Sport in the United Kingdom
Encyclopedia
The United Kingdom has given birth to a range of major international sports including: Association football, rugby
(union
and league
), cricket
, golf
, tennis
, badminton
, squash
, rounders
, hockey
, boxing
, snooker
, billiards
and curling
. It has also played a key role in the development of sports such as Sailing
and Formula One
.
This has meant that in the infancy of many sports, Scotland
, England
, Wales
and Ireland
formed separate governing bodies, national teams and domestic league competitions. After 1922
some sports formed separate bodies for Northern Ireland
though many continue to be organised on an all-Ireland basis.
For more information on most sports you may wish to consider reading the Sport in England
, Scotland
, Wales
, Northern Ireland
or Ireland
articles.
Major individual sports include athletics, golf
, motorsport
, and horseracing. Tennis
is the highest profile sport for the two weeks of the Wimbledon Championships
, but otherwise struggles to hold its own in the country of its birth. Many other sports are also played and followed to a lesser degree. There is much debate over which sport has the most active participants with swimming, athletics, cycling all found to have wider active participation than association football in the 2010 Sport England Active People survey.
is not in the cabinet - deals with English sport in addition to UK wide sports.
Political responsibility for Sport in Scotland
lies with the Scottish Government Minister for Communities and Sport
, currently Stewart Maxwell
.
Political responsibility for sport in Wales
lies with the Welsh Assembly Government Minister for Heritage
, currently Alun Ffred Jones
. The Minister sets out the strategic policy objectives for Sport Wales, who are responsible for the development and promotion of sport and active lifestyles in Wales. Sport Wales work closely with the Governing bodies of sports in Wales
to whom they distribute government and National Lottery
funding, through grants and awards.
The Northern Ireland Executive Minister for Culture, Arts & Leisure is currently Carál Ní Chuilín, however virtually every team sport is organised on either an all Ireland or UK wide basis, with football and netball being the only exceptions. As such responsibility for most sports lies with either the UK minister or the Irish minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport.
A large majority of the funding for elite sport in the United Kingdom is commercially generated, but this is concentrated heavily on a few sports. For example the English Premiership's 20 clubs had an estimated combined turnover of £1.25 billion in 2003-04 according to Deloitte
, and British professional football's total income was in the region of £2 billion. Other major sports have a turnover in low nine figures or the tens of millions. For example cricket
is highly dependent on its TV contract, which was worth £55 million a year for the 2006-09 seasons.
Athletics, and also most sports outside the top ten or so in popularity, are heavily dependent on public funding. The government agency which funnels this is UK Sport
, which has affiliates in each of the home nations, for example Sport England
. These agencies are also responsible for distributing money raised for sport by the National Lottery
. In 2005, when it was announced London would host the 2012 Games, UK Sport announced funding plans which were more focused than ever before on rewarding sports which have delivered Olympic success, and as a corollary penalising those which have not. UK Sport also provides money for the recreational side of the main team sports, even football.
Other sports benefit from special financial provision. British tennis is subsidised by the profits of the Wimbledon Championships
, which are in the tens of millions of pounds each year. Horse racing benefits from a levy on betting.
Following the Budget
from 21 March 2007 there will be only few tax breaks to British sport in the near future.
played a dominant role in televising sport
, providing extensive high-quality advertisement free coverage and free publicity, in exchange for being granted broadcast rights for low fees.
ITV
broadcast a smaller portfolio of events. In the early 1990s this arrangement was shaken up by the arrival of pay-TV. BSkyB
based its early marketing largely on its acquisition of top division English league football, which was renamed The Premiership as part of the deal. It has subsequently acquired many more top rights in other sports. However, Sky tends to focus on competitions which can fill its specialist sports channels on a regular basis, and many events are still shown on free to air television, especially annual and quadrennial events such as Wimbledon and the Olympics. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each have their own feeds for BBC1 & BBC2 allowing the BBC to opt out of the UK wide programming to show a match in that area. This is often used when all four nations have an International football match on the same evening, but can also be used to show minority interest sports in the country where they are most appreciated (for example BBC One Scotland may show the shinty cup final, while BBC One Wales shows a Rugby Union match between two Welsh sides). In Scotland the BBC also operates BBC Alba, a Gaelic-language channel which often broadcasts Scottish sports fixtures.
There are also regulations which prevent certain listed events from being sold exclusively to pay television. In 2006 the Irish company Setanta Sports
made a major move into the British market by paying £392 million for rights to certain Scottish Premier League
as well as one third of live Premier League matches for the three year period from summer 2007 to summer 2010.
Radio sports coverage is also important. The BBC's Radio Five Live broadcasts almost all major sports events. It now has a commercial rival called TalkSport
, but this has not acquired anywhere near as many exclusive contracts as Sky Sports. BBC Local Radio
also provides extensive coverage of sport, giving more exposure to second-tier clubs which get limited national coverage.
The United Kingdom does not have a tradition of specialist sports newspapers, but all of the national newspapers except the Financial Times
devote many pages to sport every day. Local newspapers cover local clubs at all levels and there are hundreds of weekly and monthly sports magazines.
is the most popular sport and is played from August to May. Rugby union
is also a winter sport. Cricket
is played in the Summer, from April to September. Rugby league
is traditionally a winter sport, but since the late 1990s the elite competition has been played in the summer to minimise competition for attention with football. There is also a professional Ice Hockey league operating in Great Britain
called the Elite Ice Hockey League
Each country organises its own football league, there are a few teams who chose to play in another country.
The only major national team competition won by a Home Nation is the 1966 World Cup
, which England hosted and won, though clubs in both the Scottish and English domestic leagues have had success in European club competitions, most notably Glasgow's Celtic FC and Rangers FC, with Celtic winning the 1967 European cup, becoming the first British team to do so, and the first team to be composed of players born and raised entirely within the local area around the club's stadium (all within 30 miles) as well as Lancashire's Liverpool FC and Manchester United, with Liverpool winning the Champion's League a total of 5 times, making it the most successful British club in European competitions.
The Welsh football league system
includes the Welsh Premier League and regional leagues. These leagues have a relatively low profile as rugby union
is the national sport of Wales and the top three Welsh football clubs play in the English league system, for example Welsh Premiership club The New Saints
play their home matches on the English side of the border in Oswestry
. The Welsh clubs of Cardiff City F.C.
, Colwyn Bay F.C.
, Merthyr Tydfil F.C.
, Newport County A.F.C.
, Swansea City A.F.C.
and Wrexham F.C. play in the English system. The main Welsh Cup competitions are the Welsh Cup
and the FAW Premier Cup
. Cardiff's 76,250 seater Millennium Stadium
is the principal sporting stadium of Wales.
The Northern Ireland football league system
includes the IFA Premiership
, often known colloquially as the "Irish League". One Northern Irish club, Derry City
, plays its football outside of the UK in the Republic of Ireland football league system
. Windsor Park
, Linfield F.C.
's 20,332-seater stadium, is also the home stadium of the national team
.
Each season the most successful clubs from each of the home nations qualify for the two Europe wide club competitions organised by UEFA
, the UEFA Champions League
and the UEFA Europa League (formerly the UEFA Cup). England and Scotland have both produced winners of each of these competitions.
For 100 years until 1984 England
, Scotland
, Wales
and Northern Ireland
competed annually in the British Home Championships but these ended for a variety of reasons. 2011 saw the inaugral Nations cup, in many ways a reboot of the old tournament. When the idea was first proposed to bring back the competition, the English FA had reservations, and so it is currently contested by the other three home nations and the Republic of Ireland, who were the first host nation and winners. The tournament is played biennially to prevent fixture congestion during World Cup qualification years. The 2013 event is due to be held at the Millenium stadium in Cardiff, and it has been suggested England may participate in a "one-off" to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the FA.
There is currently no UK team at football events in the Olympic Games
, there are proposals to have a UK team
take part in the 2012 Summer Olympics
but the Scottish
, Welsh
and Northern Irish
football associations have declined to participate, fearing that it would undermine their independent status—a fear confirmed by FIFA president Sepp Blatter. and some other sports which have chosen to field a unified team. England has been the most successful of the home nations, winning the World Cup
on home soil in 1966
, although there has historically been a close-fought rivalry between England and Scotland
.
The early reference to the separate national identities in the UK is perhaps best illustrated by the game of cricket. Cricket
is claimed to have been invented in England. The national sport of England is cricket, but England has no team of its own, instead fielding a joint team with Wales. The England & Wales cricket team, controlled by the England and Wales Cricket Board
, (commonly shortened to just "England" & "ECB" respectively) is the only national team in the UK with Test status
. Each summer two foreign national teams visit and play seven test matches and numerous one-day internationals, and in the British winter the team tours abroad. The highest profile rival of the team is the Australian team, with which it competes for The Ashes
, one of the most famous trophies in British sport.
There are eighteen professional county clubs
, seventeen of them in England and one in Wales. Each summer the county clubs compete in the first class
County Championship
, which consists of two leagues of nine teams and in which matches are played over four days. The same teams also play the one day National League
, a one day knock out competition called the Friends Provident Trophy, and the short-form Twenty20 Cup
. English
cricket
grounds include Lords
, The Oval
, Headingley
, Old Trafford, Edgbaston
and Trent Bridge
. Cardiff's Sophia Gardens ground has also become increasingly popular in recent years. Team members are drawn from the main county sides, and include both English and Welsh players. It is by no means equal to football in finance, attendance or coverage, but it has a high profile nonetheless. It is probably the second most widely covered sport in England and third most widely covered sport in Wales and the fortunes of the England team are closely followed by many people who never attend a live game.
Scotland
and Ireland
both have their own cricket teams, but the game is neither as popular nor their teams as successful as the English & Welsh team and they don't play Tests. As Scotland and Ireland have only recently begun playing test matches, and both have only recently started to play in One Day Internationals, many Scots and Irish previously played in the England & Wales side. All three teams have competed at the Cricket World Cup
, though only England & Wales has made it. There is a professional league championship
in which clubs representing 17 English counties and 1 Welsh county compete.
and rugby league
both developed from traditional British football games in the 19th century. Rugby football was codified in 1871. Dissatisfaction with the governance of the sport led, in 1895, to a number of prominent clubs establishing what would become rugby league. The estranged clubs, based in mainly working class industrial regions of northern England, had wished to be allowed to compensate their players for missing work to play matches but they had been opposed by those clubs that were predominantly middle class and often based in the south of the country. Subsequently rugby league developed somewhat different rules. For much of the 20th century there was considerable antagonism towards rugby league from rugby union. One Member of Parliament
described it as "one of the longest (and daftest) grievances in history" with anyone over the age of 18 associated with rugby league being banned forever from rugby union. This antagonism has abated since 1995 when the International Rugby Board
, rugby union's international governing body, "opened" rugby union to professionalism.
England
, Scotland
, Wales
and Ireland
all field separate teams and are collectively known as the Home Nations
. All four teams are among the top ten in global rugby union. The Six Nations Championship
played between the Home Nations, Italy
and France
is the premier international tournament in the northern hemisphere. The Triple Crown
is awarded to any of the Home Nations who beats the other three in that tournament. Games are also often played against the "Southern Hemisphere" trio of South Africa
, Australia
, and New Zealand, plus the geographically isolated emerging power Argentina
—as well as other rugby playing countries. England won the 2003 Rugby World Cup
, the first victory in the competition by a British team (or, for that matter, any Northern Hemisphere country), and were runners-up to Australia in 1991
and South Africa in 2007
. In 1987, Wales
achieved a best of third place and Scotland
a best of fourth place. Ireland
has not progressed beyond the quarter finals. England (1991) and Wales (1999) have both hosted the Rugby World Cup in conjunction with the other Home Nations. In 2015, England
will host the Rugby World Cup, however some games will be played in Wales.
In the 2011 Rugby World Cup
Wales was the only home nation to progress beyond the Quarter Finals.
Rugby union is a minority sport but has a number of heartlands, notably South Wales
, the Scottish Borders
, the English West Country
, London and the Midlands. Rugby union is generally regarded as the national sport of Wales. While England organises its own league, and also a cup competition whose current identity as the Anglo-Welsh Cup reflects its expansion in 2005 from an England-only competition to one also involving teams from Wales. The other Home nations now have a single professional league, currently known as RaboDirect Pro12
. Attendances at club rugby in England have risen strongly since the sport went professional and by contrast, the professional era has had a traumatic effect on the traditional structure of club rugby in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Following the regional model of Wales and Ireland, Scotland also originally established four regional teams for North, East, South and West Scotland. Due to the demographics of the country, the Northern region was too vast for a single club to serve (over twice the size of Wales but with only a quarter the population) and the 5% of the population who happened to live in the rugby-loving borders were not enough to sustain the Southern franchise, leaving just West and East. There was some talk of the regions being redrawn, with the North being divided in two and the South being absorbed into the West and East regions, but recently two Italian sides have instead taken the vacated places.
All of the home nations play in large, state-of-the-art venues. Twickenham
in London, home to the England national team and the country's governing body, the Rugby Football Union
, currently seats 82,000, making it the second-largest stadium in the country after Wembley. Wales and its governing body, the Welsh Rugby Union
, make their home at Millennium Stadium, which is owned by the WRU. Scotland's largest stadium, with a capacity of over 67,000, is Murrayfield
in Edinburgh, home to the national team and the Scottish Rugby Union
. Ireland currently play essentially all their home matches in the Republic's capital of Dublin at Aviva Stadium
, built on the site of Irish rugby's historic home of Lansdowne Road
. During the construction of the Aviva in the 2000s, Ireland played many home games in the GAA stadium, Croke Park
.
As the International Rugby Board
governing the sport is based in Dublin and is heavily dominated by the Home Nations, there has never been a threat to the independence of each country's team and a joint team, known as the British and Irish Lions
will tour a Southern Hemisphere nation every four years. The Lions games however do not compete in any major tournaments, and will play local clubs as well as the host nation's First XV.
The governing body of rugby league in the United Kingdom is the Rugby Football League
. Overall rugby league is a smaller sport than rugby union in the United Kingdom
, but it draws healthy crowds in its heartlands in Yorkshire
and North West England
, and is popular with armchair sports fans nationwide. The top level league is Super League
, which expanded to 14 teams for the 2009 season
—11 in the heartlands, one in London, one in Wales, and one in France
. The Welsh team, however, folded after the 2011 season
, and will be replaced
by a heartland team in 2012. Below this level are the Co-operative Championship and Championship 1
(formerly the National Leagues). Whilst a team from France
competed in the Championship from 2009 through to 2011, that team chose not to compete in the English leagues in 2012, meaning that the Championship will now consist of 10 teams, all from the heartlands. In 2012, Championship 1 will also have 10 teams, but four will be from outside the heartlands—one from Tyne and Wear, another from London, and two from Wales. The Championship is slated to expand to 14 teams in 2013, with Championship 1 remaining at 10. Until 2008, automatic promotion and relegation existed between Super League and the Championship when it was replaced by three-year licences for clubs to play in the former. The main knock-out competition is the Challenge Cup
, which also includes clubs from France
and Russia
.
Rugby league is also played as an amateur sport, especially in the heartland areas, where the game is administered by BARLA
. Since the rugby union authorities ended the discrimination against playing rugby league amateur numbers in the sport have increased, particularly outside the heartland areas. Through competitions such as the Rugby League Conference
the sport is heading towards a national spread, at amateur level at least.
A single 'Great Britain Lions' team had competed in the Rugby League World Cup
and Test match games, but this changed slightly in 2008 when England
, Scotland
and Ireland
competed as separate nations. Internationally, only England
(and sometimes Wales
) field truly competitive teams in international rugby league. For many tournaments the home nations are combined to compete as Great Britain
. The Great Britain team
won the Rugby League World Cup
in 1954
, 1960
and 1972
, but England and Wales now compete separately in this tournament and Australia held the title from 1975
until being upset by New Zealand
in 2008
. The Great Britain team is retained for some competitions, such as with Australia and New Zealand in the recently founded Tri-Nations
competition, and in test series such as the Ashes
(against Australia) and the Baskerville Shield
(against New Zealand). In 2013, The United Kingdom will host the Rugby League World Cup
for the 5th time.
is Britains largest indoor spectator sport, and the only team sport to have a UK wide league with at least one team from every nation. It has a long history in the U.K and it is reasonably well supported with the larger teams attracting thousands of fans to every game. The main league is the ten team professional Elite League
containing, four Scottish, four English, one Northern Irish and one Welsh club. The league has featured many former NHL
players, predominantly during the NHL lock out season. At the moment the Great Britain men's national ice hockey team is in division 1 of the Ice Hockey World Championships
. The team is ranked 23rd in the world in the IIHF World Ranking
system.
Media support for ice hockey has improved on a national level although the majority of news is still found on the internet. Sky Sports
has been covering the Elite league for a few seasons and starting in the 2010/2011 season they will be showing 8 live games and a highlight show every week, the reason this deal happened was due to the elite league attracting very large viewing figures and Sky seeing the Elite Ice Hockey League
as a potentionally big and popular league.
The Elite Ice Hockey League
is well recognised around the ice hockey world, so much so that on October 2, 2010 the Boston Bruins
of the NHL took on the Belfast Giants
at the Giants Odyssey Arena in Belfast
, Northern Ireland
, winning 5-1 over the Elite League All-Stars.
such as Gaelic football
and hurling
are organised on an all-Ireland basis and are highly popular in Northern Ireland, with a smaller presence in Great Britain. They are regulated by the Gaelic Athletic Association
. Six Northern Ireland teams (Tyrone, Fermanagh, Armagh, Antrim, Down and Derry) feature in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship
, as do the London senior football team
from Great Britain. In hurling
, London beat Cork in the 1901 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship
final, nowadays their hurlers compete in the third tier Nicky Rackard Cup
. Antrim
are the only Northern Irish team in the first tier.
is the second most popular team recreational sport in the United Kingdom. The Great Britain men's team won the hockey tournament at the 1988 Olympics
. However British hockey has gone backwards since then, partly because of conflicts between the need to foster a combined team to compete in the Olympics, and the commitment of the hockey associations of each of the home nations to the retention of separate national teams to compete in other international competitions.
Australian rules football
is a minor amateur sport in the United Kingdom. The British Australian Rules Football League (BARFL), formed in 1989 has Premier, Regional and Conference divisions. The Grand Final
is an event that regularly attracts growing audience of up to 5,000, consisting primarily of ex-patriate Australia
ns. The British Bulldogs
national team has competed in the Australian Football International Cup
. Exhibition matches
are regularly scheduled for The Oval
in London, and despite the fact that few Britons know of the sport, the most recent match attracted a record crowd of 18,884 http://www.surreycricket.com/news/the-brit-oval/a-simple-guide-to-aussie-rules,3889,NS.html, helped by the presence of a large Australian community in London.
American Football
is a minor amateur sport, with two League associations BAFL and BAUFL (University league). The BAFL League has 3 divisions: Premier, 1 and 2, each with a playoff series and championship game to determine a winner. The Championship participants are promoted to the divisions above and the lowest ranking teams in each division are relegated. Teams compete annually to reach the championship game (BritBowl) and win the Boston Trophy. The game was traditionally hosted at Sheffield's Don Valley Stadium, however the venue for the finals was switched in 2008 due to a schedule conflict with Rotherham United FC, the stadium's temporary tenants,[2] with the match instead being played at the Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster.[3]
The teams come from all parts of England, From Cornwall (Cornish Sharks
), Yorkshire (Yorkshire Rams
) to Scotland (East Kilbride Pirates) to London (London Blitz) who are the current Britbowl Champions.
