reached agreements with their striking players that ensured that the upstart league would be forced to compete with both of their established rivals.


title: World Football League

text: The original schedule called for a four-team playoff, with semifinal games held on Wednesday-Thursday November 20-November 21, and the World Bowl on Friday, November 29 (the night after Thanksgiving) at the Gator Bowl Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida. League officials also boldly discussed plans for expansion teams in Europe and Asia.


title: World Football League

text: In the first few weeks, the WFL looked to be a resounding success. Attendance outpaced the first week of the American Football League in 1960, averaging just under 43,000 a game. The box office numbers proved to be the beginning of the WFL's undoing when two teams admitted to inflating their gates on a grand scale: the Jacksonville Sharks admitted that out of the 105,892 fans who attended their first two games, 30,000 had gotten in for free, and the Philadelphia Bell, whose first two home games totaled 120,253 fans, admitted that 100,198 of the tickets had been given away for free or sold at significantly reduced prices. Presumably, the giveaways were intended in part to pique the public's curiosity and interest, but they ended up seriously eroding the league's credibility.


title: World Football League

text: Six games into the first season, WFL franchises were in serious trouble. The Detroit Wheels were looking to move to Charlotte, and the Florida Blazers made overtures of bringing the first place club to Atlanta. The league seemed to bottom out in September, when two franchises relocated in mid-season: The Houston Texans moved to Shreveport, Louisiana as the Shreveport Steamer, and they were followed a week later by the New York Stars, who relocated to Charlotte and became the Charlotte Hornets (also not to be confused with the present-day NBA franchise of the same name; they played one road game after the official move still under the "Stars" name). On top of this, the Wheels moved one game to London, Ontario due to poor ticket sales, this time without any complaints from Canadian officials.


title: World Football League

text: It was discovered that in the rush to commence play in 1974, several WFL teams had paid less than the original $120,000 franchise fee in order to meet Davidson's target of 12 teams. Additionally, league officials had conducted little to no due diligence. As a result, most of the league's teams were badly undercapitalized. By most accounts, the only reasonably well-financed teams were Memphis, Philadelphia, the Hawaiians and Southern California.


title: World Football League

text: In many cases, WFL teams were unable to meet the most basic team expenses. For instance, the Portland Storm's players were reportedly being fed by sympathetic local fans, while the Hornets had their uniforms impounded for not paying a laundry bill from the time the team was located in New York. The Birmingham Americans were not paid for the last two months of the season, the Florida Blazers went three months without pay (and reportedly survived on McDonald's meal vouchers), the Hornets were not paid regularly after the third week of October, and the Sharks were not paid for what turned out to be their last six games. The other teams' finances were not much better, as the Southmen, Bell and Hawaiians were the only teams who met payroll for every week of the season.


title: World Football League

text: The most dire situation, however, was that of the Detroit Wheels. The team's original 33 owners appeared to pay for team expenses out of pocket as they arose, resulting in what amounted to a club football team playing in a professional league. On several occasions, the team was left without uniforms when they did not pay the cleaning bill, forcing them to cancel practices. After several hotels and airlines went unpaid, the Wheels were also unable to fly to games or get a place for the players to stay without paying in advance. One player was forced to pay a hospital bill for his son out of pocket after being informed the team's insurance policy had been cancelled for non-payment of premiums. The owners refused to provide filming equipment for the coaches.


title: World Football League

text: The Wheels seemingly bottomed out when they arrived in Philadelphia to face the Bell. The players discovered that there were no medical supplies or tape available, and initially refused to take the field. When it looked like the Wheels would have to forfeit, a salesman at the game donated enough tape to allow them to play. The league was forced to take over the team after complaints from the players.


title: World Football League

text: Perhaps one of the most bizarre incidents for the WFL in 1974 involved defensive end John Matuszak, who had jumped from the NFL's Houston Oilers to play for the WFL's Houston Texans. While Matuszak worked out on the field prior to a game against the New York Stars, attorneys for the Oilers and federal marshals arrived at the stadium: five minutes into the first quarter, shortly after sacking Stars quarterback Tom Sherman for a 13-yard loss, Matuszak was benched - the Texans had been served with a restraining order that barred Matuszak from playing another down for the Texans until his Oilers contract expired at the end of the 1977 NFL season.


title: World Football League

text: Afterwards, Matuszak waved the document to show the stunned home crowd why he was sitting on the bench, while the Oilers, who were angered at this debacle, subsequently traded Matuszak to the Kansas City Chiefs.


