women's national football team in the final. American football Gridiron football, which is known in the United Kingdom as American football, originated from two British sports, association football and rugby union football. It came about in the later part of the 19th century due to the development into a separate code and led to becoming a separate sport from the other codes of football. Gridiron was in the past only known and played in UK by visiting American servicemen; firstly in 1910, by navy crews from USS Georgia, USS Idaho and USS Vermont, and then in the Second World War by UK-based service personnel. (The other gridiron code, Canadian football, is hardly known in UK.) It was not until the TV network Channel 4 started showing the highlights of the American NFL in 1982, that the sport became acknowledged by the British sporting world. Due to unfamiliarity of the sport, television guides and newspapers had printed out guides explaining the sport. A year later, the first match between two British teams the London Ravens and the Northwich Spartans was played, in that game the Ravens won. Later in the 1980s, the sport grew and rival teams started to play, which was helped by support from various American players, coaches and sponsors like Coca-Cola & Budweiser. In 1986, the first ever official NFL game to play at the home of English sport, Wembley between the Chicago Bears and the Dallas Cowboys. However, by the early 1990s due to the recession, Channel 4 stopping regular showings of the NFL in 1997 and falling interest, it lost its popularity. Nevertheless, the Super Bowl has continued been regularly shown on British television and the NFL has been broadcast by other broadcasters including ITV, Channel 5, ESPN UK, British Eurosport and the current broadcaster, Sky Sports. In 2007 the NFL returned to Wembley with a regular season game between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants. There has been a further games played at Wembley since with an average attendance of well over 80,000. Due to this, there has also been growing interest to set up a resident NFL franchise in London, with Jacksonville Jaguars being the most likely team to relocate to the city. As of 2019, noted currently playing British gridiron players are Carolina Panthers defensive end, Nigerian-born Efe Obada and Atlanta Falcons tight end, Alex Grey. Baseball The first recorded writings