THIS year the sailing Olympics and Paralympics have put Dorset firmly on the present sporting map.

But although the county may not have a Premier league football or county championship cricket club, sport has played a rich part in Dorset’s history.

Author Dennis Brailsford has mowed a fascinating path into the past in his book entitled Sport in the Dovecote Press Discover Dorset series (£4.95).

Centuries ago, archery was a key activity in the county.

Each parish had to maintain ‘butts’ for archery practice for the defence of the realm but the archers of Dorset, the author says, would often compete against each other.

The legacy of the locations remains in place names such as Butts Lane at Bere Regis and Butts Terrace at Blandford .

With the advances in weaponry, archery fell out of favour, he says, and “only reappeared in any strength again in the 1930s”. Today there are a dozen or more archery clubs in the county.

Bowling greens, too, have a long recorded history in Dorset with one at Christchurch Priory , for example, and others appear on early maps of Poole and Wareham.

The Puritan years in Britain stopped much sporting activity but after the Restoration in 1660, ‘sports’ such as bear-baiting, throwing sticks at cocks, and bowls were listed as local activities.

Fives was recorded – often by complaints about broken windows – at places including Wimborne against the wall of the Minster.

Dennis Brailsford describes Tregonwell Frampton of Moreton (born 1641) as “the most significant figure” in Dorset’s sporting history, for he became the Keeper of the Running Horses at Newmarket for four monarchs and a hugely influential in matters of the turf.

The first recorded horse racing meeting in the county took place at Monkton Down, Blandford in 1603 and over the centuries race courses were found at many places across the county.

Brailsford looks at early recorded examples of pugilism. In May 1822, he reveals, a Wilkins beat a Symonds at Blandford after 33 rounds. And the book pictures Freddie Mills of Bournemouth (then in Hampshire) who became the World Light Heavyweight Champion in 1948.

Early rustic sports could be brutal, such as cut-leg, where the players thrashed each other’s legs below the knee with hazel rods until one could no longer stand it.

Today, sports commonly played include bowls. Bournemouth had an early club from 1886.

Lawn tennis, too, has been popular for more than a century with Swanage mounting its first annual tournament in 1903 and tennis getting an early mention with regard to Poole Park.

A Christchurch Cycling Club was founded in penny-farthing days.

Bournemouth Cycling Club was founded in 1877 and others of the period included ones at Poole, and Wimborne’s ‘Wandering Minstrels’.

Brailsford’s study tells us that possibly the first county cricket match took place in 1776 when Dorset Gentlemen beat Poole.

Football, of course, is a sport in the county, and triumphs of the past have seen Harry Redknapp’s Bournemouth beating Manchester United in the FA Cup in 1984 and Wimborne winning the FA Vase at Wembley in 1992.

Rowing and swimming are included. Badminton now has more than 50 clubs; Wessex Volleyball Club is one of the strongest in England. Golf, evident throughout the county’s landscape, has seen important figures such as Ryder Cup giant Peter Alliss linked to both Ferndown and Parkstone clubs.

Golf clubs have existed in Dorset since Victorian times with the Isle of Purbeck’s, for example, starting with nine holes in 1891.

The Olympics have put the spotlight on sport again and among Dorset’s Olympians featured by Brailsford are Charles Bennett and Rodney Pattisson.

Bennett was the first Britain to win gold in the modern Olympics, triumphing in the 1500m in Paris in 1900.

Poole yachtsman Pattisson, who spent his childhood in Swanage, won gold sailing his Flying Dutchman in 1968 and 1972, then added silver in 1976.

Poole Yacht Club’s history can be traced back to 1865 or earlier. Christchurch’s club records show an 1874 meeting and the thriving Parkstone Yacht Club was originally founded in 1895.

Dorset boasts many sporting clubs today from athletics to the martial arts, adding to the sporting wealth of a county with an intriguing history.