title: World Football League

text: The league seemingly bottomed out in October when it shut down the Wheels and the Sharks after 14 games. The collapse of the Sharks meant that the Gator Bowl would not host World Bowl I; coincidentally, Jacksonville was also slated to be the host of the 1986 USFL Championship Game, but the USFL folded before that season began. It would not be until February 2005 that the city would host its first championship pro football game, Super Bowl XXXIX.


title: World Football League

text: Davidson was forced to resign in October 1974, and Hawaiians owner Christopher Hemmeter was named the new commissioner a month later.


title: World Football League

text: Late in the year, the league announced that it would award its Most Valuable Player a prize of $10,000 at the World Bowl. Rather than endure the embarrassment of media sneers about whether a WFL check would clear, the league neatly stacked $10,000 in cash high upon a table in the middle of the field. The MVP award was a three-way split, and the players involved split the cash.


title: World Football League

text: The playoff format itself was also chaotic: numerous playoff formats were tossed around, including brackets ranging from three to eight teams, with one owner proposing the World Bowl be canceled and the championship handed to the regular-season champion Memphis Southmen.


title: World Football League

text: Eventually, six teams were chosen for the tournament. The two teams with the best regular-season records, Memphis and Birmingham, were awarded first-round byes. The other two division winners would play in first-round games against the runners-up in their division. Originally, Florida was to host Charlotte, while Southern California was to host the Hawaiians.


title: World Football League

text: However, after being informed only 1,000 advance tickets had been sold for the Hornets' matchup against the Blazers, league officials forced the Hornets to withdraw from the playoffs. The Hornets' cut of the gate would have only been enough for their players to get $100 for the game, nowhere near enough for the financially strapped team to justify the trip to Orlando. League officials arranged for the Bell to advance in their place, as they were slightly more robustly funded and could cover their travel costs.


title: World Football League

text: Despite the various disasters, many thought the WFL performed fairly well, though below NFL standards. Many games were tight, decided by seven points or less, and the Action Point, the one-point conversion run or pass attempt after a touchdown, was favored among WFL coaches and critics. The league championship – the World Bowl, or "World Bowl I" – was staged in Birmingham between the hometown Birmingham Americans and the Florida Blazers.


title: World Football League

text: Not even the World Bowl could go off without a hitch. For a time, it appeared that the game would not take place because the Americans owed $237,000 in back federal taxes. However, the Internal Revenue Service agreed to let the game go ahead in return for a portion of the gate. Both teams were owed several weeks' back pay; the Americans only agreed to play when their owner promised them championship rings if they won. Aside from the money woes the league was having, the players did not hold back in complaining about the officiating during the game.


title: World Football League

text: Florida Blazers running back Tommy Reamon scored what he thought was a touchdown, but the officials on the field ruled that he fumbled the ball out of the end zone before he hit the ground, resulting in a touchback that gave the ball to Birmingham. Replays clearly showed that the ball had broken the plane of the end zone before slipping out of Reamon's hands. While the phantom turnover did not account for any Birmingham points, it did serve to break the spirits of the Blazers. Birmingham led 15–0, with Birmingham quarterback Matthew Reed scoring an action point. Birmingham led 22–0, and thought they had the game wrapped up. However, Florida managed a small comeback, trailing 22-21 as the gun went off in the fourth quarter. After the game, the Americans' jerseys were seized to satisfy team debts. ("Sports Illustrated" referred to the game, prophetically, as "The first, and possibly "only" World Bowl".)


title: World Football League

text: As if losing a championship game in a squeaker was not bad enough, things got much worse. Florida head coach Jack Pardee bolted back to the NFL to take over the Chicago Bears, and the Blazers' franchise was sold off at a court-ordered auction after it was discovered that Blazers owner Rommie Loudd had financed the team through selling cocaine and a tax evasion scheme, for which he was arrested shortly after the season (and later convicted).


title: World Football League

text: The champions did not fare much better; only days after the World Bowl, the Americans' office furniture was repossessed by sheriff's deputies.


title: World Football League

text: The financial losses were tremendous: The Hawaiians had lost $3.2 million, while the New York Stars/Charlotte Hornets had over $2 million of debt against just $94,000 in assets, and the Jacksonville Sharks and Detroit Wheels were liquidated owing nearly $4 million: Detroit had 122 creditors looking to recoup losses.