Basketball
is a minor sport in the United Kingdom. The top level league is the eleven team semi-professional British Basketball League
with the English Basketball League
and Scottish Basketball League below them. While following an American franchise format rather than using promotion and relegation like most European leagues, the majority of recent additions and replacements for failing clubs have come from the English league. The teams are professional or semi-professional but have modest resources. As with football, the home nations teams were encouraged to work together for the Olympics, while British international basketball teams
have not achieved any major successes since then, ULEB has since tried to undermine the independence of the home nations teams by saying that if they re-enter the European competition after the Olympics, they will be treated as unranked newcomers and start at the lowest level.
Currently, British players in the North America
n NBA
are Ben Gordon (who was raised in the United States
) and Luol Deng
(a Sudan
ese refugee who is now naturalised in the UK). Another NBA player, Kelenna Azubuike
, was born in London (leaving for the United States as a teenager to further his basketball career), but was denied British citizenship in December 2007 because of problems with his parents' immigration status at his birth.
Shinty
(or camanachd) is an amateur sport indigenous to the Scottish Highlands
. Although it is mostly restricted to this area it is highly popular within the Highlands, sometimes attracting crowds numbering thousands in what is the most sparsely populated region of the UK. It is administered by the Camanachd Association
. Its main trophies are the Camanachd Cup
and the Premier Division
. There are clubs in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London
however and it was once played throughout Scotland and England until the early 20th Century.
awards than practitioners of any other sport. The governing body of British Athletics is UK Athletics
. There are also semi-independent athletics associations in each of the home nations.
Over the last few decades British athletes have usually won between one and three gold medals at the Olympics. Traditionally Britain was strongest in men's athletics, especially middle distance running, but over the last 20 years success has been achieved in a wide range of events and British women have closed the attainment gap on the men. However, there remain serious concerns about the depth of the sport in Britain, with the number of club athletes reportedly in decline.
Two high profile annual athletics events are the London Marathon
and the Great North Run
, which is a half marathon.
, with the codification of the rules of the sport known as the Queensberry Rules
in the 19th century.
British professional boxing offers some of the largest purses outside the United States to a few elite professional boxers who become nationally known. British heavyweight contenders are especially popular, but most British world champions have fought in the middling weight brackets. The governing body of professional boxing is the British Boxing Board of Control
. It is generally felt that British professional boxing is in decline in the early years of the 21st century. The reasons for this include: the fact that football now offers a relatively large number of sportsmen the chance to make the sort of income traditionally only available to world boxing champions, reducing the incentive for athletic youngsters to accept the greater risks of a boxing career; the acquisition of the rights to most major fights by Sky Sports
, which means that fewer boxers become national figures than in the past; and the knock the sport's credibility has taken from the multiplicity of title sanctioning bodies.
Amateur boxing is governed by separate bodies in the each home nation. British amateurs have only enjoyed a very modest amount of success in international competition in recent decades, partly due to the tendency for them to turn professional at an early stage. The amateur sport is in a very poor state, with dramatic declines in boxer numbers. National amateur boxing championships and international team matches, which were once highlights of the British sporting calendar, are now almost invisible to the general sporting public.
who became the first British Olympian to win three golds at one Olympiad, earning him a knighthood. Other successes include Rebecca Romero
and Victoria Pendelton. Success at road racing has also been limited with the UK being the only major nation not to have a Tour de France
champion. There has been some success with riders such as Tom Simpson
, Barry Hoban
, Robert Millar
, Chris Boardman
, David Millar
, Bradley Wiggins
, and Mark Cavendish
. Because of the increasing interest in cycling, a British UCI ProTeam (Team Sky
) was formed for the 2010 cycling season. Major names in the roster included the likes of Bradley Wiggins
, Edvald Boasson Hagen
and current British men's Road Race champion, Geraint Thomas
. In women's cycling, Nicole Cooke
is regarded to be the best female cyclist in the world. Cycle racing is organised by British Cycling
, who govern most cycling events in the UK and organise the national team. Time trial
ling in the UK is organised by a separate body called the RTTC.
originated in Scotland. In the early 20th century British golfers were the best in the world, winning nearly all of the U.S. Open
championships before World War I
. American golfers later became dominant, but Britain has continued to produce leading golfers, with an especially strong period in the 1980s and 1990s. There are usually more British golfers than Americans in the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking relative to population, that is to say more than a fifth as many, but Britain has not yet produced a major new golf star this century, although a number of British golfers have reached the world's top 10 in the early 2000s. England's Lee Westwood
ended Tiger Woods
' five-year reign atop the rankings in autumn 2010, and fellow Englishman Luke Donald
reached the top of the rankings in May 2011. Other British golfers to have appeared in the top 10 in the 2000s are Paul Casey
, Ian Poulter
and Justin Rose
, all from England; and Graeme McDowell
and Rory McIlroy
of Northern Ireland. McDowell also became the first European to win the U.S. Open
in 40 years when he won that event in 2010, and McIlroy won that tournament the following year with a record-setting performance
.
Golf is the sixth most popular sport, by participation, in the UK. The Open Championship
, which is played each July on a number of British golf courses on a rotating basis, the majority of them in Scotland, is the only men's major
golf tournament which is played outside of the United States. The most famous of these courses is St Andrews
, which is known as "The Home of Golf". The R&A, the governing body of golf outside the United States and Mexico, is based in St Andrews. Although The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews
, in Scotland, is the sport's home course, the world's oldest golf course is actually Musselburgh Links' Old Golf Course. The PGA European Tour
is headquartered in England, and the main European Tour plays more events in the United Kingdom than in any other country. In international team competition the United Kingdom provides a large part of the European Ryder Cup
team, which has beaten the United States
team in four of the last six events.
Women's golf does not have as high a profile as the men's game, but British players, most notably Laura Davies
, have found success on both the Europe-wide Ladies European Tour
and the overwhelmingly dominant women's tour, the LPGA
Tour in the U.S. The Women's British Open
is the only event recognised as a major
by both the Ladies European Tour and the U.S. LPGA.
is yet another sport which originated in the United Kingdom, first originating in the city of Birmingham
between 1859 and 1865. However, it has not flourished there in recent decades: its profile is highly dependent on the Wimbledon Championships
, the most prestigious event of the global tennis calendar. However, no British man has won Wimbledon since 1936
and no British woman since 1977
. The governing body of the sport is the Lawn Tennis Association
(LTA), which invests the vast profits from the tournament in the game in the hope of producing British champions, but a string of revamps of the coaching system have failed to raise the standard of LTA-trained players. The only British players of either sex to reach the world top 50 in recent years are Greg Rusedski
, who learnt his tennis in Canada
, and Tim Henman
and Andy Murray, who did not pass through the LTA system either, and on the womens side Anne Keothavong
and Elena Baltacha
have both just slipped into the worlds top 50 with highest rankings of 48 and 49 respectivly. Outside of Wimbledon fortnight tennis's profile in Britain is low, and since the 2007 retirement of Rusedski and Henman is now largely dependent on Murray.
Great Britain has won the Davis Cup
nine times, but all of them were before World War II
and there is no prospect of another victory in the foreseeable future. The Great Britain women's team made the final of the Fed Cup
four times, losing all four, but their last finals appearance was in 1981 when the competition was known as the Federation Cup, and the women's prospects for future victory are even more dim than those of Britain's men. Neither the men's nor women's team are currently in a position to actually compete for their respective cups. Both teams are currently in Group I of the Europe/Africa Zone in their respective tournaments. However, because the Davis Cup has only one 16-team World Group while the Fed Cup has two World Groups, with only the eight teams in World Group I actually competing for that trophy, the men are one promotion away from competing for the Davis Cup while the women are two promotions away from competing for the Fed Cup.
, with the majority of the Formula One teams based in England, and more world titles won by drivers from Britain than from any other country, including Mike Hawthorn
; Graham Hill
(twice); Jim Clark
(twice); John Surtees
, also a world champion in motorcycling; Jackie Stewart
(three times); James Hunt
; Nigel Mansell
; Graham Hill's son, Damon Hill
; Lewis Hamilton
; and Jenson Button
. The British Grand Prix
takes place at Silverstone
each June/July.
The UK hosted the very first F1 Grand Prix in 1950 at Silverstone
, the current location of the British Grand Prix
held each year in July. The country also hosts legs of the World Rally Championship
and has its own touring car racing
championship, the British Touring Car Championship
(BTCC), and the British Formula Three Championship
.
British drivers have achieved success in the World Rally Championship
with the late Colin McRae
and the late Richard Burns
winning the title. The British leg of the competition is the Rally Great Britain. Derek Bell
is a five-time 24 Hours of Le Mans
winner and one-time winner of the 1000 km Silverstone
, the major endurance race of the country, formerly part of the World Sportscar Championship
and currently part of the Le Mans Series
and Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.
Since 2000 the British Superbike Championship has become increasingly popular, surpassing its four-wheeled rivals in terms of spectator receipts and television coverage. Britain hosts one round of the MotoGP championship at Donington Park
, and usually two rounds of the Superbike World Championship
, at Silverstone
and Brands Hatch
. In a third Superbike World Championship
round was added at Donington Park
. In Silverstone
was dropped; Brands Hatch
and Donington Park
were the venues used for the two rounds that took place in the UK that year, though in 2009 and 2010 only a single round will be held, at Silverstone, after the series organisers and the circuit owners of Brands Hatch failed to reach a commercial agreement on staging the event.
. Britain sends large teams to all the major international swimming events, and enjoy some successes, but it is not currently a leading swimming nation. The sport's profile is highest during the Commonwealth Games
, when British swimmers have their best chance to win gold medals, and during the Olympics
.
The provision of 50 metre pools in the United Kingdom is very poor for a developed country, with just 22 as of early 2007, only two of which conform to the full Olympic standard
. There are however far more 25 metre short course pools and other sub Olympic-size competition pools. (See List of Olympic size swimming pools in the United Kingdom.)
, which is popular with television companies as it fills their schedules at a very low cost, and also attracts good audiences. However, its popularity has waned somewhat since 1985, when nearly a third of the British population watched the conclusion of the celebrated Dennis Taylor
versus Steve Davis
World Championship
final
even though it ended after midnight. All but two events on the professional snooker tour in 2007/2008 are played in the United Kingdom, and the World Championship has been played at The Crucible Theatre
, Sheffield
, since 1977. There are many amateur leagues set up across the country, featuring team matches between snooker clubs.
Darts
is another British centred sport with an assured place in the attention of the British sporting public. The two rival Darts World Championships have been held in the United Kingdom since their inception. Phil Taylor of Stoke
has won more World Championships than any other player.
Sailing
is also a well regarded sport in the UK. It is governed by the RYA
, and there are many locations in the UK where sailing can take place, both inland and coastal. Media
coverage tends to be low, but if this was to be increased, some feel that support for the sport would increase.
Orienteering
is now a major sport in the UK. It is regulated by the British Orienteering Federation
, and Britain generally puts on a very strong show at the World Orienteering Championships
with Jamie Stevenson
, second at WOC in 2006. Yvette Baker
is generally considered the best British orienteer of all time.
The UK has proved successful in the international sporting arena in rowing
. It is widely considered that the sport's most successful rower is Steve Redgrave
who won five gold medals and one bronze medal at five consecutive Olympic Games
, as well as numerous wins at the World Rowing Championships
and Henley Royal Regatta
.
There are many other sports in which Britons compete, sometimes with success, but which do not receive much attention outside a small number of aficionados except during major events such as the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, or when a British athlete does something extraordinary such as breaking a world record. Examples include judo
, gliding
, modern pentathlon
, figure skating
and sailing
.
, which originated under Charles II of England
as the "sport of kings", occupies a key place in British sport, probably ranking in the top four or five sports in terms of media coverage. There are sixty racecourses in Great Britain and annual racecourse attendance exceeds six million. The sport in Great Britain is governed by the British Horseracing Authority
. The two racecourses in Northern Ireland are governed by Horse Racing Ireland
, which runs the sport on an All-Ireland basis. The town of Newmarket is considered the centre of English racing, largely because of the famous Newmarket Racecourse
.
The two forms of horseracing in the United Kingdom are National Hunt
, which involves jumping over fences or hurdles, and the more glamourous flat racing. National Hunt is a winter sport and flat racing is a summer sport, but the seasons are very long and they overlap. In flat racing the three races which make up the Triple Crown
are the 2,000 Guineas, the Epsom Derby
, and the St. Leger Stakes
. Other leading flat races include the 1,000 Guineas and the Epsom Oaks
. Apart from the meetings at which the aforementioned races are staged, major flat racing meetings include Royal Ascot, Glorious Goodwood, and the Ebor Festival
at York Racecourse
. The highlights of the National Hunt season are the Cheltenham Festival
and the Aintree Grand National.
by the FEI
are British, namely the Badminton Horse Trials
and the Burghley Horse Trials
. Badminton attracts crowds of up to a quarter of a million spectators on cross country day, which is the largest for any paid-entry sports event in Britain.
is responsible for the promotion of the Olympic Movement within the UK and for the selection, leadership and management of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at every Olympic accredited event.
After the 2004
Summer Olympics Great Britain was third in the all-time Summer Olympic medal count (ranked by gold medals), although the majority of the medals are accounted for by some very large tallies in the first few Olympic Games. British medal tallies for much of the post-war period were generally considered disappointing, but the 2000 Summer Olympics
marked an upturn and this was sustained at the 2004 Summer Olympics when Great Britain finished tenth in the medal table and the 2008 where it finished fourth behind only China, USA and Russia . This was seen as a great success, and there was a victory parade through the streets of London. The sports in which the British team has won most medals in recent Summer Olympics include rowing, sailing
, cycling
and athletics. London hosted the Summer Olympics in 1908 and 1948 and will do so again in 2012
.
Winter sports only play a minor role British sporting life because the winters are not cold enough for them to be practised out of doors very much. Great Britain is not a leading nation at the Winter Olympics, but has had a few successes in sports such as figure skating
, curling
and bob skeleton
.
originated in the Stoke Mandeville Games, which were held at Stoke Mandeville Hospital
in Buckinghamshire
in 1948. The Great Britain team does much better in the medal table at the Summer Paralympics than at the Summer Olympics. It has never finished outside the top five and has been second several times, including the last three games in 2000
, 2004
and 2008
. The BBC
is an enthusiastic promoter of disability sport. International Paralympic Committee
president Sir Philip Craven
is British.
Old Trafford
, which has a capacity of over 76,000 and the most recently built football stadia in the Premier League include the Emirates Stadium
and the City of Manchester Stadium
.
and Australia
, but the best of them have been modernised to a high standard, and two new international grounds have been built in recent years. The largest English cricket ground, Lord's
in London, is internationally regarded as the "home of cricket".
and rugby league
clubs are generally poorer than their football counterparts. Some clubs have good all seater grounds in the 10,000-25,000 capacity range; some have older grounds which are still partly terraced, and others play in council
-owned joint-use stadia (e.g. the KC Stadium
). Some clubs (mostly rugby union ones) rent stadia from football clubs.
course, the most famous venue being the Old Course at St Andrews
on the east coast of Scotland. The Belfry
in the English Midlands
has hosted the Ryder Cup more times than any other site. Wentworth Club
near London is the only venue which hosts two European Tour events each season.
built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games
, was reconfigured for football-only use after that event. The largest existing stadium is the 25,000 seat Don Valley Stadium
in Sheffield
. London's largest athletics venue is Crystal Palace
, which has just 15,500 permanent seats. It will be superseded by the Olympic Stadium
, which will be built as an 80,000 seater for the 2012 Summer Olympics
. After the Games, it will be taken over by West Ham United F.C.
(with a reduced capacity of 60,000), and the track will remain in place.
was redeveloped in 2005 and 2006 at a cost of £185 million.
in London being the only venue from the 1948 Olympics still in operation. There are also 2 indoor velodromes including one in Newport and a 3,500 seater velodrome in Manchester
that also serves as the headquarters of British Cycling
.
Two more indoor velodromes are planned: A 6,000 seater arena
as part of the 2012 Summer Olympics
in London and a 2,500 seater venue
as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games
in Glasgow.
in London with a capacity of over 20,000, surpassing the former leader, the Manchester Evening News Arena
in Manchester
. The National Ice Centre in Nottingham
, Odyssey Arena
in Belfast
and the Sheffield Arena all host ice hockey
, the largest being the Sheffield Arena which holds in the region of 8,500 spectators. Several smaller arenas hosting ice hockey and basketball
are found around the United Kingdom though these generally hold only a few thousand fans.
Apart from a couple of Oxbridge
events, student sport has a very low profile in the United Kingdom. While universities have significant sports facilities, there is no system of sports scholarships. However students who are elite standard competitors are eligible for funding from bodies such as UK Sport
on the same basis as anyone else. The university most focused on sports provision is Loughborough University
. Budding professionals in the traditionally working class
team sports of football
and rugby league
rarely go to university. Talented youngsters in the more middle class
sports of cricket
and rugby union
are far more likely to attend university, but their sports clubs usually play a greater role in developing their talent than their university coaches. Some sports are attempting to adapt to new conditions in which a far higher proportion of British teenagers attend university than in the past, notably cricket, which has established several university centres of excellence.
Sports culture is stronger in independent schools in the United Kingdom
, and these schools contribute disproportionate numbers of elite competitors in almost all sports with the exceptions of football, rugby league, boxing and perhaps athletics.
In addition to the many of the sports already mentioned, popular sports at junior level include netball
and rounders
, both of which are played almost entirely by girls. However, in recent times schoolgirls have increasingly played sports which are traditionally male, especially football, but also others such as rugby.
The leading body for physical education in the United Kingdom
is the Association for Physical Education
.
In 2006 the UK School Games
was established by the Youth Sport Trust
as an annual sporting competition for elite school age athletes in the UK, and for 2008 was expanded to include nine sports over four days.
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
(union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
and league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
), cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
, badminton
Badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their...
, squash
Squash (sport)
Squash is a high-speed racquet sport played by two players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow rubber ball...
, rounders
Rounders
Rounders is a game played between two teams of either gender. The game originated in England where it was played in Tudor times. Rounders is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a round wooden, plastic or metal bat. The players score by...
, hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
, boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
, snooker
Snooker
Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...
, billiards
Billiards
Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
and curling
Curling
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones across a sheet of ice towards a target area. It is related to bowls, boule and shuffleboard. Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called "rocks", across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a...
. It has also played a key role in the development of sports such as Sailing
Sailing
Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...
and Formula One
Formula One
Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...
.
This has meant that in the infancy of many sports, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
formed separate governing bodies, national teams and domestic league competitions. After 1922
Partition of Ireland
The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...
some sports formed separate bodies for Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
though many continue to be organised on an all-Ireland basis.
For more information on most sports you may wish to consider reading the Sport in England
Sport in England
Sport plays a prominent role in English life. Popular team sports in England are association football, cricket, rugby union and rugby league. Major individual sports include badminton, athletics, tennis, golf, motorsport and horseracing...
, Scotland
Sport in Scotland
Sport plays a central role in Scottish culture. The temperate, oceanic climate has played a key part in the evolution of sport in Scotland, with all-weather sports like association football, rugby union and golf dominating the national sporting consciousness...
