With the end of the 2012 Olympics now in sight, we celebrate the world of amateur sport with some photographs of local teams from yesteryear. Pictures from Flickr: The Commons, click on images for more info and source.
Trafalgar Institute basketball team, Montreal, QC (1928) - McCord Museum.
Ladies cricket team, near Weetangera Lane, Canberra: a team composed once a year to play the men, who would use a pick handle (1910) - National Library of Australia.
Dee Why senior Rescue and Resuscitation team, winners of the 1951 Australian Championships (1951) - Australian National Maritime Museum
Portrait of St Mary's College tennis team, Charters Towers, Queensland (ca.1930) - State LIbrary of Queensland.
Members of the US servicemen's boxing team (1943) - State Library of Queensland
Local cricket team, Waterford: Second from the left of the seated gentlemen is Sir Richard Musgrave, 5th Baronet of Tourin (1902) - National Library of Ireland.
Hartlepools League Champions for Quoits, a traditional game which involves the throwing of metal, rope or rubber rings over a set distance, usually to land over or near a spike (date unknown) - Hartlepool Cultural Services
African American baseball team from from Morris Brown College, Atlanta, Georgia (ca.1899) - Daniel Murray Collection, Library of Congress.
Aboriginal cricketers with Lawrence and William Shepherd, on tour, Swansea, New South Wales (1868) - Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
Mercury basketball team, Minnesota (1923) - Steinfeldt Photography Collection of the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest.
Expansion Ladies Football Team, 1918 - Museum of Hartlepool.
Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight Attendant Basketball Team, The Jets (date unknown) - San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive
United States Military Academy (West Point) football team (1913) - George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress.
Hartlepool Y.M.C.A. Billiards Team (1920) - Hartlepool Cultural Services.