title: World Football League

text: Many NFL stars who had been attracted to the league quickly sought to get out of their contracts. Quarterback Ken Stabler (Raiders), defensive end L. C. Greenwood (Steelers), and quarterback Craig Morton (Giants) all were able to get courts to nullify their contracts with WFL teams, while former NFL veterans like George Sauer Jr., Charley Harraway, Leroy Kelly, and Don Maynard all retired.


title: World Football League

text: Home-grown talent, like quarterbacks Tony Adams, Danny White, and wideout Alfred Jenkins quickly bolted for the NFL, with Adams landing with the Kansas City Chiefs, White with the Dallas Cowboys, and Jenkins with the Atlanta Falcons; Florida head coach Jack Pardee also got star Blazers' tight end Greg Latta to jump ship with him to the NFL's Bears.


title: World Football League

text: Though many predicted the WFL was dead, the league returned for the 1975 season. During the offseason, Hemmeter developed a plan to restore a measure of financial sanity to the league by paying players and coaches based on a percentage of revenues, while imposing strict capitalization requirements on the teams. Several markets from 1974 returned under new team names and new ownership. The deceased Sharks of Jacksonville came back as the 'Express.' The Portland Storm became the Portland Thunder, the Birmingham Americans were replaced by the Vulcans, and the Chicago Fire became the Winds. The World Bowl runner-up Florida Blazers folded, and their franchise rights were relocated to San Antonio, Texas, as the San Antonio Wings. Akron, Ohio was briefly mentioned as a location for the twelfth WFL team (the replacement for the Wheels), but this never materialized, and only 11 teams would play in the 1975 season. Only two teams, Memphis and Philadelphia, returned with the same ownership from the prior season. "Sports Illustrated", in its postmortem, noted that the change between 1974 and 1975 was so drastic that for all intents and purposes, the WFL of 1975 was a nearly completely different entity than its predecessor. The WFL of 1974 was described as a bombastic credit risk, while the WFL of 1975 was a safer but much quieter entity that failed because it was ignored.


title: World Football League

text: An idea produced by the league was to have players wear different colors of pants based on their position. Offensive linemen were to wear purple pants, running backs green pants, receivers blue pants, linebackers red, and defensive backs yellow. Quarterbacks and kickers were to wear white pants. In addition to the colors, the pants were also adorned with items such as pinstripes (for the offensive linemen) or large stars (for quarterbacks) for those not watching on color television. After a test run in preseason games, this idea was scrapped.


title: World Football League

text: The league changed the scheduling format from 20 games without exhibitions to 18 games (played in 20 weeks due to the odd number of teams) with exhibitions. Gone were weeknight games; the new schedule had games on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. But there were still problems, as although the original plan called for a July 5 preseason opener and August 2 regular season openers, the regular season had to open a week earlier, with a single game on Saturday, July 26, due to a stadium conflict. This meant that a single regular season game was played in the midst of the last weekend of preseason play (with some preseason games being played the next night).


title: World Football League

text: Several more NFL free agents, including Calvin Hill and Ted Kwalick, signed on with the struggling WFL. Memphis had secured three top-line, but fading Dolphins stars in Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Paul Warfield. The Southern California Sun secured the services of former AFL and NFL quarterback Daryle Lamonica.


title: World Football League

text: The Chicago Winds made an offer to aging Super Bowl III MVP Joe Namath, who seriously considered the offer, before refusing and re-signing with the New York Jets. The Winds invested considerable money and time in the effort to sign Namath (the team even designed its uniform to emulate the Jets'), and all but promised he was coming to Chicago. The embarrassing rejection by Namath crippled the Winds, who were shut down five weeks into the season. It also resulted in the loss of the WFL's national television deal (see below), rendering the league all but invisible.


title: World Football League

text: Despite Hemmeter's efforts, several teams soon ran into financial difficulties, in part due to alarmingly low attendance figures. (The WFL averaged 21,423 fans per game in 1974, but only 13,931 per contest in '75.) The Winds were shut down five games into the season after dropping below league capitalization requirements, leaving the league with ten teams (which itself was a convenience, because it eliminated the mandatory bye week). It was not enough to stem the tide; by late October rumors abounded that four of the remaining teams were on the verge of folding.


title: World Football League

text: On Wednesday, October 22, a few days before the start of week 13, the WFL ceased operations. Hemmeter said that the league would have needed to spend as much as $40 million over two years to be successful, a bill that the league's directors, seven of whom sat on the boards of banks, did not feel could be justified. The Birmingham Vulcans, by virtue of their league-best record of 9–3 at the time of the shutdown, were proclaimed league champions.