, Wales
Sport in Wales
The most popular sports in Wales are rugby union and football. Like the other countries of the United Kingdom, Wales enjoys independent representation in major world sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup, Rugby World Cup and in the Commonwealth Games, but competes as part of England in cricket...
, Northern Ireland
Sport in Northern Ireland
Sport in Northern Ireland is important in the lives of many people. Some sports are organised on an all-Ireland basis, for example rugby union, Gaelic football, basketball, hockey and cricket, whereas others, like association football, are organised on a separate basis for Northern Ireland.- Gaelic...
or Ireland
Sport in Ireland
In Ireland many sports, such as boxing, hockey, rowing, cricket, rugby union, Gaelic football and hurling, are organised in an all-island basis, with a single team representing the whole of Ireland in international competitions...
articles.
Major individual sports include athletics, golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, motorsport
Motorsport
Motorsport or motorsports is the group of sports which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles, whether for racing or non-racing competition...
, and horseracing. Tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
is the highest profile sport for the two weeks of the Wimbledon Championships
The Championships, Wimbledon
The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors...
, but otherwise struggles to hold its own in the country of its birth. Many other sports are also played and followed to a lesser degree. There is much debate over which sport has the most active participants with swimming, athletics, cycling all found to have wider active participation than association football in the 2010 Sport England Active People survey.
Administration and funding
Political responsibility for sport is a devolved matter. As England has no parliament of her own, the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport which is headed by a cabinet minister - though the Minister for Sport and TourismMinister for Sport and Tourism
The Minister for Sport is a junior minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport of the United Kingdom government, with responsibility for sport in England....
is not in the cabinet - deals with English sport in addition to UK wide sports.
Political responsibility for Sport in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
lies with the Scottish Government Minister for Communities and Sport
Minister for Communities and Sport
The Minister for Housing and Communities is a Junior ministerial post in the Scottish Government. As a result, the minister does not attend the Scottish Cabinet. The post was created in May 2007 as the Minister of Communities and Sport but was renamed in February 2009 in a ministerial reshuffle...
, currently Stewart Maxwell
Stewart Maxwell
Stewart Maxwell was the Minister for Communities and Sport from 2007–2009 and Member of the Scottish Parliament for the West of Scotland, being elected as a Scottish National Party , Additional Members System member at the 2003 election. Maxwell attended before graduating from Glasgow College of...
.
Political responsibility for sport in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
lies with the Welsh Assembly Government Minister for Heritage
Welsh Assembly Government
The Welsh Government is the devolved government of Wales. It is accountable to the National Assembly for Wales, the legislature which represents the interests of the people of Wales and makes laws for Wales...
, currently Alun Ffred Jones
Alun Ffred Jones
Alun Ffred Jones is a Welsh politician and member of Plaid Cymru. Jones was the National Assembly for Wales Member for Caernarfon 2003–07 and for the newly created Arfon constituency since the National Assembly for Wales election, 2007....
. The Minister sets out the strategic policy objectives for Sport Wales, who are responsible for the development and promotion of sport and active lifestyles in Wales. Sport Wales work closely with the Governing bodies of sports in Wales
Governing bodies of sports in Wales
The governing bodies of sports in Wales perform an organisational, regulatory or sanctioning function at a national level in Wales, some tracing their history to the 19th Century. Many cooperate with similar bodies from other countries to agree rule changes for their sport. Most implement decisions...
to whom they distribute government and National Lottery
National Lottery (United Kingdom)
The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man.It is operated by Camelot Group, to whom the licence was granted in 1994, 2001 and again in 2007. The lottery is regulated by the National Lottery Commission, and was established by the then...
funding, through grants and awards.
The Northern Ireland Executive Minister for Culture, Arts & Leisure is currently Carál Ní Chuilín, however virtually every team sport is organised on either an all Ireland or UK wide basis, with football and netball being the only exceptions. As such responsibility for most sports lies with either the UK minister or the Irish minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport.
A large majority of the funding for elite sport in the United Kingdom is commercially generated, but this is concentrated heavily on a few sports. For example the English Premiership's 20 clubs had an estimated combined turnover of £1.25 billion in 2003-04 according to Deloitte
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited , commonly referred to as Deloitte, is one of the Big Four accountancy firms along with PricewaterhouseCoopers , Ernst & Young, and KPMG....
, and British professional football's total income was in the region of £2 billion. Other major sports have a turnover in low nine figures or the tens of millions. For example cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
is highly dependent on its TV contract, which was worth £55 million a year for the 2006-09 seasons.
Athletics, and also most sports outside the top ten or so in popularity, are heavily dependent on public funding. The government agency which funnels this is UK Sport
UK Sport
UK Sport is the UK Government's organisation for directing the development of sport within the home countries.-History:The Sports Council previously had been formed in 1972, and had the motto Sport for All. There was also the Central Council of Physical Recreation. In July 1994 it was decided to...
, which has affiliates in each of the home nations, for example Sport England
Sport England
Sport England is the brand name for the English Sports Council and is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
. These agencies are also responsible for distributing money raised for sport by the National Lottery
National Lottery (United Kingdom)
The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man.It is operated by Camelot Group, to whom the licence was granted in 1994, 2001 and again in 2007. The lottery is regulated by the National Lottery Commission, and was established by the then...
. In 2005, when it was announced London would host the 2012 Games, UK Sport announced funding plans which were more focused than ever before on rewarding sports which have delivered Olympic success, and as a corollary penalising those which have not. UK Sport also provides money for the recreational side of the main team sports, even football.
Other sports benefit from special financial provision. British tennis is subsidised by the profits of the Wimbledon Championships
The Championships, Wimbledon
The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors...
, which are in the tens of millions of pounds each year. Horse racing benefits from a levy on betting.
Following the Budget
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
from 21 March 2007 there will be only few tax breaks to British sport in the near future.
Popularity
A 2003 MORI poll found:| Sport | TV Viewing | Participating | Interested In |
|---|---|---|---|
| Association football | 46% | 10% | 45% |
| Rugby Union Rugby union Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand... |
21% | NA | 27% |
| Tennis Tennis Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all... |
18% | 3% | 23% |
| Cricket Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the... |
18% | 2% | 19% |
| Athletics | 18% | 2% | 21% |
| Snooker Snooker Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :... |
17% | 5% | 24% |
| Motor racing | 16% | NA | 20% |
| Rugby League Rugby league Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players... |
12% | NA | 15% |
| Boxing Boxing Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds... |
11% | NA | 14% |
| Golf Golf Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes.... |
11% | 6% | 16% |
| Darts Darts Darts is a form of throwing game where darts are thrown at a circular target fixed to a wall. Though various boards and games have been used in the past, the term "darts" usually now refers to a standardised game involving a specific board design and set of rules... |
9% | 3% | NA |
| Swimming Swimming (sport) Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native... |
NA | 9% | NA |
| Gym Gym The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men... |
NA | 12% | 17% |
| Badminton Badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their... |
NA | 3% | NA |
| Squash Squash (sport) Squash is a high-speed racquet sport played by two players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow rubber ball... |
NA | 3% | NA |
| Watersport | NA | 2% | NA |
| Skiing Skiing Skiing is a recreational activity using skis as equipment for traveling over snow. Skis are used in conjunction with boots that connect to the ski with use of a binding.... |
NA | 1% | NA |
Sports media
The British media is dominated by UK wide outlets, with local media playing a much smaller role. Traditionally the BBCBBC Sport
BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC. It became a fully dedicated division of the BBC in 2000. It incorporates programmes such as Match of the Day, Grandstand , Test Match Special, Ski Sunday, Rugby Special and coverage of Formula One motor racing, MotoGP and the Wimbledon Tennis...
played a dominant role in televising sport
Broadcasting of sports events
The broadcasting of sports events is the coverage of sports as a television program, on radio and other broadcasting media. It usually involves one or more sports commentators describing the events as they happen.-United States:...
, providing extensive high-quality advertisement free coverage and free publicity, in exchange for being granted broadcast rights for low fees.
ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
broadcast a smaller portfolio of events. In the early 1990s this arrangement was shaken up by the arrival of pay-TV. BSkyB
British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....
based its early marketing largely on its acquisition of top division English league football, which was renamed The Premiership as part of the deal. It has subsequently acquired many more top rights in other sports. However, Sky tends to focus on competitions which can fill its specialist sports channels on a regular basis, and many events are still shown on free to air television, especially annual and quadrennial events such as Wimbledon and the Olympics. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each have their own feeds for BBC1 & BBC2 allowing the BBC to opt out of the UK wide programming to show a match in that area. This is often used when all four nations have an International football match on the same evening, but can also be used to show minority interest sports in the country where they are most appreciated (for example BBC One Scotland may show the shinty cup final, while BBC One Wales shows a Rugby Union match between two Welsh sides). In Scotland the BBC also operates BBC Alba, a Gaelic-language channel which often broadcasts Scottish sports fixtures.
There are also regulations which prevent certain listed events from being sold exclusively to pay television. In 2006 the Irish company Setanta Sports
Setanta Sports
Setanta Sports is an international sports broadcaster based in Dublin, Ireland. Setanta Sports was formed in 1990 to facilitate the broadcasting of Irish sporting events...
made a major move into the British market by paying £392 million for rights to certain Scottish Premier League
Scottish Premier League
The Scottish Premier League , also known as the SPL , is a professional league competition for association football clubs in Scotland...
as well as one third of live Premier League matches for the three year period from summer 2007 to summer 2010.
Radio sports coverage is also important. The BBC's Radio Five Live broadcasts almost all major sports events. It now has a commercial rival called TalkSport
TalkSPORT
Talksport , owned by UTV radio, is one of the United Kingdom's three terrestrial analogue Independent National Radio broadcasters, offering a sports and talk radio service broadcast from London to the United Kingdom....
, but this has not acquired anywhere near as many exclusive contracts as Sky Sports. BBC Local Radio
BBC Local Radio
BBC Local Radio is the BBC's regional radio service for England and the Channel Islands, consisting of 40 stations. They cover a variety of areas with some serving a city and surrounding areas, for example BBC Radio Manchester; a county, for example BBC Radio Norfolk; an administrative region for...
also provides extensive coverage of sport, giving more exposure to second-tier clubs which get limited national coverage.
The United Kingdom does not have a tradition of specialist sports newspapers, but all of the national newspapers except the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
devote many pages to sport every day. Local newspapers cover local clubs at all levels and there are hundreds of weekly and monthly sports magazines.
Elite level team sports
Four sports in the United Kingdom operate high profile professional leagues. FootballFootball (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
is the most popular sport and is played from August to May. Rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
is also a winter sport. Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
is played in the Summer, from April to September. Rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
is traditionally a winter sport, but since the late 1990s the elite competition has been played in the summer to minimise competition for attention with football. There is also a professional Ice Hockey league operating in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
called the Elite Ice Hockey League
Elite Ice Hockey League
Several competitions fall under the jurisdiction of the Elite League. In 2006–07, the EIHL ran a total of four competitions: the league, playoffs, Challenge Cup and Knockout Cup. The league consists of a single division, each team playing three home games and three away games against the other...
Association football
The modern global game of football evolved out of traditional football games played in England in the 19th century and today is the highest profile sport in England and Scotland by a very wide margin. This has been the case for generations, but the gap is widely perceived to have increased since the early 1990s, and football's dominance is often seen as a threat to other sports. Football is also very popular in Wales and Northern Ireland, though Rugby Union and Gaelic Games respectively attract much larger crowds and television audiences.Each country organises its own football league, there are a few teams who chose to play in another country.
The only major national team competition won by a Home Nation is the 1966 World Cup
1966 FIFA World Cup
The 1966 FIFA World Cup, the eighth staging of the World Cup, was held in England from 11 July to 30 July. England beat West Germany 4–2 in the final, winning the World Cup for the first time, so becoming the first host to win the tournament since Italy in 1934.-Host selection:England was chosen as...
, which England hosted and won, though clubs in both the Scottish and English domestic leagues have had success in European club competitions, most notably Glasgow's Celtic FC and Rangers FC, with Celtic winning the 1967 European cup, becoming the first British team to do so, and the first team to be composed of players born and raised entirely within the local area around the club's stadium (all within 30 miles) as well as Lancashire's Liverpool FC and Manchester United, with Liverpool winning the Champion's League a total of 5 times, making it the most successful British club in European competitions.
The Welsh football league system
Welsh football league system
The Welsh football league system is a series of football leagues with regular promotion and relegation between them.-Structure of Welsh football:...
includes the Welsh Premier League and regional leagues. These leagues have a relatively low profile as rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
is the national sport of Wales and the top three Welsh football clubs play in the English league system, for example Welsh Premiership club The New Saints
The New Saints F.C.
The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid Football Club , also known as The New Saints or simply TNS is a full-time-professional British football club representing Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain in Powys, Wales and Oswestry in Shropshire, England . They play in the Welsh Premier League...
play their home matches on the English side of the border in Oswestry
Oswestry
Oswestry is a town and civil parish in Shropshire, England, close to the Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5, A483, and A495 roads....
. The Welsh clubs of Cardiff City F.C.
Cardiff City F.C.
Cardiff City Football Club are a Welsh professional football club based in Cardiff, Wales. The club competes in the English football pyramid and is currently playing in the Football League Championship. Cardiff City is the best supported football club in Wales, averaging approximately 22,500 for...
, Colwyn Bay F.C.
Colwyn Bay F.C.
Colwyn Bay F.C. are a Welsh football club, as of the 2011–12 season are playing in the Conference North. Nicknamed the Seagulls, the club play at Llanelian Road in Old Colwyn.-History:...
, Merthyr Tydfil F.C.
Merthyr Tydfil F.C.
Merthyr Tydfil Football Club was a Welsh football club based at the Penydarren Park ground in Merthyr Tydfil. In 2010 the club was liquidated and reformed under the name Merthyr Town, which was accepted into Division One of the Western League.-History:...
, Newport County A.F.C.
Newport County A.F.C.
Newport County Association Football Club are a professional football club based in the city of Newport, south Wales, who currently play in the Conference National, the highest level of the National League System and fifth highest of the overall English football league system...
, Swansea City A.F.C.
Swansea City A.F.C.
Swansea City Association Football Club are a Welsh professional football club based in Swansea, Wales. One of the most successful clubs in Welsh football, it has won 10 Welsh Cups and led the English Football League First Division in December 1981, before finishing the season in 6th position...
and Wrexham F.C. play in the English system. The main Welsh Cup competitions are the Welsh Cup
Welsh Cup
The Welsh Cup is a knock-out football competition contested annually by teams from Wales.The Football Association of Wales is the organising body of this competition, which has been run every year since its inception in 1877-78...
and the FAW Premier Cup
FAW Premier Cup
The FAW Premier Cup is a defunct Welsh football cup competition, organised annually by the Football Association of Wales from 1997 to 2008...
. Cardiff's 76,250 seater Millennium Stadium
Millennium Stadium
The Millennium Stadium is the national stadium of Wales, located in the capital, Cardiff. It is the home of the Wales national rugby union team and also frequently stages games of the Wales national football team, but is also host to many other large scale events, such as the Super Special Stage...
is the principal sporting stadium of Wales.
The Northern Ireland football league system
Northern Ireland football league system
The Northern Ireland football league system is structured as two series of interconnected football leagues across Northern Ireland.-Structure:...
includes the IFA Premiership
IFA Premiership
The IFA Premiership – formerly the Irish Premier League, and before that the Irish Football League–and still known in popular parlance simply as the Irish League, is the national football league in Northern Ireland, and was historically the league for the whole of Ireland. Clubs in the league are...
, often known colloquially as the "Irish League". One Northern Irish club, Derry City
Derry City F.C.
Derry City Football Club is a professional football club based in Derry, Northern Ireland. It plays in the League of Ireland Premier Division...
, plays its football outside of the UK in the Republic of Ireland football league system
League of Ireland
The League of Ireland is the national association football league of the Republic of Ireland. Founded in 1921, as a league of eight clubs, it has expanded over time into a two-tiered league of 22 clubs. It is currently split into the League of Ireland Premier Division and the League of Ireland...
. Windsor Park
Windsor Park
Windsor Park is a football stadium in Belfast, Northern Ireland and the home ground of Linfield F.C. and the Northern Ireland national football team. It is also where the Irish Cup and Irish League Cup finals are played.-History:...
, Linfield F.C.
Linfield F.C.
Linfield F.C. , is a semi-professional, Northern Irish football club, whose home ground is Windsor Park in Belfast, which is also the home of the Northern Ireland international team....
's 20,332-seater stadium, is also the home stadium of the national team
Northern Ireland national football team
The Northern Ireland national football team represents Northern Ireland in international association football. Before 1921 all of Ireland was represented by a single side, the Ireland national football team, organised by the Irish Football Association...
.
Each season the most successful clubs from each of the home nations qualify for the two Europe wide club competitions organised by UEFA
UEFA
The Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....
, the UEFA Champions League
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...
and the UEFA Europa League (formerly the UEFA Cup). England and Scotland have both produced winners of each of these competitions.
For 100 years until 1984 England
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...
, Scotland
Scotland national football team
The Scotland national football team represents Scotland in international football and is controlled by the Scottish Football Association. Scotland are the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside England, whom they played in the world's first international football match in 1872...
, Wales
Wales national football team
The Wales national football team represents Wales in international football. It is controlled by the Football Association of Wales , the governing body for football in Wales, and the third oldest national football association in the world. The team have only qualified for a major international...
and Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland national football team
The Northern Ireland national football team represents Northern Ireland in international association football. Before 1921 all of Ireland was represented by a single side, the Ireland national football team, organised by the Irish Football Association...
competed annually in the British Home Championships but these ended for a variety of reasons. 2011 saw the inaugral Nations cup, in many ways a reboot of the old tournament. When the idea was first proposed to bring back the competition, the English FA had reservations, and so it is currently contested by the other three home nations and the Republic of Ireland, who were the first host nation and winners. The tournament is played biennially to prevent fixture congestion during World Cup qualification years. The 2013 event is due to be held at the Millenium stadium in Cardiff, and it has been suggested England may participate in a "one-off" to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the FA.
There is currently no UK team at football events in the Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
, there are proposals to have a UK team
United Kingdom national football team
No United Kingdom national football team currently exists, as there are separate teams representing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in football. These national teams compete in the World Cup and European Championships and other internationals. A UK team has played in friendly...
take part in the 2012 Summer Olympics
2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the "London 2012 Olympic Games", are scheduled to take place in London, England, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12 August 2012...
but the Scottish
Scottish Football Association
The Scottish Football Association is the governing body of football in Scotland and has the ultimate responsibility for the control and development of football in Scotland. Members of the SFA include clubs in Scotland, affiliated national associations as well as local associations...
, Welsh
Football Association of Wales
The Football Association of Wales is the governing body of association football in Wales. It is a member of FIFA, UEFA and the IFAB.Established in 1876 , it is the third-oldest national association in the world, and is one of the four associations The Football Association of Wales (FAW) is the...
and Northern Irish
Irish Football Association
The Irish Football Association is the organising body for association football in Northern Ireland, and was historically the governing body for Ireland...
football associations have declined to participate, fearing that it would undermine their independent status—a fear confirmed by FIFA president Sepp Blatter. and some other sports which have chosen to field a unified team. England has been the most successful of the home nations, winning the World Cup
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...
on home soil in 1966
1966 FIFA World Cup
The 1966 FIFA World Cup, the eighth staging of the World Cup, was held in England from 11 July to 30 July. England beat West Germany 4–2 in the final, winning the World Cup for the first time, so becoming the first host to win the tournament since Italy in 1934.-Host selection:England was chosen as...
