Grand final

A Grand final is a game that decides a sports league's championship (or premiership) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Synonymous with a championship game in North American sports, grand finals have become a significant part of Australian culture. The earliest competitions to feature a Grand final were Australia's AFL (Australian rules football) and NRL (rugby league football). They influenced other competitions such as soccer's A-League, the National Basketball League, netball's ANZ Championship and European rugby league's Super League to adopt grand finals as well. Most grand finals involve a prestigious award for the player voted best on field.

History

The Anglo-Norman term "grand" to describe a sporting event, documented in England as "grand match" in 1836, was used in Australia from the 1850s. A steeplechase in England has been called the "Grand National Steeple Chase" ("Grand National" alone for short) since at least 1839.

Use of the term in Australian Football dates back to the first organised and widely publicised match between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College on August 7, 1858 at Yarra Park, Melbourne (formerly Richmond Park). The game was advertised as the "grand football match" in the Melbourne Morning Herald and several other local newspapers.

VitalityHealth

VitalityHealth is a United Kingdom-based company specialising in private medical insurance sold to the UK market. Since 2014, the company has been a subsidiary of Discovery Limited. The company had approximately 680,000 customers in the UK by 2014.

History

In 1994 the company was created when Standard Life acquired Prime Health Limited. In 2000 it was renamed as Standard Life Healthcare. Standard Life Healthcare expanded in March 2006 with the acquisition of the Bournemouth-based private medical insurance (PMI) business of FirstAssist. As part of this process they relocated their head office from Guildford, Surrey to Bournemouth, Dorset. They also have large offices in Stockport, Greater Manchester and Gracechurch Street, London.

In April 2010, as part of Standard Life's decision to focus on its core pension and investment business the Healthcare division was sold to Prudential of the United Kingdom and the company was renamed under its PruHealth brand.

In November 2014 Discovery purchased the remaining 25% stake in PruHealth from Prudential, thus made Discovery a sole owner of the company. Immediately after purchase Discovery re-branded PruHealth to a new trade mark called VitalityHealth, and its sister company PruProtect rebranded to VitalityLife, both under the Vitality umbrella brand. An intensive advertisement campaign launched in print, digital and outdoor media was commissioned.