title: World Football League

text: With the relative financial stability of the Birmingham and Memphis clubs, both attempted to join the NFL but were refused. In 1979, the Memphis club owners filed an anti-trust suit against the NFL. Their case was ultimately dismissed on May 30, 1984, by which time the owners had already established the Tampa Bay Bandits in the next professional league, the United States Football League (then in the midst of its second season; that league incidentally filed their own, more famous antitrust suit against the NFL in 1986). Although the NFL expanded by two teams in 1976, that expansion had been planned before the WFL's first season, and neither city (Tampa and Seattle) had hosted a WFL franchise.


title: World Football League

text: One of the issues facing the WFL going into 1975 was how to hold a draft. The owners of the WFL teams collectively agreed they did not have the money to seek out the top college prospects. Instead, the league came up with a different plan. Instead of drafting a certain player, a WFL team would draft an entire NFL or CFL team. This gave that team the rights to negotiate with players under contract for that team. For example, only the Charlotte Hornets had the right to offer contracts to players from the Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Colts, and Detroit Lions, and only the Chicago Winds could offer contracts to players from the Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Jets, and Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League.


title: World Football League

text: The league's struggles led to endless sarcastic comments (starting with the league's own abbreviation, which was often pronounced "Wiffle"). Chicago Fire offensive lineman Steve Wright quipped that he had been offered a million dollar contract: "A dollar a year for a million years!"


title: World Football League

text: In the 1976 season, Memphis Southmen coach John McVay joined the staff of the New York Giants and brought with him nine players from the Southmen. In what has been described as "the closest approximation to a meeting between the champions of the WFL and the NFL" (even though the Southmen never won a WFL title), the Southmen-reinforced Giants upset the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers 17–0 in a preseason match that year.


title: World Football League

text: The WFL, for all its embarrassing miscues, produced a number of coaches who found success in the NFL, notably Jack Pardee, Lindy Infante, and Marty Schottenheimer. Jim Fassel, a quarterback for the Hawaiians, became a head coach in the NFL and UFL, taking the New York Giants to Super Bowl XXXV in 2001 and the Las Vegas Locomotives to a win in the 2009 UFL Championship Game. McVay worked his way up the Giants organization and eventually became the team's head coach; he had even more success as general manager of the San Francisco 49ers during the 1980s dynasty years. Several players, most notably Pat Haden, Danny White, Alfred Jenkins, Greg Latta, and Vince Papale, later found success in the NFL as well.


title: World Football League

text: Four WFL alumni made it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield, Leroy Kelly and Don Maynard; all four were already established stars in the NFL before joining the WFL.


title: World Football League

text: The league's most severe impact was on the Miami Dolphins, who had just won consecutive Super Bowls before the WFL's snagging of three of their star players. This changed the course of NFL history, by opening the door to dominance by two other AFC teams, the Steelers and the Raiders, during the second half of the 1970s.


title: World Football League

text: While by no means the pioneer of "singular" team nicknames, which had been used by some college and professional sports teams since the 19th century, the high quantity of them in a single league ("Fire", "Sun", "Bell", "Storm", "Steamer", "Thunder", "Express") was rare in professional sports at the time, and was a distinguishing mark of the league.


title: World Football League

text: The WFL also arguably affected locations of other professional football teams: from the NFL, Hawaii hosted the Pro Bowl from 1980 through 2009 and again from 2011 to 2016, Jacksonville got the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1995, Charlotte received the Carolina Panthers in the same year, and Houston's expansion franchise, the Texans, revived the name of the WFL team in 2002. Though the WFL's Toronto establishment failed due to Canadian resistance, the Buffalo Bills (with Canadian backing and special conditions) played one home game in Toronto a season from 2008 to 2013, and the league's original intent to expand the game globally is being partially fulfilled by the NFL International Series. Other cities became regular stops for franchises in other leagues:


title: World Football League

text: The NFL's Houston Texans revived the name of the WFL's franchise for that city when it began play in 2002. ("Texans" had been used by an NFL Dallas team in 1952—after it folded, the remnants were taken over by the expansion Baltimore Colts—and by an AFL Dallas team in the early 1960s, which became the Kansas City Chiefs.) The moniker was also used by an arena football team in Dallas in the early 1990s, and by a CFL San Antonio team for one year in the 1990s.