, although there has historically been a close-fought rivalry between England and Scotland
England and Scotland football rivalry
The England–Scotland football rivalry is a highly competitive sports rivalry that exists between their respective national football teams. It is the oldest international fixture in the world, first played in 1872 at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow...
.
Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
is claimed to have been invented in England. The national sport of England is cricket, but England has no team of its own, instead fielding a joint team with Wales. The England & Wales cricket team, controlled by the England and Wales Cricket Board
England and Wales Cricket Board
The England and Wales Cricket Board is the governing body of cricket in England and Wales. It was created on 1 January 1997 combining the roles of the Test and County Cricket Board, the National Cricket Association and the Cricket Council...
, (commonly shortened to just "England" & "ECB" respectively) is the only national team in the UK with Test status
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
. Each summer two foreign national teams visit and play seven test matches and numerous one-day internationals, and in the British winter the team tours abroad. The highest profile rival of the team is the Australian team, with which it competes for The Ashes
The Ashes
The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...
, one of the most famous trophies in British sport.
There are eighteen professional county clubs
County cricket
County cricket is the highest level of domestic cricket in England and Wales. For the 2010 season, see 2010 English cricket season.-First-class counties:...
, seventeen of them in England and one in Wales. Each summer the county clubs compete in the first class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
County Championship
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
, which consists of two leagues of nine teams and in which matches are played over four days. The same teams also play the one day National League
National League (cricket)
The NatWest Pro40 League was a one-day cricket league for first-class cricket counties in England and Wales. It was inaugurated in 1999, but was essentially the old Sunday League retitled to reflect the fact that large numbers of matches were played on days other than Sunday.-Sunday League:The...
, a one day knock out competition called the Friends Provident Trophy, and the short-form Twenty20 Cup
Twenty20 Cup
The Twenty20 Cup was a cricket competition for English and Welsh county clubs.In 2010, it has been replaced by Friends Provident t20 as the domestic Twenty20 competition.-History:...
. English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
grounds include Lords
Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
, The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...
, Headingley
Headingley Stadium
Headingley Stadium is a sporting complex in the Leeds suburb of Headingley in West Yorkshire, England. It is the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, rugby league team Leeds Rhinos and rugby union team Leeds Carnegie ....
, Old Trafford, Edgbaston
Edgbaston Cricket Ground
Edgbaston Cricket Ground, also known as the County Ground or Edgbaston Stadium, is a cricket ground in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England...
and Trent Bridge
Trent Bridge
Trent Bridge is a Test, One-day international and County cricket ground located in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England and is also the headquarters of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club. As well as International cricket and Nottinghamshire's home games, the ground has hosted the Finals Day of...
. Cardiff's Sophia Gardens ground has also become increasingly popular in recent years. Team members are drawn from the main county sides, and include both English and Welsh players. It is by no means equal to football in finance, attendance or coverage, but it has a high profile nonetheless. It is probably the second most widely covered sport in England and third most widely covered sport in Wales and the fortunes of the England team are closely followed by many people who never attend a live game.
Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
both have their own cricket teams, but the game is neither as popular nor their teams as successful as the English & Welsh team and they don't play Tests. As Scotland and Ireland have only recently begun playing test matches, and both have only recently started to play in One Day Internationals, many Scots and Irish previously played in the England & Wales side. All three teams have competed at the Cricket World Cup
Cricket World Cup
The ICC Cricket World Cup is the premier international championship of men's One Day International cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council , with preliminary qualification rounds leading up to a finals tournament which is held every four years...
, though only England & Wales has made it. There is a professional league championship
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
in which clubs representing 17 English counties and 1 Welsh county compete.
Rugby Football
Like association football, rugby unionRugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
and rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
both developed from traditional British football games in the 19th century. Rugby football was codified in 1871. Dissatisfaction with the governance of the sport led, in 1895, to a number of prominent clubs establishing what would become rugby league. The estranged clubs, based in mainly working class industrial regions of northern England, had wished to be allowed to compensate their players for missing work to play matches but they had been opposed by those clubs that were predominantly middle class and often based in the south of the country. Subsequently rugby league developed somewhat different rules. For much of the 20th century there was considerable antagonism towards rugby league from rugby union. One Member of Parliament
David Hinchliffe
David Martin Hinchliffe was Labour Member of Parliament for Wakefield from 1987 to 2005 when he stood down and was replaced by Mary Creagh.-Early life:...
described it as "one of the longest (and daftest) grievances in history" with anyone over the age of 18 associated with rugby league being banned forever from rugby union. This antagonism has abated since 1995 when the International Rugby Board
International Rugby Board
The International Rugby Board is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. It was founded in 1886 as the International Rugby Football Board by the unions of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. England refused to join until 1890. The International Rugby Football Board changed its name to the...
, rugby union's international governing body, "opened" rugby union to professionalism.
Rugby union
Rugby union in England
Rugby union is one of the leading professional and recreational team sports in England. A popular myth is that Rugby was created in England in 1823, when William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it during a football match at Rugby School. In 1871 the RFU was formed by 21 clubs and the...
, Scotland
Rugby union in Scotland
Rugby union is a popular team sport in Scotland. The national side today competes in the annual Six Nations Championship and the Rugby World Cup. The first ever international rugby match was played on March 27, 1871, at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh, when Scotland defeated England in front of 4,000...
, Wales
Rugby union in Wales
Rugby union is the national sport of Wales and is considered a large part of national culture. Rugby is thought to have reached Wales in the 1850s, with the national body, the Welsh Rugby Union being formed in 1881...
and Ireland
Rugby union in Ireland
Rugby union is a popular team sport played in Ireland. The sport is organised on an all-Ireland basis with one team, governing body and league for both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland...
all field separate teams and are collectively known as the Home Nations
Home Nations
Home Nations is a collective term with one of two meanings depending on the context. Politically, it means the nations of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom...
. All four teams are among the top ten in global rugby union. The Six Nations Championship
Six Nations Championship
The Six Nations Championship is an annual international rugby union competition involving six European sides: England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales....
played between the Home Nations, Italy
Italy national rugby union team
The Italy national rugby union team represent the nation of Italy in the sport of rugby union. The team is also known as the Azzurri . Italy have been playing international rugby since the late 1920s, and since 2000 compete annually in the Six Nations Championship with England, France, Ireland,...
and France
France national rugby union team
The France national rugby union team represents France in rugby union. They compete annually against England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales in the Six Nations Championship. They have won the championship outright sixteen times, shared it a further eight times, and have completed nine grand slams...
is the premier international tournament in the northern hemisphere. The Triple Crown
Triple Crown (Rugby Union)
In rugby union, the Triple Crown is an honour contested annually by the four national teams of the British Isles who compete within the larger Six Nations Championship: England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. If any one team manages to win all their games against the other three they win the...
is awarded to any of the Home Nations who beats the other three in that tournament. Games are also often played against the "Southern Hemisphere" trio of South Africa
South Africa national rugby union team
The South African national rugby union team are 2009 British and Irish Lions Series winners. They are currently ranked as the fourth best team in the IRB World Rankings and were named 2008 World Team of the Year at the prestigious Laureus World Sports Awards.Although South Africa was instrumental...
, Australia
Australia national rugby union team
The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...
, and New Zealand, plus the geographically isolated emerging power Argentina
Argentina national rugby union team
The Argentina national rugby team, nicknamed Los Pumas, represents Argentina in international rugby union matches. The team, which plays in sky blue and white jerseys, is organised by the Argentine Rugby Union .Argentina played its first international rugby match in 1910 against a touring British...
—as well as other rugby playing countries. England won the 2003 Rugby World Cup
2003 Rugby World Cup
The 2003 Rugby World Cup was the fifth Rugby World Cup and was won by England. Originally planned to be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, all games were shifted to Australia following a contractual dispute over ground signage rights between the New Zealand Rugby Football Union and Rugby World...
, the first victory in the competition by a British team (or, for that matter, any Northern Hemisphere country), and were runners-up to Australia in 1991
1991 Rugby World Cup
The 1991 Rugby World Cup was the second edition of the Rugby World Cup, and was jointly hosted by England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France; at that time, the five European countries that participated in the Five Nations Championship making it the first Rugby World Cup to be staged in the...
and South Africa in 2007
2007 Rugby World Cup
The 2007 Rugby World Cup was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by France from 7 September to 20 October. France won the hosting rights in 2003,...
. In 1987, Wales
Wales national rugby union team
The Wales national rugby union team represent Wales in international rugby union tournaments. They compete annually in the Six Nations Championship with England, France, Ireland, Italy and Scotland. Wales have won the Six Nations and its predecessors 24 times outright, second only to England with...
achieved a best of third place and Scotland
Scotland national rugby union team
The Scotland national rugby union team represent Scotland in international rugby union. Rugby union in Scotland is administered by the Scottish Rugby Union. The Scotland rugby union team is currently ranked eighth in the IRB World Rankings as of 19 September 2011...
a best of fourth place. Ireland
Ireland national rugby union team
The Ireland national rugby union team represents the island of Ireland in rugby union. The team competes annually in the Six Nations Championship and every four years in the Rugby World Cup, where they reached the quarter-final stage in all but two competitions The Ireland national rugby union...
has not progressed beyond the quarter finals. England (1991) and Wales (1999) have both hosted the Rugby World Cup in conjunction with the other Home Nations. In 2015, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
will host the Rugby World Cup, however some games will be played in Wales.
In the 2011 Rugby World Cup
2011 Rugby World Cup
The 2011 Rugby World Cup was the seventh Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. The International Rugby Board selected New Zealand as the host country in preference to Japan and South Africa at a meeting in Dublin on 17 November 2005...
Wales was the only home nation to progress beyond the Quarter Finals.
Rugby union is a minority sport but has a number of heartlands, notably South Wales
South Wales
South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the south-west of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.1 million people and includes the capital city of...
, the Scottish Borders
Scottish Borders
The Scottish Borders is one of 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian in the north west, City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north; and the non-metropolitan counties of Northumberland...
, the English West Country
West Country
The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...
, London and the Midlands. Rugby union is generally regarded as the national sport of Wales. While England organises its own league, and also a cup competition whose current identity as the Anglo-Welsh Cup reflects its expansion in 2005 from an England-only competition to one also involving teams from Wales. The other Home nations now have a single professional league, currently known as RaboDirect Pro12
Celtic League (rugby union)
The Celtic League is an annual rugby union competition involving professional sides from Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales....
. Attendances at club rugby in England have risen strongly since the sport went professional and by contrast, the professional era has had a traumatic effect on the traditional structure of club rugby in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Following the regional model of Wales and Ireland, Scotland also originally established four regional teams for North, East, South and West Scotland. Due to the demographics of the country, the Northern region was too vast for a single club to serve (over twice the size of Wales but with only a quarter the population) and the 5% of the population who happened to live in the rugby-loving borders were not enough to sustain the Southern franchise, leaving just West and East. There was some talk of the regions being redrawn, with the North being divided in two and the South being absorbed into the West and East regions, but recently two Italian sides have instead taken the vacated places.
All of the home nations play in large, state-of-the-art venues. Twickenham
Twickenham Stadium
Twickenham Stadium is a stadium located in Twickenham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is the largest rugby union stadium in the United Kingdom and has recently been enlarged to seat 82,000...
in London, home to the England national team and the country's governing body, the Rugby Football Union
Rugby Football Union
The Rugby Football Union was founded in 1871 as the governing body for the sport of rugby union, and performed as the international governing body prior to the formation of the International Rugby Board in 1886...
, currently seats 82,000, making it the second-largest stadium in the country after Wembley. Wales and its governing body, the Welsh Rugby Union
Welsh Rugby Union
The Welsh Rugby Union is the governing body of rugby union in Wales, recognised by the International Rugby Board.The union's patron is Queen Elizabeth II, and her grandson Prince William of Wales became the Vice Royal Patron of the Welsh Rugby Union as of February 2007.-History:The roots of the...
, make their home at Millennium Stadium, which is owned by the WRU. Scotland's largest stadium, with a capacity of over 67,000, is Murrayfield
Murrayfield Stadium
Murrayfield Stadium is a sports stadium located in the west end of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Its all-seater capacity was recently reduced from 67,800 to 67,130 to incorporate the largest permanent "big screen" in the country though it still remains the largest stadium in Scotland and one...
in Edinburgh, home to the national team and the Scottish Rugby Union
Scottish Rugby Union
The Scottish Rugby Union is the governing body of rugby union in Scotland. It is the second oldest Rugby Union, having been founded in 1873, as the Scottish Football Union.-History:...
. Ireland currently play essentially all their home matches in the Republic's capital of Dublin at Aviva Stadium
Aviva Stadium
The Aviva Stadium is a sports stadium located in Dublin, Ireland, with a capacity for 50,000 spectators. The stadium is built on the site of the old Lansdowne Road venue, which was demolished in 2007, and replaces that stadium as home to its chief tenants: the Irish rugby union team and the...
, built on the site of Irish rugby's historic home of Lansdowne Road
Lansdowne Road
Lansdowne Road was a stadium in Dublin owned by the Irish Rugby Football Union that has been the location of a number of sports stadiums. It was used primarily for rugby union and for association football matches as well as some music concerts...
. During the construction of the Aviva in the 2000s, Ireland played many home games in the GAA stadium, Croke Park
Croke Park
Croke Park in Dublin is the principal stadium and headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association , Ireland's biggest sporting organisation...
.
As the International Rugby Board
International Rugby Board
The International Rugby Board is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. It was founded in 1886 as the International Rugby Football Board by the unions of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. England refused to join until 1890. The International Rugby Football Board changed its name to the...
governing the sport is based in Dublin and is heavily dominated by the Home Nations, there has never been a threat to the independence of each country's team and a joint team, known as the British and Irish Lions
British and Irish Lions
The British and Irish Lions is a rugby union team made up of players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...
will tour a Southern Hemisphere nation every four years. The Lions games however do not compete in any major tournaments, and will play local clubs as well as the host nation's First XV.
Rugby league
- See main articles: Rugby league in EnglandRugby league in EnglandRugby league football is a team sport in England. The sport receives funding from Sport England as an "English priority" sport. The top-level competition in England—called Super League—is not an entirely all-English affair, as it includes a team from France, and also featured a team from Wales from...
, Rugby league in ScotlandRugby league in ScotlandRugby league is comparatively minor sport in Scotland, dwarfed by the popularity of association football, and to a lesser extent sports such as rugby union, curling and shinty...
and Rugby league in WalesRugby league in WalesRugby league is a sport played in Wales. The governing body of the game in Wales is the Wales Rugby League.There is a long but sporadic history of rugby league in Wales. Over the decades many hundreds of players have "gone north" to play for the leading English clubs...
.
The governing body of rugby league in the United Kingdom is the Rugby Football League
Rugby Football League
The Rugby Football League is the governing body for professional rugby league football in England. Based at Red Hall in Leeds, it administers the England national rugby league team, the Challenge Cup, Super League and the Rugby League Championships...
. Overall rugby league is a smaller sport than rugby union in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, but it draws healthy crowds in its heartlands in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
and North West England
North West England
North West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...
, and is popular with armchair sports fans nationwide. The top level league is Super League
Super League
Super League is the top-level professional rugby league football club competition in Europe. As a result of sponsorship from engage Mutual Assurance the competition is currently officially known as the engage Super League. The League features fourteen teams: thirteen from England and one from...
, which expanded to 14 teams for the 2009 season
Super League XIV
The 2009 Super League season is the fourteenth season of rugby league since the Super League format was introduced in 1996...
—11 in the heartlands, one in London, one in Wales, and one in France
Catalans Dragons
The Catalans Dragons are a French professional rugby league club based in Perpignan, Pyrénées-Orientales. They currently play in the Super League, and are the only team in the competition from outside of the United Kingdom...
. The Welsh team, however, folded after the 2011 season
Super League XVI
The 2011 Super League season was the sixteenth season of rugby league football since the Super League format was introduced in 1996...
, and will be replaced
2012–14 Super League licences
The 2012–14 Super League licences were awarded following the second round of licensing for the Super League rugby league competition. Successful applicants were given a three-year licence to compete in Super League, the premier rugby league competition in Europe.-Application...
by a heartland team in 2012. Below this level are the Co-operative Championship and Championship 1
Championship 1
Championship 1, known as The Co-operative Championship 1 due to sponsorship by The Co-operative Group, is a rugby league competition based in the United Kingdom. It acts as the country's third-tier competition behind the Championship, with which it has a system of promotion and relegation. It is...
(formerly the National Leagues). Whilst a team from France
Toulouse Olympique
Toulouse Olympique are a French professional rugby league team from Toulouse, in the southwest of France. They were founded on 22 October, in 1937 two years after the founding of the French Rugby League Federation. Between 1995 and 2002 the club were known as Spacers de Toulouse, due to links with...
competed in the Championship from 2009 through to 2011, that team chose not to compete in the English leagues in 2012, meaning that the Championship will now consist of 10 teams, all from the heartlands. In 2012, Championship 1 will also have 10 teams, but four will be from outside the heartlands—one from Tyne and Wear, another from London, and two from Wales. The Championship is slated to expand to 14 teams in 2013, with Championship 1 remaining at 10. Until 2008, automatic promotion and relegation existed between Super League and the Championship when it was replaced by three-year licences for clubs to play in the former. The main knock-out competition is the Challenge Cup
Challenge Cup
The Challenge Cup is a knockout cup competition for rugby league clubs organised by the Rugby Football League. Originally it was contested only by British teams but in recent years has been expanded to allow teams from France and Russia to take part....
, which also includes clubs from France
Rugby league in France
Rugby league has been played in France since 1934. As with rugby union, the heartland of the game is the south of the country.During the Second World War, in association with the French rugby union, the sport was banned by the Vichy government, an act which the sport has struggled to recover from...
and Russia
Rugby league in Russia
Rugby league is a team sport in Russia. The Russian Rugby League Federation is the governing body of rugby league in Russia.-Olympic Status of Rugby Union Sevens and the expulsion of Rugby League from the State Register of Sports of Russia:...
.
Rugby league is also played as an amateur sport, especially in the heartland areas, where the game is administered by BARLA
British Amateur Rugby League Association
The British Amateur Rugby League Association is the governing body for social and recreational rugby league in the United Kingdom...
. Since the rugby union authorities ended the discrimination against playing rugby league amateur numbers in the sport have increased, particularly outside the heartland areas. Through competitions such as the Rugby League Conference
Rugby League Conference
The Rugby League Conference , was a series of regionally based divisions of amateur rugby league teams spread throughout England, Scotland and Wales.The RLC was founded as the 10-team Southern Conference League in 1997, with teams from the southern midlands and the...
the sport is heading towards a national spread, at amateur level at least.
A single 'Great Britain Lions' team had competed in the Rugby League World Cup
Rugby League World Cup
The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league competition contested by members of the Rugby League International Federation . It has been held nearly once every 4 years on average since its inaugural tournament in France in 1954...
and Test match games, but this changed slightly in 2008 when England
England national rugby league team
The England national rugby league team represent England in international rugby league football tournaments. The team has now seen a revival, having largely formed from the Great Britain team, who also represented Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The team is run under the auspices of the Rugby Football...
