Many sports popular today were formalised by British public schools and universities in the Nineteenth Century. These schools produced the civil servants and military and naval officers required to build and maintain the British empire, and team sports were a vital tool for training their students to think and act as part of a team. Former public schoolboys continued to pursue these activities, and founded organisations such as The Football Association (FA). Today's association of football with the working classes began when the FA changed its rules to allow professional players in 1885. They soon displaced the amateur ex-Public schoolboys. The armed forces encouraged competitive and team sports for all ranks for the same reasons public schools did. Bermuda's role as the primary Royal Navy base in the Western Hemisphere, with an army garrison to match, ensured that the naval and military personnel quickly introduced the newly formalised sports to Bermuda, including cricket, football, Rugby football, golf, and even tennis and rowing (rowing did not adapt well from British rivers to the stormy Atlantic, and the officers soon switched to sail racing, founding the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club). Once these sports reached Bermuda, they were eagerly adopted by Bermudians.