Introduction

The idea of playing with a shuttlecock was not invented by people of our generation, in fact it is about 2000 years old by now. Scientists found drawings in caves which prove that in India they already played a sport with a shuttlecock at that time. We also know of some Asian cultures and of the Mexican Aztecs that were familiar to playing similar sports. Later, in the Middle Ages at the time of the baroque the game was very popular among the aristocracy. At the beginning of the 19th century it lost its popularity because of economical and social reformations.

At the end of the 19th century the game with the shuttlecock was rediscovered by the English . They named it “badminton”. This is why: In the year 1869 a group of English officers watched some native Indians playing a game called “Poona”, which was similar to what we know as badminton today. The officers liked what they saw and brought the idea to England.

But at that time there was no sports place big enough to try it. Due to this they chose rather unusual buildings which were big enough to play there: churches. The way they were built was optimal: the nave was very high and allowed the shuttlecock to fly a high course.

The first tournaments in Europe were held at the villa of Duke of Beaufort in Gloucestershire. The competitions were carried out at the “Badminton-House” which explains the name “badminton”. It was also English people who founded the first Badminton organization in the year 1893 and made badminton popular in Great Britain.

Nevertheless the popularity of badminton throughout the world only increased after the Second World War. Since then badminton has gained more and more popularity and since 1992 it is even part of the Olympic Games. In Germany Badminton is one of the modern, trendy kind of sports.

And what is the difference between the classical game with the shuttlecock and the modern badminton? This is fairly simple: The main difference is the aim of the game: Originally the players tried to play the shuttlecock to and fro as often as possible. Nowadays each player tries to get as many points as possible and achieves this by making it as hard as possible for the opponent to hit the shuttlecock.