, Scotland
Scotland national rugby league team
The Scotland national rugby league team represent Scotland in international rugby league football tournaments. The team is run under the auspices of the Scotland Rugby League, and are nicknamed The Bravehearts. Scotland are not regarded as a test nation...
and Ireland
Ireland national rugby league team
The Ireland national rugby league team, known as the Wolfhounds, represent the island of Ireland in rugby league football. The team is organized by Rugby League Ireland and are accredited as an affiliate member of the Rugby League International Federation...
competed as separate nations. Internationally, only England
England national rugby league team
The England national rugby league team represent England in international rugby league football tournaments. The team has now seen a revival, having largely formed from the Great Britain team, who also represented Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The team is run under the auspices of the Rugby Football...
(and sometimes Wales
Wales national rugby league team
The Wales national rugby league team represent Wales in international rugby league football matches. Currently the team is seventh in the RLIF World Rankings. The team were run under the auspices of the Rugby Football League, but an independent body, Wales Rugby League, now runs the team from...
) field truly competitive teams in international rugby league. For many tournaments the home nations are combined to compete as Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. The Great Britain team
Great Britain national rugby league team
The Great Britain national rugby league team represents the United Kingdom in rugby league football. Administered by the Rugby Football League , the team is nicknamed "The Lions" or "Great Britain Lions"....
won the Rugby League World Cup
Rugby League World Cup
The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league competition contested by members of the Rugby League International Federation . It has been held nearly once every 4 years on average since its inaugural tournament in France in 1954...
in 1954
1954 Rugby League World Cup
The first Rugby League World Cup was held in France in 1954 and officially known as the "Rugby World Cup". The prime motivators behind the idea of holding a rugby league world cup were the French, who were short of money following the seizing of their assets by the rugby union in World War II.The...
, 1960
1960 Rugby League World Cup
The 1960 Rugby League World Cup was the third staging of the tournament and the first Rugby league World Cup to be held in Great Britain. The same format as used in 1957 was used, with a group stage leading to a final table....
and 1972
1972 Rugby League World Cup
The sixth Rugby League World Cup was held in France in October and November of 1972. Australia started as the favourites to retain the trophy they had won just two years previously. New Zealand had beaten all three of the other nations in 1971 and France were expected to be tough opponents on their...
, but England and Wales now compete separately in this tournament and Australia held the title from 1975
1975 Rugby League World Cup
The 1975 Rugby League World Cup was the seventh staging of rugby league football's World Cup tournament...
until being upset by New Zealand
New Zealand national rugby league team
The New Zealand national rugby league team has represented New Zealand in rugby league football since intercontinental competition began for the sport in 1907. Administered by the New Zealand Rugby League, they are commonly known as the Kiwis, after the native bird of that name...
in 2008
2008 Rugby League World Cup
The 2008 Rugby League World Cup was the thirteenth staging of the Rugby League World Cup since the inauguration of the tournament in 1954, and the first since the 2000 event...
. The Great Britain team is retained for some competitions, such as with Australia and New Zealand in the recently founded Tri-Nations
Rugby League Tri-Nations
The Rugby League Tri-Nations was a rugby league tournament involving the top three nations in the sport: Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand...
competition, and in test series such as the Ashes
Rugby League Ashes
The Ashes is the name given to the trophy awarded to the winner of a best-of-three series of rugby league football test series between Great Britain and Australia...
(against Australia) and the Baskerville Shield
Baskerville Shield
The Baskerville Shield is a trophy awarded to the winner of rugby league test series between Great Britain and New Zealand. It named in honour of Albert Henry Baskerville, who organised the first ever tour by New Zealand of Great Britain in 1907....
(against New Zealand). In 2013, The United Kingdom will host the Rugby League World Cup
Rugby League World Cup
The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league competition contested by members of the Rugby League International Federation . It has been held nearly once every 4 years on average since its inaugural tournament in France in 1954...
for the 5th time.
Ice Hockey
Ice hockeyIce hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
is Britains largest indoor spectator sport, and the only team sport to have a UK wide league with at least one team from every nation. It has a long history in the U.K and it is reasonably well supported with the larger teams attracting thousands of fans to every game. The main league is the ten team professional Elite League
Elite Ice Hockey League
Several competitions fall under the jurisdiction of the Elite League. In 2006–07, the EIHL ran a total of four competitions: the league, playoffs, Challenge Cup and Knockout Cup. The league consists of a single division, each team playing three home games and three away games against the other...
containing, four Scottish, four English, one Northern Irish and one Welsh club. The league has featured many former NHL
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
players, predominantly during the NHL lock out season. At the moment the Great Britain men's national ice hockey team is in division 1 of the Ice Hockey World Championships
Ice Hockey World Championships
The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation . First officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics, it is the sport's highest profile annual international tournament. The IIHF was created in 1908 while the European...
. The team is ranked 23rd in the world in the IIHF World Ranking
IIHF World Ranking
The IIHF World Ranking is a ranking of the national teams of member countries of the International Ice Hockey Federation.The system was approved by the IIHF congress in September 2003...
system.
Media support for ice hockey has improved on a national level although the majority of news is still found on the internet. Sky Sports
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is the brand name for a group of sports-oriented television channels operated by the UK and Ireland's main satellite pay-TV company, British Sky Broadcasting. Sky Sports is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland...
has been covering the Elite league for a few seasons and starting in the 2010/2011 season they will be showing 8 live games and a highlight show every week, the reason this deal happened was due to the elite league attracting very large viewing figures and Sky seeing the Elite Ice Hockey League
Elite Ice Hockey League
Several competitions fall under the jurisdiction of the Elite League. In 2006–07, the EIHL ran a total of four competitions: the league, playoffs, Challenge Cup and Knockout Cup. The league consists of a single division, each team playing three home games and three away games against the other...
as a potentionally big and popular league.
The Elite Ice Hockey League
Elite Ice Hockey League
Several competitions fall under the jurisdiction of the Elite League. In 2006–07, the EIHL ran a total of four competitions: the league, playoffs, Challenge Cup and Knockout Cup. The league consists of a single division, each team playing three home games and three away games against the other...
is well recognised around the ice hockey world, so much so that on October 2, 2010 the Boston Bruins
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The team has been in existence since 1924, and is the league's third-oldest team and its oldest in the...
of the NHL took on the Belfast Giants
Belfast Giants
The Belfast Giants are an ice hockey team from Belfast, Northern Ireland that compete in the Elite Ice Hockey League. Home games are played at the 7,100-capacity Odyssey Arena in Belfast....
at the Giants Odyssey Arena in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, winning 5-1 over the Elite League All-Stars.
Gaelic games
Gaelic gamesGaelic games
Gaelic games are sports played in Ireland under the auspices of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The two main games are Gaelic football and hurling...
such as Gaelic football
Gaelic football
Gaelic football , commonly referred to as "football" or "Gaelic", or "Gah" is a form of football played mainly in Ireland...
and hurling
Hurling
Hurling is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic origin, administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association, and played with sticks called hurleys and a ball called a sliotar. Hurling is the national game of Ireland. The game has prehistoric origins, has been played for at least 3,000 years, and...
are organised on an all-Ireland basis and are highly popular in Northern Ireland, with a smaller presence in Great Britain. They are regulated by the Gaelic Athletic Association
Gaelic Athletic Association
The Gaelic Athletic Association is an amateur Irish and international cultural and sporting organisation focused primarily on promoting Gaelic games, which include the traditional Irish sports of hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, handball and rounders...
. Six Northern Ireland teams (Tyrone, Fermanagh, Armagh, Antrim, Down and Derry) feature in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship
All-Ireland Senior Football Championship
The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, the premier competition in Gaelic football, is a series of games organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association and played during the summer and early autumn...
, as do the London senior football team
London GAA
The London County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association or London GAA is one of the county boards outside Ireland, and is responsible for Gaelic games in London...
from Great Britain. In hurling
Hurling
Hurling is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic origin, administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association, and played with sticks called hurleys and a ball called a sliotar. Hurling is the national game of Ireland. The game has prehistoric origins, has been played for at least 3,000 years, and...
, London beat Cork in the 1901 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship
All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship
The GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship is an annual hurling competition organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association since 1887 for the top hurling teams in Ireland....
final, nowadays their hurlers compete in the third tier Nicky Rackard Cup
Nicky Rackard Cup
The Nicky Rackard Cup is a competition for the Tier 3 hurling teams of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship. The tournament is organised by the [Gaelic Athletic Association]] and is played during the summer months with the final being played in Croke Park, Dublin...
. Antrim
Antrim GAA
The Antrim County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association or Antrim GAA is one of the 32 county boards of the GAA in Ireland, and is responsible for Gaelic games in County Antrim. The county board is also responsible for the Antrim inter-county teams...
are the only Northern Irish team in the first tier.
Other team sports
Field hockeyField hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
is the second most popular team recreational sport in the United Kingdom. The Great Britain men's team won the hockey tournament at the 1988 Olympics
1988 Summer Olympics
The 1988 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad, were an all international multi-sport events celebrated from September 17 to October 2, 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. They were the second summer Olympic Games to be held in Asia and the first since the 1964 Summer Olympics...
. However British hockey has gone backwards since then, partly because of conflicts between the need to foster a combined team to compete in the Olympics, and the commitment of the hockey associations of each of the home nations to the retention of separate national teams to compete in other international competitions.
Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
is a minor amateur sport in the United Kingdom. The British Australian Rules Football League (BARFL), formed in 1989 has Premier, Regional and Conference divisions. The Grand Final
Grand Final
Grand Final is a predominantly Australian sport term used to describe a match that decides a league champion.It originated in Victoria and South Australia and has become specifically significant Australian culture...
is an event that regularly attracts growing audience of up to 5,000, consisting primarily of ex-patriate Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
ns. The British Bulldogs
Great Britain national Australian rules football team
The Great Britain National Australian Rules Football team is known as the British Bulldogs. The team is made up of the best British born players selected from the clubs of AFL Britain affiliated competitions in England, Wales and Scotland...
national team has competed in the Australian Football International Cup
Australian Football International Cup
The Australian Football International Cup is an international sport competition in Australian rules football...
. Exhibition matches
Australian rules football exhibition matches
Australian rules football has been introduced to a wide range of places around Australia and the world since the code originated in Victoria in 1859....
are regularly scheduled for The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...
in London, and despite the fact that few Britons know of the sport, the most recent match attracted a record crowd of 18,884 http://www.surreycricket.com/news/the-brit-oval/a-simple-guide-to-aussie-rules,3889,NS.html, helped by the presence of a large Australian community in London.
American Football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
is a minor amateur sport, with two League associations BAFL and BAUFL (University league). The BAFL League has 3 divisions: Premier, 1 and 2, each with a playoff series and championship game to determine a winner. The Championship participants are promoted to the divisions above and the lowest ranking teams in each division are relegated. Teams compete annually to reach the championship game (BritBowl) and win the Boston Trophy. The game was traditionally hosted at Sheffield's Don Valley Stadium, however the venue for the finals was switched in 2008 due to a schedule conflict with Rotherham United FC, the stadium's temporary tenants,[2] with the match instead being played at the Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster.[3]
The teams come from all parts of England, From Cornwall (Cornish Sharks
Cornish Sharks
The Cornish Sharks are an American Football team currently competing in Division 2 West of the BAFA Community Leagues . They play their home games at the Newquay Sports Centre, in Newquay, Cornwall...
), Yorkshire (Yorkshire Rams
Yorkshire Rams
Yorkshire Rams are an English American Football club, based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. They represent the county of Yorkshire. They are currently playing in British American Football Association Community League Division 1.-History:...
) to Scotland (East Kilbride Pirates) to London (London Blitz) who are the current Britbowl Champions.
Basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
is a minor sport in the United Kingdom. The top level league is the eleven team semi-professional British Basketball League
British Basketball League
The British Basketball League, often abbreviated to the BBL, is the premier men's professional basketball league in the United Kingdom. The BBL runs two knockout competitions alongside the league championship; the BBL Cup and the BBL Trophy....
with the English Basketball League
English Basketball League
The English Basketball League is a semi-professional and amateur basketball league in England. It forms the second-tier of competition below the professional British Basketball League....
and Scottish Basketball League below them. While following an American franchise format rather than using promotion and relegation like most European leagues, the majority of recent additions and replacements for failing clubs have come from the English league. The teams are professional or semi-professional but have modest resources. As with football, the home nations teams were encouraged to work together for the Olympics, while British international basketball teams
Great Britain national basketball team
The Great Britain men's national basketball team, known as Great Britain or GB, is the national team for Great Britain in basketball...
have not achieved any major successes since then, ULEB has since tried to undermine the independence of the home nations teams by saying that if they re-enter the European competition after the Olympics, they will be treated as unranked newcomers and start at the lowest level.
Currently, British players in the North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
n NBA
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
are Ben Gordon (who was raised in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) and Luol Deng
Luol Deng
Luol Deng is a South Sudanese-British professional basketball player for the National Basketball Association's Chicago Bulls and the Great Britain national basketball team. He plays the small forward position.-Early life:...
(a Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
ese refugee who is now naturalised in the UK). Another NBA player, Kelenna Azubuike
Kelenna Azubuike
Kelenna David Azubuike is a professional basketball player. Born in London, England and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Azubuike became a standout player during his play at Victory Christian High School, and was eventually recruited to play for the Wildcats of the University of Kentucky...
, was born in London (leaving for the United States as a teenager to further his basketball career), but was denied British citizenship in December 2007 because of problems with his parents' immigration status at his birth.
Shinty
Shinty
Shinty is a team game played with sticks and a ball. Shinty is now played mainly in the Scottish Highlands, and amongst Highland migrants to the big cities of Scotland, but it was formerly more widespread, being once competitively played on a widespread basis in England and other areas in the...
(or camanachd) is an amateur sport indigenous to the Scottish Highlands
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
. Although it is mostly restricted to this area it is highly popular within the Highlands, sometimes attracting crowds numbering thousands in what is the most sparsely populated region of the UK. It is administered by the Camanachd Association
Camanachd Association
The Camanachd Association is the World governing body of the Scottish sport of shinty. The body is based in Inverness, Highland, and is in charge of the rules of the game...
. Its main trophies are the Camanachd Cup
Camanachd Cup
The Camanachd Association Challenge Cup AKA the Camanachd Cup or Scottish Cup is the premier prize in the sport of shinty...
and the Premier Division
Premier Division (shinty)
The Premier Division is a league for shinty teams. It is the primary league competition in shinty and top tier of the Shinty league system. The Premier Division was formed in 1996 in order to create a Scotland-wide league set-up for the first time...
. There are clubs in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London
London Camanachd
London Camanachd is the only shinty club in England. They do not field a competitive team at present. They have historically been attached to the South District. They went into abeyance in 1992 but were reconstituted in 2005...
however and it was once played throughout Scotland and England until the early 20th Century.
Athletics
Athletics does not have a very high profile in Britain on a week-in week-out basis, but it leaps to prominence during major championships. The level of attention received by successful British athletes is illustrated by the fact that athletes have won far more BBC Sports Personality of the YearBBC Sports Personality of the Year
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year is an awards ceremony that takes place annually in December. Devised by Paul Fox in 1954, it originally consisted of one titular award. Several new awards have been introduced, and , eight awards are presented. The oldest of these are the Team of the Year and...
awards than practitioners of any other sport. The governing body of British Athletics is UK Athletics
UK Athletics
UK Athletics is the governing body for the sport of athletics in the United Kingdom. It is responsible for overseeing the governance of athletics events in the UK as well as athletes, their development, and athletics officials....
. There are also semi-independent athletics associations in each of the home nations.
Over the last few decades British athletes have usually won between one and three gold medals at the Olympics. Traditionally Britain was strongest in men's athletics, especially middle distance running, but over the last 20 years success has been achieved in a wide range of events and British women have closed the attainment gap on the men. However, there remain serious concerns about the depth of the sport in Britain, with the number of club athletes reportedly in decline.
Two high profile annual athletics events are the London Marathon
London Marathon
The London Marathon is one of the biggest running events in the world, and one of the five top world marathons that make up the World Marathon Majors competition, which has a $1 million prize purse. It has been held each spring in London since 1981. The race is currently sponsored by Virgin Money,...
and the Great North Run
Great North Run
The Bupa Great North Run is the world's largest half marathon, taking place annually each September. Participants run between Newcastle upon Tyne and South Shields in England. The run was devised by former Olympic 10,000 m bronze medallist and BBC Sport commentator Brendan Foster.The first Great...
, which is a half marathon.
Boxing
The United Kingdom played a key role in the evolution of modern boxingBoxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
, with the codification of the rules of the sport known as the Queensberry Rules
Marquess of Queensberry rules
The Marquess of Queensberry rules is a code of generally accepted rules in the sport of boxing. They were named so because John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry publicly endorsed the code, although they were written by a sportsman named John Graham Chambers. The code of rules on which modern...
in the 19th century.
British professional boxing offers some of the largest purses outside the United States to a few elite professional boxers who become nationally known. British heavyweight contenders are especially popular, but most British world champions have fought in the middling weight brackets. The governing body of professional boxing is the British Boxing Board of Control
British Boxing Board of Control
The British Boxing Board of Control is the governing body of professional boxing in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1929 from the old National Sporting Club and is headquartered in Cardiff.- Councils :...
. It is generally felt that British professional boxing is in decline in the early years of the 21st century. The reasons for this include: the fact that football now offers a relatively large number of sportsmen the chance to make the sort of income traditionally only available to world boxing champions, reducing the incentive for athletic youngsters to accept the greater risks of a boxing career; the acquisition of the rights to most major fights by Sky Sports
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is the brand name for a group of sports-oriented television channels operated by the UK and Ireland's main satellite pay-TV company, British Sky Broadcasting. Sky Sports is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland...
, which means that fewer boxers become national figures than in the past; and the knock the sport's credibility has taken from the multiplicity of title sanctioning bodies.
Amateur boxing is governed by separate bodies in the each home nation. British amateurs have only enjoyed a very modest amount of success in international competition in recent decades, partly due to the tendency for them to turn professional at an early stage. The amateur sport is in a very poor state, with dramatic declines in boxer numbers. National amateur boxing championships and international team matches, which were once highlights of the British sporting calendar, are now almost invisible to the general sporting public.
Cycling
Britain has had limited success with cycle racing in the 20th century. This has changed when the performance director of British cycling David Brailsford obtained lottery funding which helped cycling at both grass roots and at an elite level. This paid off in the 2008 Olympics; British cyclists brought home gold medals in seven events, most notably Chris HoyChris Hoy
Sir Christopher Andrew "Chris" Hoy, MBE is a Scottish track cyclist representing Great Britain and Scotland. He is a multiple world champion and Olympic Games gold medal winner...
who became the first British Olympian to win three golds at one Olympiad, earning him a knighthood. Other successes include Rebecca Romero
Rebecca Romero
Rebecca Jayne Romero MBE is an English sportsperson, a former World Champion and Olympic Games medallist at rowing, and a former World champion and reigning Olympic champion track cyclist.-Biography:...
and Victoria Pendelton. Success at road racing has also been limited with the UK being the only major nation not to have a Tour de France
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...
champion. There has been some success with riders such as Tom Simpson
Tom Simpson
Tom Simpson was the most successful English road racing cyclist of the post-war years. He infamously died of exhaustion on the slopes of Mont Ventoux during the 13th stage of the Tour de France in 1967...