title: World Football League

text: There is also a Major League Soccer team called the Chicago Fire, and there are/were also NBA teams called the Memphis Grizzlies (2001–present) and Charlotte Hornets (1988–2002, 2014–present) (the nickname "Hornets" was used for minor league baseball teams in Charlotte long before the WFL entry; also, the "Grizzlies" name for the Memphis NBA team was in use when the franchise was still in Vancouver). The Jacksonville Sharks and Portland Thunder names were later revived for teams in the 2010 revival of the Arena Football League, with the indoor Sharks (outlasting its namesake by several years) having since moved to the National Arena League.


title: World Football League

text: The American Football Association was conceived as a successor to the WFL, and in some newspapers was even referred to as the "New WFL". Many of the AFA teams revived, with slight alterations, the names of WFL teams that had resided in its respective cities, and several of the AFA's key personnel had previously served in similar capacities with WFL teams; the league operated from 1977 to 1983.


title: World Football League

text: The league also caused significant problems for the lower levels of professional football. Its arrival resulted in the end of the ACFL and SFL, effectively killing minor-league professional football in the United States until the AFA's formation in 1979.


title: World Football League

text: Several NFL players signed contracts, or in some cases, future contracts with teams in the World Football League. In the case of a future contract, this was when a player entering the final years of a contract with an NFL team would sign a contract with a WFL team that goes into effect the moment the player's obligation with his NFL club is finished. Each signing is broken down by team, said players previous NFL club, and year player signed a contract. Just because a player signed does not mean he ever played for that team. L. C. Greenwood, for instance, never played a down of football for Birmingham. No one shown with a date after 1975 ever actually played for the WFL team listed due to the league's insolvency as of that year. (Note that the two Mike Taylors listed below are two different players.)


title: World Football League

text: Many other players jumped as well. Dallas running back Duane Thomas signed with the Hawaiians in 1975 after being released by the Washington Redskins. Longtime Cleveland Browns running back Leroy Kelly signed with Chicago. Other players joined the WFL despite being drafted by NFL squads, such as quarterback Danny White, who signed with Memphis before eventually joining the NFL's Dallas Cowboys.


title: World Football League

text: The league's only national television contract was with the TVS Television Network, a syndicator of American sports programming. Merle Harmon and Alex Hawkins announced TVS' Thursday Night Game. Guest announcers were often brought into the booth including Paul Hornung, George Plimpton, Alex Karras, and McLean Stevenson.


title: World Football League

text: According to TVS president Eddie Einhorn, the games actually got decent ratings at first. However, affiliates started bailing out after the Philadelphia and Jacksonville gate-inflation scandals. The trickle became a flood after two teams moved in the middle of the season and two more folded altogether. New York's midseason relocation came in part because the lights at Downing Stadium were nowhere near bright enough to illuminate the entire field, leading TVS to deem them inadequate for broadcast. This limited the Stars' national television exposure to away games. By the time of the World Bowl, the games were struggling to achieve Nielsen ratings above 2.0, and TVS found it nearly impossible to sell advertising. Despite the losses, Einhorn was actually willing to stick it out until Hemmeter announced the Winds were going to try to sign Namath. Einhorn told Hemmeter that the league had effectively bet its whole credibility on Namath coming to Chicago, and none of TVS' affiliates would commit to broadcasting the 1975 season unless Namath signed with the Winds. When he didn't, the WFL was left without a national television contract. The loss of such a critical revenue stream was a factor in the league's collapse midway through the season.


title: World Football League

text: Recordings from a few WFL telecasts survive, including two games involving the Jacksonville Sharks: one includes approximately one hour of footage from the July 10, 1974 match between the Sharks and the New York Stars, and the second includes ten minutes of footage from the Sharks hosting the Chicago Fire on July 17. NFL Films included clips from the Sharks-Stars game, including an animated introduction, in their television documentary series "Lost Treasures of NFL Films" in 2001. In it, host Steve Sabol describes the damaged video tape as ""a fourth generation copy of a copy"" and as ""TV history""; Sabol also noted that much of the WFL footage was lost or destroyed, and that much of what remained was home-recorded kinescopes far below broadcast quality. Lewis Bice, who shot promotional film for Birmingham to be used for highlight reels, preserved some of his work, which NFL Films used in the special along with the surviving telecast footage; NFL Films was pleasantly surprised at the caliber of Bice's surviving footage, which was remarkably close to NFL Films's own work. Twenty-one minutes of the TVS broadcast of the 1974 World Bowl - including the pre-game show, player introductions, and opening kick off - was uploaded to YouTube in 2018.


title: World Football League

text: One complete game on radio in audio form also survives - the 1974 WFL Playoff Game involving the California Sun and the Hawaiians, recorded from Hawaiians flagship station KGMB. A mostly complete recording of the Chicago Fire's radio broadcast on WJJD-FM of their game against the Philadelphia Bell also survives as do fragments of other WFL radio broadcasts.


title: World Football League

text: Local affiliates provided most of the television and radio coverage throughout the WFL existence. Notable local announcers include John Sterling (New York Stars/Charlotte Hornets television), Spencer Ross (New York Stars radio), Bob Sheppard (New York Stars PA), Mike Patrick (Jacksonville Sharks), Larry King (Shreveport Steamer), Larry Matson (Birmingham Americans/Birmingham Vulcans), Fred Sington (Birmingham Americans/Birmingham Vulcans) and Eddie Doucette and Vince Lloyd (Chicago Fire radio and TV respectively).


title: World Football League

text: While the Boston Bulls franchise never made it onto the field; the team's preparations for the 1974 season had gone along far enough for the team to have signed contracts that January, shortly before the plug was pulled, with WLVI to televise the club's away games (as well as agreeing to pick-up the TVS package) and WEEI-AM to carry the team's entire schedule on radio. Although the franchise would be folded into the New York Stars, WLVI nevertheless honored their agreement to be the TVS/WFL outlet for Boston.


title: World Football League

text: The league predated the vast expansion of cable television and sports networks spearheaded by the birth of ESPN in 1979, which severely limited the options the WFL had to televise. At the time, the AFL–NFL merger, coupled with the launch of "Monday Night Football", had spread the NFL broadcast rights over all three of the Big Three television networks. The NFL, in a 1973 memo, noted that if the NFL had left one of the Big Three networks without NFL rights, it would have left an opening for the WFL. This memo was later used as evidence when the United States Football League (which included Einhorn as one of its team owners) filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, hoping to break its television contracts; the lawsuit, although it acknowledged the monopoly, did not succeed in voiding the contracts.


title: World Football League

text: The WFL had several important rules differences from the National Football League of that era, and many were eventually adopted by the older league:


title: Luang Prabang

text: Luang Phabang, (Lao: ຫລວງພະບາງ/ຫຼວງພະບາງ) or "Louangphabang" (pronounced ), commonly transliterated into Western languages from the pre-1975 Lao spelling ຫຼວງພຣະບາງ (ຣ = silent r) as Luang Prabang, literally meaning "Royal Buddha Image", is a city in north central Laos, consisting of 58 adjacent villages, of which 33 comprise the UNESCO "Town Of Luang Prabang" World Heritage Site. It was listed in 1995 for unique and "remarkably" well preserved architectural, religious and cultural heritage, a blend of the rural and urban developments over several centuries, including the French colonial influences during the 19th and 20th centuries.


title: Luang Prabang

text: The centre of the city consists of four main roads and is located on a peninsula at the confluence of the Nam Khan and Mekong River. Luang Prabang is well known for its numerous Buddhist temples and monasteries. Every morning, hundreds of monks from the various monasteries walk through the streets collecting alms. One of the city's major landmarks is Mount Phou Si; a large steep hill which despite the constrained scale of the city, is high; a steep staircase leads to "Wat Chom Si" shrine and an overlook of the city and the rivers.


title: Luang Prabang

text: The city was formerly the capital of a kingdom of the same name. It had also been known by the ancient name of Xieng Thong. It was the royal capital and seat of government of the Kingdom of Laos, until the Pathet Lao takeover in 1975. The city is part of Luang Prabang District of Luang Prabang Province and is the capital and administrative centre of the province. It lies approximately north of the capital Vientiane. Currently, the population of the city as a whole is roughly 56,000 inhabitants with the UNESCO protected site being inhabited by around 24,000.


title: Luang Prabang

text: By the 6th century in the Chao Phraya River Valley, Mon peoples had coalesced to create the Dvaravati kingdoms. In the north, Haripunjaya (Lamphun) emerged as a rival power to the Dvaravati. By the 8th century the Mon had pushed north to create city states, in Fa Daet (modern Kalasin, northeastern Thailand), Sri Gotapura (Sikhottabong) near modern Tha Khek, Laos, Muang Sua (Luang Prabang), and Chantaburi (Vientiane). In the 8th century CE, Sri Gotapura (Sikhottabong) was the strongest of these early city states, and controlled trade throughout the middle Mekong region. The city states were loosely bound politically, but were culturally similar and introduced Therevada Buddhism from Sri Lankan missionaries throughout the region.