, Barry Hoban
Barry Hoban
Barry Hoban is a former English professional cyclist who rode during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was the previous holder of the record for the most stage wins in the Tour de France by a British rider, winning eight between 1967 to 1975...
, Robert Millar
Robert Millar
Robert Millar is a former Scottish professional cyclist who won the “King of the Mountains” competition in the 1984 Tour de France and finished fourth overall – sharing the highest Tour position for a British cyclist with Bradley Wiggins, and the first time a Briton had won a major Tour...
, Chris Boardman
Chris Boardman
Christopher "Chris" Boardman MBE is a former English racing cyclist who won an individual pursuit gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics and broke the world hour record three times, as well as winning three stages and wearing the yellow jersey on three separate occasions at the Tour de France...
, David Millar
David Millar
David Millar is a British road racing cyclist riding for . He has won three stages of the Tour de France, two of the Vuelta a España and one Stage of the Giro d'Italia. He was the British national road champion and the national time trial champion, both in 2007...
, Bradley Wiggins
Bradley Wiggins
Bradley Marc Wiggins, CBE is a British professional track and road bicycle racer, currently riding for Team Sky. Wiggins' career began on the track, where he specialised in the pursuit and madison disciplines....
, and Mark Cavendish
Mark Cavendish
Mark Cavendish MBE is a Manx professional road racing cyclist who rides for UCI ProTeam until the end of this season when the team is dissolved. He will join Team Sky at the start of the 2012 season...
. Because of the increasing interest in cycling, a British UCI ProTeam (Team Sky
Team Sky
Team Sky is a British professional road bicycle racing team that competes in international road bicycle races. The creation of the team was announced on 26 February 2009 and the team began competition in January 2010....
) was formed for the 2010 cycling season. Major names in the roster included the likes of Bradley Wiggins
Bradley Wiggins
Bradley Marc Wiggins, CBE is a British professional track and road bicycle racer, currently riding for Team Sky. Wiggins' career began on the track, where he specialised in the pursuit and madison disciplines....
, Edvald Boasson Hagen
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Edvald Boasson Hagen is a Norwegian professional road racing cyclist riding for the UCI ProTour team . He is the Norwegian Time Trial Champion and also considered as one of the biggest rising talents in the sport, being ranked as no...
and current British men's Road Race champion, Geraint Thomas
Geraint Thomas
Geraint Howell Thomas, MBE is a Welsh professional racing cyclist who rides for the UCI ProTour team . A track cycling world champion and Olympic gold medalist in the team pursuit, Thomas has also enjoyed success on the road, winning the Junior Paris-Roubaix in 2004, the British National...
. In women's cycling, Nicole Cooke
Nicole Cooke
Nicole Denise Cooke, MBE is a Welsh professional road bicycle racer for the Mario Cipollini - Giordana Team team, and is the current Olympic road race champion.-Early life:...
is regarded to be the best female cyclist in the world. Cycle racing is organised by British Cycling
British Cycling
British Cycling is the national governing body for cycle racing in Great Britain. It administers most competitive cycling in Great Britain, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man...
, who govern most cycling events in the UK and organise the national team. Time trial
Time trial
In many racing sports an athlete will compete in a time trial against the clock to secure the fastest time. In cycling, for example, a time trial can be a single track cycling event, or an individual or team time trial on the road, and either or both of the latter may form components of...
ling in the UK is organised by a separate body called the RTTC.
Golf
Modern competitive golfGolf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
originated in Scotland. In the early 20th century British golfers were the best in the world, winning nearly all of the U.S. Open
U.S. Open (golf)
The United States Open Championship, commonly known as the U.S. Open, is the annual open golf tournament of the United States. It is the second of the four major championships in golf, and is on the official schedule of both the PGA Tour and the European Tour...
championships before World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. American golfers later became dominant, but Britain has continued to produce leading golfers, with an especially strong period in the 1980s and 1990s. There are usually more British golfers than Americans in the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking relative to population, that is to say more than a fifth as many, but Britain has not yet produced a major new golf star this century, although a number of British golfers have reached the world's top 10 in the early 2000s. England's Lee Westwood
Lee Westwood
Lee John Westwood OBE is an English professional golfer. Noted for his consistency, Westwood is one of the few golfers who has won tournaments on every major continent, including victories on the European Tour and the PGA Tour. He was named player of the year for the 1998, 2000, and 2009 seasons...
ended Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Formerly the World No...
' five-year reign atop the rankings in autumn 2010, and fellow Englishman Luke Donald
Luke Donald
Luke Campbell Donald is an English professional golfer who is the current World Number One. He plays mainly on the U.S. based PGA Tour but is also a member of the European Tour. In 2006 he reached the top ten in the Official World Golf Rankings for the first time in his career. In January 2007, he...
reached the top of the rankings in May 2011. Other British golfers to have appeared in the top 10 in the 2000s are Paul Casey
Paul Casey
Paul Alexander Casey is an English golfer who is a member of the world's top two professional golf tours, the U.S.-based PGA Tour and the European Tour. In 2009 he achieved his highest position, third, in the Official World Golf Rankings....
, Ian Poulter
Ian Poulter
Ian James Poulter is an English professional golfer who is a member of the world's top two professional golf tours, the U.S.-based PGA Tour and the European Tour. He has previously been as high as number five in the world rankings...
and Justin Rose
Justin Rose
Justin Peter Rose is a South African-born English professional golfer who plays most of his golf on the PGA Tour while keeping his membership on the European Tour...
, all from England; and Graeme McDowell
Graeme McDowell
Graeme McDowell MBE is a Northern Irish professional golfer.McDowell has won seven events on the European Tour, including the 2010 U.S. Open which was also his first win on the PGA Tour...
and Rory McIlroy
Rory McIlroy
Rory McIlroy is a Northern Irish professional golfer from Holywood in County Down. He has represented Europe, Great Britain & Ireland, and Ireland as both an amateur and a professional. He had a successful amateur career, topping the World Amateur Golf Ranking for one week as a 17-year-old in 2007...
of Northern Ireland. McDowell also became the first European to win the U.S. Open
U.S. Open (golf)
The United States Open Championship, commonly known as the U.S. Open, is the annual open golf tournament of the United States. It is the second of the four major championships in golf, and is on the official schedule of both the PGA Tour and the European Tour...
in 40 years when he won that event in 2010, and McIlroy won that tournament the following year with a record-setting performance
2011 U.S. Open (golf)
The 2011 United States Open Championship, the 111th U.S. Open, was played June 16–19 at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland. It was won by Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland, who set 11 U.S. Open records on the weekend, including the lowest total 72-hole score and the lowest total under...
.
Golf is the sixth most popular sport, by participation, in the UK. The Open Championship
The Open Championship
The Open Championship, or simply The Open , is the oldest of the four major championships in professional golf. It is the only "major" held outside the USA and is administered by The R&A, which is the governing body of golf outside the USA and Mexico...
, which is played each July on a number of British golf courses on a rotating basis, the majority of them in Scotland, is the only men's major
Men's major golf championships
The men's major golf championships, commonly known as the Major Championships, and often referred to simply as the majors, are the four most prestigious annual tournaments in professional golf...
golf tournament which is played outside of the United States. The most famous of these courses is St Andrews
St Andrews Links
St Andrews Links in the town of St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, is regarded as the "home of golf". It is one of the oldest courses in the world, where the game has been played since the 15th century...
, which is known as "The Home of Golf". The R&A, the governing body of golf outside the United States and Mexico, is based in St Andrews. Although The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews
The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews
The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews is one of the oldest and most prestigious golf clubs in the world . It is based in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, and is regarded as the worldwide "Home of Golf"...
, in Scotland, is the sport's home course, the world's oldest golf course is actually Musselburgh Links' Old Golf Course. The PGA European Tour
PGA European Tour
The PGA European Tour is an organization which operates the three leading men's professional golf tours in Europe: the elite European Tour, the European Seniors Tour and the developmental Challenge Tour. Its headquarters are at Wentworth Club in Virginia Water, Surrey, England...
is headquartered in England, and the main European Tour plays more events in the United Kingdom than in any other country. In international team competition the United Kingdom provides a large part of the European Ryder Cup
Ryder Cup
The Ryder Cup is a biennial golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States. The competition is jointly administered by the PGA of America and the PGA European Tour, and is contested every two years, the venue alternating between courses in the United States and Europe...
team, which has beaten the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
team in four of the last six events.
Women's golf does not have as high a profile as the men's game, but British players, most notably Laura Davies
Laura Davies
Laura Jane Davies CBE is an English professional golfer.She is considered the most accomplished English female golfer of modern times being the first non-American to finish at the top of the LPGA money list...
, have found success on both the Europe-wide Ladies European Tour
Ladies European Tour
The Ladies European Tour is a professional golf tour for women which was founded in 1979. It is based in England. Like many UK-based sports organisations it is a company limited by guarantee, a legal structure which enables it to focus on maximising returns to its members through prize money,...
and the overwhelmingly dominant women's tour, the LPGA
LPGA
The LPGA, in full the Ladies Professional Golf Association, is an American organization for female professional golfers. The organization, whose headquarters is in Daytona Beach, Florida, is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekly golf tournaments for elite female golfers from...
Tour in the U.S. The Women's British Open
Women's British Open
The Women's British Open is a leading event in women's professional golf and the only tournament which is classified as a major championship by both the Ladies European Tour and the LPGA Tour. Since 2007, it has been called the Ricoh Women's British Open, for sponsorship reasons...
is the only event recognised as a major
Women's major golf championships
Women's golf has a set of major championships which parallels that in men's golf, but the women's system is younger and has been less stable than the men's. Many professional stroke play events for women are played over three rounds , but the majors are played over four rounds , which is the...
by both the Ladies European Tour and the U.S. LPGA.
Tennis
TennisTennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
is yet another sport which originated in the United Kingdom, first originating in the city of Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
between 1859 and 1865. However, it has not flourished there in recent decades: its profile is highly dependent on the Wimbledon Championships
The Championships, Wimbledon
The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors...
, the most prestigious event of the global tennis calendar. However, no British man has won Wimbledon since 1936
Fred Perry
Frederick John Perry was a championship-winning English tennis and table tennis player who won 10 Majors including eight Grand Slams and two Pro Slams. Perry won three consecutive Wimbledon Championships between 1934 and 1936 and was World No. 1 four years in a row...
and no British woman since 1977
Virginia Wade
Sarah Virginia Wade, OBE is a former English tennis player. She won three Grand Slam singles championships and four Grand Slam doubles championships. She won the women's singles championship at Wimbledon on 1 July 1977, in that tournament's centenary year, the last time any Briton has won a...
. The governing body of the sport is the Lawn Tennis Association
Lawn Tennis Association
The Lawn Tennis Association is the national governing body of tennis in Great Britain, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.As the governing body, the LTA is responsible for the coaching and development of junior players, offering courses and qualifications on coaching, as well as the...
(LTA), which invests the vast profits from the tournament in the game in the hope of producing British champions, but a string of revamps of the coaching system have failed to raise the standard of LTA-trained players. The only British players of either sex to reach the world top 50 in recent years are Greg Rusedski
Greg Rusedski
Gregory "Greg" Rusedski is a British Canadian former tennis player who turned professional in 1991 and played until his retirement on 7 April 2007, at the age of 33...
, who learnt his tennis in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and Tim Henman
Tim Henman
Timothy Henry "Tim" Henman OBE is a retired English professional tennis player and former British Number One. Henman played a serve-and-volley style of tennis that suited the grass courts of Wimbledon. He was the first player from the United Kingdom since Roger Taylor in the 1970s to reach the...
and Andy Murray, who did not pass through the LTA system either, and on the womens side Anne Keothavong
Anne Keothavong
Anne Viensouk Keothavong is a British professional tennis player. She is a former long-standing British number 1, however she is the current British number 2, behind Elena Baltacha and is ranked 71st in the world...
and Elena Baltacha
Elena Baltacha
Elena Baltacha is a British professional tennis player of Ukrainian background. Being a four-time winner of the AEGON Award, she is also the long standing British number 1, a position she has held intermittently since 2002. As of 24 November 2011 she holds a current world ranking of No. 50. Her...
have both just slipped into the worlds top 50 with highest rankings of 48 and 49 respectivly. Outside of Wimbledon fortnight tennis's profile in Britain is low, and since the 2007 retirement of Rusedski and Henman is now largely dependent on Murray.
Great Britain has won the Davis Cup
Davis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation and is contested between teams of players from competing countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Britain and the United States. By...
nine times, but all of them were before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and there is no prospect of another victory in the foreseeable future. The Great Britain women's team made the final of the Fed Cup
Fed Cup
Fed Cup is the premier team competition in women's tennis, launched in 1963 to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the International Tennis Federation...
four times, losing all four, but their last finals appearance was in 1981 when the competition was known as the Federation Cup, and the women's prospects for future victory are even more dim than those of Britain's men. Neither the men's nor women's team are currently in a position to actually compete for their respective cups. Both teams are currently in Group I of the Europe/Africa Zone in their respective tournaments. However, because the Davis Cup has only one 16-team World Group while the Fed Cup has two World Groups, with only the eight teams in World Group I actually competing for that trophy, the men are one promotion away from competing for the Davis Cup while the women are two promotions away from competing for the Fed Cup.
Motorsport
Britain is the centre of Formula OneFormula One
Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...
, with the majority of the Formula One teams based in England, and more world titles won by drivers from Britain than from any other country, including Mike Hawthorn
Mike Hawthorn
John Michael Hawthorn was a racing driver, born in Mexborough, Yorkshire, England, and educated at Ardingly College, West Sussex.-Racing career:...
; Graham Hill
Graham Hill
Norman Graham Hill was a British racing driver and two-time Formula One World Champion. He is the only driver to win the Triple Crown of Motorsport — the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Indianapolis 500 and Formula One World Championship.Graham Hill and his son Damon are the only father and son pair both to...
(twice); Jim Clark
Jim Clark
James "Jim" Clark, Jr OBE was a British Formula One racing driver from Scotland, who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965....
(twice); John Surtees
John Surtees
John Surtees, OBE is a British former Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and Formula One driver from England. He was 500cc motorcycle World Champion in 1956 and 1958–60, Formula One World Champion in 1964, and remains the only person to have won World Championships on both two and four wheels...
, also a world champion in motorcycling; Jackie Stewart
Jackie Stewart
Sir John Young Stewart, OBE , better known as Jackie Stewart, and nicknamed The Flying Scotsman, is a Scottish former racing driver and team owner. He competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships. He also competed in Can-Am...
(three times); James Hunt
James Hunt
James Simon Wallis Hunt was a British racing driver from England who won the Formula One World Championship in . Hunt's often action packed exploits on track earned him the nickname "Hunt the Shunt." After retiring from driving, Hunt became a media commentator and businessman...
; Nigel Mansell
Nigel Mansell
Nigel Ernest James Mansell OBE is a British racing driver who won both the Formula One World Championship and the CART Indy Car World Series...
; Graham Hill's son, Damon Hill
Damon Hill
Damon Graham Devereux Hill OBE is a retired British racing driver. In 1996 Hill won the Formula One World Championship. As the son of the late Graham Hill, he is the only son of a world champion to win the title...
; Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton, MBE is a British Formula One racing driver from England, currently racing for the McLaren team. He was the Formula One World Champion.Hamilton was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire...
; and Jenson Button
Jenson Button
Jenson Alexander Lyons Button MBE is a British Formula One driver currently signed to McLaren. He was the 2009 World Drivers' Champion.Button began karting at the age of eight and achieved early success, before progressing to car racing in the British Formula Ford Championship and the British...
. The British Grand Prix
British Grand Prix
The British Grand Prix is a race in the calendar of the FIA Formula One World Championship. It is currently held at the Silverstone Circuit near the village of Silverstone in Northamptonshire...
takes place at Silverstone
Silverstone Circuit
Silverstone Circuit is an English motor racing circuit next to the Northamptonshire villages of Silverstone and Whittlebury. The circuit straddles the Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire border, with the current main circuit entry on the Buckinghamshire side...
each June/July.
The UK hosted the very first F1 Grand Prix in 1950 at Silverstone
Silverstone Circuit
Silverstone Circuit is an English motor racing circuit next to the Northamptonshire villages of Silverstone and Whittlebury. The circuit straddles the Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire border, with the current main circuit entry on the Buckinghamshire side...
, the current location of the British Grand Prix
British Grand Prix
The British Grand Prix is a race in the calendar of the FIA Formula One World Championship. It is currently held at the Silverstone Circuit near the village of Silverstone in Northamptonshire...
held each year in July. The country also hosts legs of the World Rally Championship
World Rally Championship
The World Rally Championship is a rallying series organised by the FIA, culminating with a champion driver and manufacturer. The driver's world championship and manufacturer's world championship are separate championships, but based on the same point system. The series currently consists of 13...
and has its own touring car racing
Touring car racing
Touring car racing is a general term for a number of distinct auto racing competitions in heavily-modified street cars. It is notably popular in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Scandinavia and Britain.-Characteristics of a touring car:...
championship, the British Touring Car Championship
British Touring Car Championship
The British Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom. The Championship was established in 1958 as the British Saloon Car Championship and has run to various rules over the years – "production cars", then FIA Group 1 or 2 in the late 1960s...
(BTCC), and the British Formula Three Championship
British Formula Three Championship
The British Formula Three Championship is an international motor racing series that takes place primarily in the United Kingdom with a small number of events in mainland Europe. It is a junior-level feeder formula that uses small single seater Formula Three chassis. Its current official title is...
.
British drivers have achieved success in the World Rally Championship
World Rally Championship
The World Rally Championship is a rallying series organised by the FIA, culminating with a champion driver and manufacturer. The driver's world championship and manufacturer's world championship are separate championships, but based on the same point system. The series currently consists of 13...
with the late Colin McRae
Colin McRae
Colin Steele McRae, MBE was a Scottish rally driver born in Lanark.The son of five-time British Rally Champion Jimmy McRae and brother of rally driver Alister McRae, Colin McRae was the 1991 and 1992 British Rally Champion and, in 1995, became the first British person and the youngest to win the...
and the late Richard Burns
Richard Burns
Richard Alexander Burns was an English rally driver. He was born in Reading, Berkshire. He was the 2001 World Rally Champion, having previously finished runner-up in the series in 1999 and 2000. He also helped Mitsubishi to the world manufacturers' title in 1998, and Peugeot in 2002...
winning the title. The British leg of the competition is the Rally Great Britain. Derek Bell
Derek Bell (auto racer)
Derek Reginald Bell MBE is a former racing driver from England who was extremely successful in sportscar racing, winning five times at Le Mans. He also raced in Formula One for the Ferrari, McLaren, Surtees and Tecno teams...
is a five-time 24 Hours of Le Mans
24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the world's oldest sports car race in endurance racing, held annually since near the town of Le Mans, France. Commonly known as the Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency, race teams have to balance speed against the cars' ability to run for 24 hours without sustaining...
winner and one-time winner of the 1000 km Silverstone
1000 km Silverstone
The 1000 km of Silverstone is an endurance sports car race held at Silverstone Circuit near the Northamptonshire villages of Silverstone and Whittlebury...
, the major endurance race of the country, formerly part of the World Sportscar Championship
World Sportscar Championship
The World Sportscar Championship was the world series run for sports car racing by the FIA from 1953 to 1992.The championship evolved from a small collection of the most important sportscar, endurance and road racing events in Europe and North America with dozens of gentleman drivers at the grid,...
and currently part of the Le Mans Series
Le Mans Series
The Le Mans Series is a European sports car racing endurance series based around the 24 Hours of Le Mans race and run by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest . The series was originally named the Le Mans Endurance Series, but changed its name prior to the 2006 season...
and Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.
Since 2000 the British Superbike Championship has become increasingly popular, surpassing its four-wheeled rivals in terms of spectator receipts and television coverage. Britain hosts one round of the MotoGP championship at Donington Park
Donington Park
Donington Park is a motorsport circuit near Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England.Originally part of the Donington Hall estate, it was created as a racing circuit during the pre-war period when the German Silver Arrows were battling for the European Championship...
, and usually two rounds of the Superbike World Championship
Superbike World Championship
Superbike World Championship is the worldwide Superbike racing Championship. The championship was founded in . The Superbike World Championship season consists of a series of rounds held on permanent racing facilities...
, at Silverstone
Silverstone Circuit
Silverstone Circuit is an English motor racing circuit next to the Northamptonshire villages of Silverstone and Whittlebury. The circuit straddles the Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire border, with the current main circuit entry on the Buckinghamshire side...
and Brands Hatch
Brands Hatch
Brands Hatch is a motor racing circuit near West Kingsdown in Kent, England. First used as a dirt track motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently holds many British and international racing events...
. In a third Superbike World Championship
Superbike World Championship
Superbike World Championship is the worldwide Superbike racing Championship. The championship was founded in . The Superbike World Championship season consists of a series of rounds held on permanent racing facilities...
round was added at Donington Park
Donington Park
Donington Park is a motorsport circuit near Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England.Originally part of the Donington Hall estate, it was created as a racing circuit during the pre-war period when the German Silver Arrows were battling for the European Championship...
. In Silverstone
Silverstone Circuit
Silverstone Circuit is an English motor racing circuit next to the Northamptonshire villages of Silverstone and Whittlebury. The circuit straddles the Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire border, with the current main circuit entry on the Buckinghamshire side...
was dropped; Brands Hatch
Brands Hatch
Brands Hatch is a motor racing circuit near West Kingsdown in Kent, England. First used as a dirt track motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently holds many British and international racing events...
and Donington Park
Donington Park
Donington Park is a motorsport circuit near Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England.Originally part of the Donington Hall estate, it was created as a racing circuit during the pre-war period when the German Silver Arrows were battling for the European Championship...
were the venues used for the two rounds that took place in the UK that year, though in 2009 and 2010 only a single round will be held, at Silverstone, after the series organisers and the circuit owners of Brands Hatch failed to reach a commercial agreement on staging the event.
Swimming
The swimming organizations of the home countries have recently formed an umbrella organisation called British SwimmingBritish Swimming (organisation)
British Swimming is the national governing body of swimming, water polo, synchronised swimming, diving and open water in Great Britain. British Swimming is a federation of the national governing bodies of England , Scotland , and Wales...
. Britain sends large teams to all the major international swimming events, and enjoy some successes, but it is not currently a leading swimming nation. The sport's profile is highest during the Commonwealth Games
Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth Games is an international, multi-sport event involving athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930 and takes place every four years....
, when British swimmers have their best chance to win gold medals, and during the Olympics
Summer Olympic Games
The Summer Olympic Games or the Games of the Olympiad are an international multi-sport event, occurring every four years, organized by the International Olympic Committee. Medals are awarded in each event, with gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third, a tradition that...
.
The provision of 50 metre pools in the United Kingdom is very poor for a developed country, with just 22 as of early 2007, only two of which conform to the full Olympic standard
Olympic size swimming pool
An Olympic-size swimming pool is the type of swimming pool used in the Olympic Games, where the race course is 50 meters in length. This is typically referred to as "long course", delineating it from "short course" which applies to competitions in pools that are either 25 meters or 25 yards in...
. There are however far more 25 metre short course pools and other sub Olympic-size competition pools. (See List of Olympic size swimming pools in the United Kingdom.)
Other individual sports
Other sports with loyal followings include snookerSnooker
Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...
, which is popular with television companies as it fills their schedules at a very low cost, and also attracts good audiences. However, its popularity has waned somewhat since 1985, when nearly a third of the British population watched the conclusion of the celebrated Dennis Taylor
Dennis Taylor
Dennis Taylor is a retired snooker player, and current BBC snooker commentator. Winner of two ranking events, he is best known for winning the 1985 World Championship, beating World number one Steve Davis on the final black in one of the sport's most memorable finals...
versus Steve Davis
Steve Davis
Steve Davis, OBE is an English professional snooker player. He has won more professional titles in the sport than any other player, including six World Championships during the 1980s, when he was the world number one for seven years and became the sport's first millionaire...
World Championship
World Snooker Championship
The World Snooker Championship is the leading professional snooker tournament in terms of both prize money and ranking points. The first championship was held in 1927; since 1977, it has been played at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, England...
final
1985 World Snooker Championship final
The 1985 World Snooker Championship final, commonly known as the black ball final, was played on the weekend of 27/28 April 1985 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was contested between defending World Champion Steve Davis and Northern Irishman Dennis Taylor, appearing in his second...
even though it ended after midnight. All but two events on the professional snooker tour in 2007/2008 are played in the United Kingdom, and the World Championship has been played at The Crucible Theatre
Crucible Theatre
The Crucible Theatre is a theatre built in 1971 and located in the city centre of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. As well as theatrical performances, it is home to the most important event in professional snooker, the World Snooker Championship....
, Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, since 1977. There are many amateur leagues set up across the country, featuring team matches between snooker clubs.
Darts
Darts
Darts is a form of throwing game where darts are thrown at a circular target fixed to a wall. Though various boards and games have been used in the past, the term "darts" usually now refers to a standardised game involving a specific board design and set of rules...
is another British centred sport with an assured place in the attention of the British sporting public. The two rival Darts World Championships have been held in the United Kingdom since their inception. Phil Taylor of Stoke
Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke-on-Trent , also called The Potteries is a city in Staffordshire, England, which forms a linear conurbation almost 12 miles long, with an area of . Together with the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme Stoke forms The Potteries Urban Area...
has won more World Championships than any other player.
Sailing
Sailing
Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...
is also a well regarded sport in the UK. It is governed by the RYA
Rya
A rya is a traditional Scandinavian wool rug with a long pile of about 1 to 3 inches. They were made using a form of the Ghiordes knot to make the double-sided pile fabric. Though rya means "rug" in English, the original meaning in Sweden of rya was a bed cover with a knotted pile...
, and there are many locations in the UK where sailing can take place, both inland and coastal. Media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
coverage tends to be low, but if this was to be increased, some feel that support for the sport would increase.
Orienteering
Orienteering
Orienteering is a family of sports that requires navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain, and normally moving at speed. Participants are given a topographical map, usually a specially prepared orienteering map, which they...
is now a major sport in the UK. It is regulated by the British Orienteering Federation
British Orienteering Federation
The British Orienteering Federation, sometimes branded British Orienteering, is the national sports governing body for the sport of orienteering in the United Kingdom. The federation was founded in June 1967, and is a member of the IOF...
, and Britain generally puts on a very strong show at the World Orienteering Championships
World Orienteering Championships
The World Orienteering Championships were first held in 1966. They were held biennially up to 2003 . Since 2003, competitions have been held annually....
with Jamie Stevenson
Jamie Stevenson
Jamie Stevenson is a British orienteering champion. He appeared on the TV sports quiz They Think It's All Over in 2003 after winning the gold medal in the sprint distance at the World Orienteering Championships....
, second at WOC in 2006. Yvette Baker
Yvette Baker
Yvette Baker is Britain's most successful orienteer. At the 1999 World Orienteering Championships in Inverness she won the short distance event.- Biography :...
is generally considered the best British orienteer of all time.
The UK has proved successful in the international sporting arena in rowing
Rowing (sport)
Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...
. It is widely considered that the sport's most successful rower is Steve Redgrave
Steve Redgrave
Sir Steven Geoffrey Redgrave CBE is an English rower who won gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games from 1984 to 2000. He has also won three Commonwealth Games gold medals and nine World Rowing Championships gold medals...
who won five gold medals and one bronze medal at five consecutive Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
, as well as numerous wins at the World Rowing Championships
World Rowing Championships
The World Rowing Championships is an international rowing regatta organized by FISA . It is a week long event held at the end of the northern hemisphere summer and in non-Olympic years is the highlight of the international rowing calendar.The first event was held in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1962...
and Henley Royal Regatta
Henley Royal Regatta
Henley Royal Regatta is a rowing event held every year on the River Thames by the town of Henley-on-Thames, England. The Royal Regatta is sometimes referred to as Henley Regatta, its original name pre-dating Royal patronage...
.
There are many other sports in which Britons compete, sometimes with success, but which do not receive much attention outside a small number of aficionados except during major events such as the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, or when a British athlete does something extraordinary such as breaking a world record. Examples include judo
Judo
is a modern martial art and combat sport created in Japan in 1882 by Jigoro Kano. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the object is to either throw or takedown one's opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue one's opponent with a grappling maneuver, or force an...
, gliding
Gliding
Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word soaring is also used for the sport.Gliding as a sport began in the 1920s...
, modern pentathlon
Modern pentathlon
The modern pentathlon is a sports contest that includes five events: pistol shooting, épée fencing, 200 m freestyle swimming, show jumping, and a 3 km cross-country run...
, figure skating
Figure skating
Figure skating is an Olympic sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform spins, jumps, footwork and other intricate and challenging moves on ice skates. Figure skaters compete at various levels from beginner up to the Olympic level , and at local, national, and international competitions...
and sailing
Sailing
Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...
.
Horseracing
Thoroughbred racingThoroughbred horse race
Thoroughbred horse racing is a worldwide sport and industry involving the racing of Thoroughbred horses. It is governed by different national bodies. There are two forms of the sport: Flat racing and National Hunt racing...
, which originated under Charles II of England
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
as the "sport of kings", occupies a key place in British sport, probably ranking in the top four or five sports in terms of media coverage. There are sixty racecourses in Great Britain and annual racecourse attendance exceeds six million. The sport in Great Britain is governed by the British Horseracing Authority
British Horseracing Authority
The British Horseracing Authority, also known simply as the BHA, is the regulatory authority for horse racing in Great Britain.It was formed on 31 July 2007, after the merger of the British Horseracing Board and the Horseracing Regulatory Authority .Its stated objectives are to: “provide the most...
. The two racecourses in Northern Ireland are governed by Horse Racing Ireland
Horse Racing Ireland
Horse Racing Ireland is the governing body of horse racing on the island of Ireland. Like most other sports, horse racing is run on an All Ireland basis, so Horse Racing Ireland is responsible for racing in both the Republic of Ireland, which has 25 racecourses, and in Northern Ireland, which has...
, which runs the sport on an All-Ireland basis. The town of Newmarket is considered the centre of English racing, largely because of the famous Newmarket Racecourse
Newmarket Racecourse
The town of Newmarket, in Suffolk, England, is the headquarters of British horseracing, home to the largest cluster of training yards in the country and many key horse racing organisations. Newmarket Racecourse has two courses - the Rowley Mile Course and the July Course. Both are wide, galloping...
.
The two forms of horseracing in the United Kingdom are National Hunt
National Hunt racing
National Hunt racing is the official name given to the sport of horse racing in the United Kingdom, France and Ireland in which the horses are required to jump over obstacles called hurdles or fences...
, which involves jumping over fences or hurdles, and the more glamourous flat racing. National Hunt is a winter sport and flat racing is a summer sport, but the seasons are very long and they overlap. In flat racing the three races which make up the Triple Crown
Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing
The Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing consists of three races for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses. Winning all three of these Thoroughbred horse races is considered the greatest accomplishment of a Thoroughbred racehorse...
are the 2,000 Guineas, the Epsom Derby
Epsom Derby
The Derby Stakes, popularly known as The Derby, internationally as the Epsom Derby, and under its present sponsor as the Investec Derby, is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies...
, and the St. Leger Stakes
St. Leger Stakes
The St. Leger Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain which is open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies. It is run at Doncaster over a distance of 1 mile, 6 furlongs and 132 yards , and it is scheduled to take place each year in September.Established in 1776, the St. Leger...
. Other leading flat races include the 1,000 Guineas and the Epsom Oaks
Epsom Oaks
The Oaks Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred fillies. It is run at Epsom Downs over a distance of 1 mile, 4 furlongs and 10 yards , and it is scheduled to take place each year in early June....
. Apart from the meetings at which the aforementioned races are staged, major flat racing meetings include Royal Ascot, Glorious Goodwood, and the Ebor Festival
Ebor Festival
The Ebor Festival is a four day race meeting held at York Racecourse in Great Britain during the month of August. The 2010 festival took place between Tuesday 17 August and Friday 20 August....
at York Racecourse
York Racecourse
York Racecourse is a horse racing track in the southwest of the city of York in North Yorkshire, England with a spectator capacity of 60,000. The most famous race to be held at York on an annual basis is the Ebor Handicap, which is run during the Ebor Festival meeting in August...
. The highlights of the National Hunt season are the Cheltenham Festival
Cheltenham Festival
The Cheltenham Festival is one of the most prestigious meetings in the National Hunt racing calendar in the United Kingdom, and has race prize money second only to the Grand National...
and the Aintree Grand National.
Eventing and showjumping
The United Kingdom also played a key role in the evolution of three-day eventing and showjumping. Two of the six annual three-day event competitions given the highest classificationConcours Complet International
The Concours Complet International and the Concours International Combiné are ratings for the equestrian sport of eventing, given by the international governing body for the sport, the FEI....
by the FEI
International Federation for Equestrian Sports
The Fédération Équestre Internationale or in English, the International Federation for Equestrian Sports, is the international governing body of equestrian sports. It recognizes ten international disciplines...
are British, namely the Badminton Horse Trials
Badminton Horse Trials
The Badminton Horse Trials is a three-day event, one of only six annual Concours Complet International Four Star **** events as classified by the Fédération Équestre Internationale , which takes place in April or May each year in the park of Badminton House, the seat of the Dukes of Beaufort in...
and the Burghley Horse Trials
Burghley Horse Trials
The Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials is an annual three day event held at Burghley House near Stamford, Lincolnshire, England, currently in early September...
. Badminton attracts crowds of up to a quarter of a million spectators on cross country day, which is the largest for any paid-entry sports event in Britain.
Great Britain at the Olympics
The United Kingdom competes in the Olympics as Great Britain during Olympic competition. The British Olympic AssociationBritish Olympic Association
The British Olympic Association is the national Olympic committee for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It was formed in 1905 in the House of Commons, and at that time consisted of seven national governing body members from the following sports: fencing, life-saving, cycling, skating, rowing,...
is responsible for the promotion of the Olympic Movement within the UK and for the selection, leadership and management of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at every Olympic accredited event.
After the 2004
2004 Summer Olympics
The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...
Summer Olympics Great Britain was third in the all-time Summer Olympic medal count (ranked by gold medals), although the majority of the medals are accounted for by some very large tallies in the first few Olympic Games. British medal tallies for much of the post-war period were generally considered disappointing, but the 2000 Summer Olympics
2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
marked an upturn and this was sustained at the 2004 Summer Olympics when Great Britain finished tenth in the medal table and the 2008 where it finished fourth behind only China, USA and Russia . This was seen as a great success, and there was a victory parade through the streets of London. The sports in which the British team has won most medals in recent Summer Olympics include rowing, sailing
Sailing
Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...
, cycling
Cycling
Cycling, also called bicycling or biking, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, or for sport. Persons engaged in cycling are cyclists or bicyclists...
and athletics. London hosted the Summer Olympics in 1908 and 1948 and will do so again in 2012
2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the "London 2012 Olympic Games", are scheduled to take place in London, England, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12 August 2012...
.
Winter sports only play a minor role British sporting life because the winters are not cold enough for them to be practised out of doors very much. Great Britain is not a leading nation at the Winter Olympics, but has had a few successes in sports such as figure skating
Figure skating
Figure skating is an Olympic sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform spins, jumps, footwork and other intricate and challenging moves on ice skates. Figure skaters compete at various levels from beginner up to the Olympic level , and at local, national, and international competitions...
, curling
Curling
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones across a sheet of ice towards a target area. It is related to bowls, boule and shuffleboard. Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called "rocks", across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a...
and bob skeleton
Skeleton (sport)
Skeleton is a fast winter sliding sport in which an individual person rides a small sled down a frozen track while lying face down, during which athletes experience forces up to 5g. It originated in St. Moritz, Switzerland as a spin-off from the popular British sport of Cresta Sledding...
.
Great Britain at the Paralympics
The United Kingdom has played a major role in the development of disability sport. The Paralympic GamesParalympic Games
The Paralympic Games are a major international multi-sport event where athletes with a physical disability compete; this includes athletes with mobility disabilities, amputations, blindness, and Cerebral Palsy. There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which are held immediately following their...
originated in the Stoke Mandeville Games, which were held at Stoke Mandeville Hospital
Stoke Mandeville Hospital
Stoke Mandeville Hospital is a large National Health Service hospital within Aylesbury Urban Area to the south of the town of Aylesbury, near the village of Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire...
in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
in 1948. The Great Britain team does much better in the medal table at the Summer Paralympics than at the Summer Olympics. It has never finished outside the top five and has been second several times, including the last three games in 2000
2000 Summer Paralympics
The 2000 Paralympic Games were held in Sydney, Australia, from 18 October to 29 October. The eleventh Summer Paralympic Games, an estimated 3800 athletes took part in the Sydney programme. They commenced with the opening ceremony on 18 October 2000...
, 2004
2004 Summer Paralympics
The 2004 Summer Paralympics were held in Athens, Greece, from September 17 to September 28. The twelfth Paralympic Games, an estimated 4,000 athletes took part in the Athens programme, with ages ranging from 11 to 66. Paralympic events had already taken place during the 2004 Summer Olympics as...
and 2008
2000 Summer Paralympics
The 2000 Paralympic Games were held in Sydney, Australia, from 18 October to 29 October. The eleventh Summer Paralympic Games, an estimated 3800 athletes took part in the Sydney programme. They commenced with the opening ceremony on 18 October 2000...
. The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
is an enthusiastic promoter of disability sport. International Paralympic Committee
International Paralympic Committee
The International Paralympic Committee is an international non-profit organisation and the global governing body for the Paralympic Movement. The IPC organizes the Paralympic Games and functions as the international federation for nine sports...
president Sir Philip Craven
Philip Craven
Sir Philip Craven MBE is a British sports official and former athlete. He is the second and current President of the International Paralympic Committee .-Education:...
is British.
Major sports facilities
In the early 20th century the United Kingdom had some of the largest sports facilities in the world, but the level of comfort and amenities they offered would be considered totally unacceptable by modern standards. After a long period of decline relative to other developed countries British facilities have made a relative improvement since the 1980s, and this is ongoing.National stadia
Most of the best stadia in the United Kingdom were built for national teams, and many see little or no use at club level:- Wembley StadiumWembley StadiumThe original Wembley Stadium, officially known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, a suburb of north-west London, standing on the site now occupied by the new Wembley Stadium that opened in 2007...
(England football team, FA Cup finalFA Cup FinalThe FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the Football Association Challenge Cup. With an official attendance of 89,826 at the 2007 FA Cup Final, it is the fourth best attended domestic club championship event in the world and the second most...
s, Football League CupFootball League CupThe Football League Cup, commonly known as the League Cup or, from current sponsorship, the Carling Cup, is an English association football competition. Like the FA Cup, it is played on a knockout basis...
finals, FA Community ShieldFA Community ShieldThe Football Association Community Shield is English football's annual match contested between the champions of the previous Premier League season and the holders of the FA Cup at Wembley Stadium. If the Premier League champions also won the FA Cup then the league runners-up provide the opposition...
, Football League play-offsFootball League Play-OffsThe Football League play-offs are an annual series of football matches to determine some of the promotion places within the Football League. Essentially, each division of the league offers a certain number of automatic promotion places to the top two or three clubs. A further promotion place is...
, and Football League TrophyFootball League TrophyThe Football League Trophy, currently known as the Johnstone's Paint Trophy for sponsorship reasons, is an annual English association football knock-out competition open to the 48 clubs in Football League One and Football League Two, the bottom two divisions in the four fully professional top...
) 90,000. Wembley has also been used by the Great Britain rugby league teamGreat Britain national rugby league teamThe Great Britain national rugby league team represents the United Kingdom in rugby league football. Administered by the Rugby Football League , the team is nicknamed "The Lions" or "Great Britain Lions"....
, and for major club matches in that sportRugby leagueRugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
. It also hosts one annual regular-season gameNFL International SeriesBeginning with the 2005 season, the National Football League has hosted regular season American football games held outside the United States in a series known as the International Series.-Background:...
of the National Football LeagueNational Football LeagueThe National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
, the major U.S. professional league of American football. In 2011, it hosted the UEFA Champions League Final2011 UEFA Champions League FinalThe 2011 UEFA Champions League Final was a football match played on 28 May 2011 at Wembley Stadium in London that decided the winner of the 2010–11 season of the UEFA Champions League. The winners received the European Champion Clubs' Cup...
. - Lord'sLord's Cricket GroundLord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
(England cricket team, Middlesex County teamMiddlesex County Cricket ClubMiddlesex County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Middlesex. It was announced in February 2009 that Middlesex changed their limited overs name from the Middlesex Crusaders, to the...
) 32,000. Lord's is widely referred to as the "home of cricket" and is home to the world's oldest sporting museum. Bowls, baseball, tennis, archery and several other sports have been played at Lord's in the past. Lord's is also one of the planned venues for the 2012 Summer Olympics2012 Summer OlympicsThe 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the "London 2012 Olympic Games", are scheduled to take place in London, England, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12 August 2012...
. The archeryArcheryArchery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...
competition will take place in front of the Pavilion. - TwickenhamTwickenham StadiumTwickenham Stadium is a stadium located in Twickenham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is the largest rugby union stadium in the United Kingdom and has recently been enlarged to seat 82,000...
(England rugby union team; occasionally used for major club matches, notably the London Double HeaderLondon Double HeaderThe London Double Header began in 2004 and opens what was the Zurich Premiership and is now the Aviva Premiership, the top rugby union league in England....
) 82,000. - Millennium StadiumMillennium StadiumThe Millennium Stadium is the national stadium of Wales, located in the capital, Cardiff. It is the home of the Wales national rugby union team and also frequently stages games of the Wales national football team, but is also host to many other large scale events, such as the Super Special Stage...
(Wales rugby union and football teams) 75,000. - MurrayfieldMurrayfield StadiumMurrayfield Stadium is a sports stadium located in the west end of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Its all-seater capacity was recently reduced from 67,800 to 67,130 to incorporate the largest permanent "big screen" in the country though it still remains the largest stadium in Scotland and one...
(Scotland rugby union team and Edinburgh Rugby, a professional club team in the same sport) 67,000. - Hampden ParkHampden ParkHampden Park is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland. The 52,063 capacity venue serves as the national stadium of football in Scotland...
(Scotland football team and Queen's Park F.C.Queen's Park F.C.Queen's Park Football Club are an association football club based in Glasgow, Scotland. The club are currently the only amateur club in the Scottish League; their amateur status is reflected by their motto, Ludere Causa Ludendi – to play for the sake of playing.Queen's Park are the oldest...
, an amateur club football team) 52,000. - Windsor ParkWindsor ParkWindsor Park is a football stadium in Belfast, Northern Ireland and the home ground of Linfield F.C. and the Northern Ireland national football team. It is also where the Irish Cup and Irish League Cup finals are played.-History:...
(Northern Ireland football team and Linfield F.C.Linfield F.C.Linfield F.C. , is a semi-professional, Northern Irish football club, whose home ground is Windsor Park in Belfast, which is also the home of the Northern Ireland international team....
). Unlike the other stadiums listed above, Windsor Park is a club stadium (owned by Linfield) that the Irish Football AssociationIrish Football AssociationThe Irish Football Association is the organising body for association football in Northern Ireland, and was historically the governing body for Ireland...
rents for national team matches.
Club football grounds
British football grounds are almost always football-only facilities in which the spectators are close to the action. Since the late 1980s there has been a dramatic spurt of reconstruction and replacement of league grounds, which is ongoing, and the Premiership's facilities are among the best of any sports league. As of early 2007 there are approximately 35 all-seater club grounds in England with a capacity of 25,000 or more, and three in Scotland. The largest is Manchester United'sManchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
Old Trafford
Old Trafford (football)
Old Trafford is a football stadium in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, and the home of Manchester United. With a capacity of 75,811, Old Trafford is the second-largest football stadium in England after Wembley, the third-largest in the United Kingdom and the eleventh-largest in Europe...
, which has a capacity of over 76,000 and the most recently built football stadia in the Premier League include the Emirates Stadium
Emirates Stadium
Ashburton Grove, currently known as the Emirates Stadium, is a UEFA elite football stadium which is home to Arsenal FC, where they moved from Highbury in 2006. It has an current capacity of 60,361, and there have been rumours of an expansion...
and the City of Manchester Stadium
City of Manchester Stadium
The City of Manchester Stadium in Manchester, England – also known as the Etihad Stadium for sponsorship purposes– is the home ground of...
.
Cricket grounds
English cricket grounds are smaller than the largest in some other countries, especially IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, but the best of them have been modernised to a high standard, and two new international grounds have been built in recent years. The largest English cricket ground, Lord's
Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
in London, is internationally regarded as the "home of cricket".
Club rugby grounds
Rugby unionRugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
and rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
clubs are generally poorer than their football counterparts. Some clubs have good all seater grounds in the 10,000-25,000 capacity range; some have older grounds which are still partly terraced, and others play in council
Local government in the United Kingdom
The pattern of local government in England is complex, with the distribution of functions varying according to the local arrangements. Legislation concerning local government in England is decided by the Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom, because England does not have a devolved...
-owned joint-use stadia (e.g. the KC Stadium
KC Stadium
The KC Stadium, often shortened to the KC, is a multi-purpose facility in the city of Kingston upon Hull , England. Conceived as early as the late 1990s, it was completed in 2002 at a cost of approximately £44 million. It is named after the stadium's sponsors, telecommunications provider KC,...
). Some clubs (mostly rugby union ones) rent stadia from football clubs.
Golf courses
The United Kingdom has many world class golf courses which can accommodate crowds in the tens of thousands for tournaments. The greatest concentration of these is in Scotland. The Open Championship is always played over a linksLinks (golf)
A links is the oldest style of golf course, first developed in Scotland. The word "links" comes from the Scots language and refers to an area of coastal sand dunes and sometimes to open parkland. It also retains this more general meaning in the Scottish English dialect...
course, the most famous venue being the Old Course at St Andrews
Old Course at St Andrews
The Old Course at St Andrews is the oldest golf course in the world. The Old Course is a public course over common land in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland and is held in trust by The St Andrews Links Trust under an act of Parliament...
on the east coast of Scotland. The Belfry
The Belfry
The Belfry is a golf resort in Wishaw, Warwickshire, England, very near the Sutton Coldfield district of Birmingham, and owned since 2005 by Irish businessman Sean Quinn....
in the English Midlands
English Midlands
The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
has hosted the Ryder Cup more times than any other site. Wentworth Club
Wentworth Club
Wentworth Club is a privately owned golf club and health resort in Virginia Water, Surrey on the south western fringes of London, not far from Windsor Castle. The club was founded in 1926.-History:...
near London is the only venue which hosts two European Tour events each season.
Athletics stadiums
The provision of athletics stadiums in the United Kingdom is very poor compared to most other developed countries. The main reason for this is that it is not considered acceptable to ask football or rugby fans to sit behind an athletics track. This means that athletics stadiums have to be separately financed and this can only be done with public funds, which have not been forthcoming on a large scale. The largest athletics stadium built in the UK since the Second World War, the 38,000-capacity City of Manchester StadiumCity of Manchester Stadium
The City of Manchester Stadium in Manchester, England – also known as the Etihad Stadium for sponsorship purposes– is the home ground of...
built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games
Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth Games is an international, multi-sport event involving athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930 and takes place every four years....
, was reconfigured for football-only use after that event. The largest existing stadium is the 25,000 seat Don Valley Stadium
Don Valley Stadium
The Don Valley Stadium is a stadium in Sheffield, England and is the home of Rotherham United F.C.. The stadium is an athletics stadium which has hosted major UK Athletic events and the 1991 World Student Games. Sheffield Eagles RLFC and Parramore Sports FC also use the stadium. It was designed by...
in Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
. London's largest athletics venue is Crystal Palace
Crystal Palace National Sports Centre
The National Sports Centre at Crystal Palace in south London, England is a large sports centre and athletics stadium. It was opened in 1964 in Crystal Palace Park, close to the site of the former Crystal Palace, in the former parkland and also usurping part of the former grand prix circuit.It was...
, which has just 15,500 permanent seats. It will be superseded by the Olympic Stadium
Olympic Stadium (London)
The London Olympic Stadium will be the centrepiece of the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. The stadium is located at Marshgate Lane in Stratford in the Lower Lea Valley and has capacity for the Games of approximately 80,000 making it temporarily the third largest stadium in Britain behind...
, which will be built as an 80,000 seater for the 2012 Summer Olympics
2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the "London 2012 Olympic Games", are scheduled to take place in London, England, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12 August 2012...
. After the Games, it will be taken over by West Ham United F.C.
West Ham United F.C.
West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club based in Upton Park, Newham, East London. They play in The Football League Championship. The club was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks FC and reformed in 1900 as West Ham United. In 1904 the club relocated to their current...
(with a reduced capacity of 60,000), and the track will remain in place.
Race courses
There are 60 racecourses in Great Britain, with two more in Northern Ireland (the sport is governed on an all-Ireland basis). The best of them are world class. For example Ascot RacecourseAscot Racecourse
Ascot Racecourse is a famous English racecourse, located in the small town of Ascot, Berkshire, used for thoroughbred horse racing. It is one of the leading racecourses in the United Kingdom, hosting 9 of the UK's 32 annual Group 1 races...
was redeveloped in 2005 and 2006 at a cost of £185 million.
Velodromes
There are several outdoor velodromes for track cycle racing in the UK with Herne HillHerne Hill
Herne Hill is located in the London Borough of Lambeth and the London Borough of Southwark in Greater London. There is a road of the same name which continues the A215 north of Norwood Road and was called Herne Hill Road.-History:...
in London being the only venue from the 1948 Olympics still in operation. There are also 2 indoor velodromes including one in Newport and a 3,500 seater velodrome in Manchester
Manchester Velodrome
Manchester Velodrome is an indoor cycle-racing track or velodrome in Manchester, northwest England. It opened in September 1994 and is the leading indoor Olympic-standard track in the United Kingdom. It houses the National Cycling Centre and British Cycling...
that also serves as the headquarters of British Cycling
British Cycling
British Cycling is the national governing body for cycle racing in Great Britain. It administers most competitive cycling in Great Britain, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man...
.
Two more indoor velodromes are planned: A 6,000 seater arena
London Velopark
The London Velopark is a cycling centre which was built in Leyton in east London, United Kingdom. It will serve as one of the 'Big Five' permanent Olympic and Paralympic venues for the 2012 Games. The Velopark is situated at the northern end of London's Olympic Park...
as part of the 2012 Summer Olympics
2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the "London 2012 Olympic Games", are scheduled to take place in London, England, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12 August 2012...
in London and a 2,500 seater venue
National Indoor Sports Arena and Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome
The National Indoor Sports Arena and Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome is an indoor arena and velodrome currently under construction in Parkhead, Glasgow, Scotland. Built for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, these venues will host the Badminton and Track cycling events...
as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games
2014 Commonwealth Games
The 20th Commonwealth Games in 2014 will be held in Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland. The winning city was announced by the Commonwealth Games Federation on 9 November 2007 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The Games will run over 11 days of competition from 24 July to 3 August 2014...
in Glasgow.
Indoor arenas
In the United Kingdom there is no indoor sport capable of attracting five-figure attendances on a regular basis, and this restricts the development of large indoor arenas. Nonetheless a number of 10,000+ seater arenas have been built in recent years and more are planned. These facilities make most of their income from pop concerts, but they occasionally stage boxing matches and other sporting events. The largest is now The O2The O2 arena (London)
The O2 Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in the centre of The O2, a large entertainment complex on the Greenwich peninsula in London, England.With a capacity of up to 20,000 depending on the event, it is second largest...
in London with a capacity of over 20,000, surpassing the former leader, the Manchester Evening News Arena
Manchester Evening News Arena
The Manchester Evening News Arena is an indoor arena situated in Manchester, England. It is adjacent to Manchester Victoria station near Corporation Street...
in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. The National Ice Centre in Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
, Odyssey Arena
Odyssey (Belfast)
The Odyssey Arena is a large sports and entertainment centre situated in Titanic Quarter, Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was jointly funded by the Millennium Commission, the Laganside Corporation, the DCAL, the Sheridan Group and the Sports Council for Northern Ireland. The Arena opened in 2000 with...
in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
and the Sheffield Arena all host ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
, the largest being the Sheffield Arena which holds in the region of 8,500 spectators. Several smaller arenas hosting ice hockey and basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
are found around the United Kingdom though these generally hold only a few thousand fans.
External links
- A website with details of UK stadia
- An illustrated guide to English football grounds
- An illustrated guide to Scottish football grounds
Student sport
Oxbridge
Oxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior social status...
events, student sport has a very low profile in the United Kingdom. While universities have significant sports facilities, there is no system of sports scholarships. However students who are elite standard competitors are eligible for funding from bodies such as UK Sport
UK Sport
UK Sport is the UK Government's organisation for directing the development of sport within the home countries.-History:The Sports Council previously had been formed in 1972, and had the motto Sport for All. There was also the Central Council of Physical Recreation. In July 1994 it was decided to...
on the same basis as anyone else. The university most focused on sports provision is Loughborough University
Loughborough University
Loughborough University is a research based campus university located in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, in the East Midlands of England...
. Budding professionals in the traditionally working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
team sports of football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
and rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
rarely go to university. Talented youngsters in the more middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
sports of cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
and rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
are far more likely to attend university, but their sports clubs usually play a greater role in developing their talent than their university coaches. Some sports are attempting to adapt to new conditions in which a far higher proportion of British teenagers attend university than in the past, notably cricket, which has established several university centres of excellence.
School sport
Sport is compulsory for all students up to the age of sixteen, but the amount of time devoted to it is often small. There are frequent complaints that state sector schools do too little to encourage sport and a healthy lifestyle. Since the 1980s it has become a cliché to complain about sales of school playing fields for development.Sports culture is stronger in independent schools in the United Kingdom
Independent school (UK)
An independent school is a school that is not financed through the taxation system by local or national government and is instead funded by private sources, predominantly in the form of tuition charges, gifts and long-term charitable endowments, and so is not subject to the conditions imposed by...
, and these schools contribute disproportionate numbers of elite competitors in almost all sports with the exceptions of football, rugby league, boxing and perhaps athletics.
In addition to the many of the sports already mentioned, popular sports at junior level include netball
Netball
Netball is a ball sport played between two teams of seven players. Its development, derived from early versions of basketball, began in England in the 1890s. By 1960 international playing rules had been standardised for the game, and the International Federation of Netball and Women's Basketball ...
and rounders
Rounders
Rounders is a game played between two teams of either gender. The game originated in England where it was played in Tudor times. Rounders is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a round wooden, plastic or metal bat. The players score by...
, both of which are played almost entirely by girls. However, in recent times schoolgirls have increasingly played sports which are traditionally male, especially football, but also others such as rugby.
The leading body for physical education in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
is the Association for Physical Education
Association for Physical Education
The Association for Physical Education is committed to being the UK representative organisation of choice for people and agencies delivering or supporting the delivery of physical education in schools and in the wider community....
.
In 2006 the UK School Games
UK School Games
The UK School Games was an annual sporting competition for elite school-age athletes in the United Kingdom held between 2006 and 2011.The event was based on an Olympic Games model, with multiple sports events held across an intensive four-day period...
was established by the Youth Sport Trust
Youth Sport Trust
The Youth Sport Trust is a British charitable trust which aims to support the education and development of young people through physical education....
as an annual sporting competition for elite school age athletes in the UK, and for 2008 was expanded to include nine sports over four days.
See also
- Sport in IrelandSport in IrelandIn Ireland many sports, such as boxing, hockey, rowing, cricket, rugby union, Gaelic football and hurling, are organised in an all-island basis, with a single team representing the whole of Ireland in international competitions...
- Sport in EnglandSport in EnglandSport plays a prominent role in English life. Popular team sports in England are association football, cricket, rugby union and rugby league. Major individual sports include badminton, athletics, tennis, golf, motorsport and horseracing...
- Sport in ScotlandSport in ScotlandSport plays a central role in Scottish culture. The temperate, oceanic climate has played a key part in the evolution of sport in Scotland, with all-weather sports like association football, rugby union and golf dominating the national sporting consciousness...
- Sport in WalesSport in WalesThe most popular sports in Wales are rugby union and football. Like the other countries of the United Kingdom, Wales enjoys independent representation in major world sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup, Rugby World Cup and in the Commonwealth Games, but competes as part of England in cricket...
- Sport in the Isle of ManSport in the Isle of ManFor a small country, sport in the Isle of Man plays an important part in making the island known to the wider world. The principal international sporting event held on the island is the annual Isle of Man TT motorcycling event...
- Sport in JerseySport in JerseyIn its own right Jersey participates in the Commonwealth Games and in the bi-annual Island Games, which it last hosted in 1997 and will next host in 2015. Jersey is a founder member of the Island Games Association and has participated in every Games since the first in 1985...
- Sport in GuernseySport in GuernseyGuernsey participates in its own right in the Commonwealth Games.Guernsey participates in the bi-annual Island Games, which it hosted in 1987 and 2003...
- Sport in GibraltarSport in GibraltarSport plays a prominent role in Gibraltarian life. The range of sports practiced in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar is wide and varied in comparison to its size of less than 7km2. The Government of Gibraltar is committed to promote sport within The Rock and supports many local sports...
External links
- Association for Physical Education Association for Physical EducationAssociation for Physical EducationThe Association for Physical Education is committed to being the UK representative organisation of choice for people and agencies delivering or supporting the delivery of physical education in schools and in the wider community....
afPE Official website