Contents
Introduction_ 2
Sports in Britain_ 3
Athletics 3
Football 4
Rugby_ 6
Cricket 8
Tennis 10
Golf 11
Horseracing 12
British motorsport 13
Other sports 16
Conclusion_ 17
Literature 18
Introduction There were no national sport in Great Britain in the early eighteen century. That time, sports were closely linked to church festivities. Traditional games include ninepins, quoits, leaping, coursing, horse-racing; animal (bull, bear) baiting and cock fighting. Boxing, cudgelling, wrestling and pugilism were most popular individual sports. Rowing (especially on the Thames and Tyne) was the most popular spectacle sport. Cricket, the oldest team-sport to have survived, became the first game allowing the members of aristocracy not to ride a horse when playing.
Nowadays, there are quite a number of sports, which are said to have been invented in Britain. For example, cricket, soccer, rugby, tennis, squash, table tennis, badminton, canoeing and snooker.
Even the first rules for sports such as boxing, golf, hockey, yachting and horse-racing all originated from Britain.
Now if you were British, the sports you would prefer to take part in and not watch would be angling, snooker and darts. Let's just have a look at a few types of sports.
Sports in Britain Athletics Athletics is probably the oldest sport of all and certainly the first to be staged on an organized basis, dating back to the ancient Games in Olympia, Greece, which were first held in 776BC. The first recorded evidence of it in Britain can be traced to 1154 when practice fields were established in London. It was certainly promoted in the early 16th century by King Henry Vlll, who was reputed to be an accomplished hammer thrower.
The modern sport developed early in the 19th century. Organized foot races for amateurs were held in England as early as 1825, while the first national championships were staged in 1866 by the Amateur Athletic Club, which became the Amateur Athletics Association in 1880.
The modern Olympics, first held in Athens in 1896, was the cue for the sport to grow massively in popularity and take on an international flavour. Britain won only one track and field medal in those games – a silver for Grantley Goulding in the 110m hurdles, but did rather better four years later in Paris with four gold medals in the 800m, 1500m, 5000m and steeplechase.
The 1924 Games, also held in Paris, were another triumph for British athletics. Harold Abrahams won the 100m and former Scottish rugby international Eric Liddell took bronze in the 200m. Liddell had also been due to run in the 100m but the qualifying rounds were held on a Sunday and his religious convictions prevented him from taking part. He switched to the 400m instead and won the gold medal in a world record time. The exploits of these two runners were the subject of the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, made in 1981.
Another legendary name in British athletics is that of Roger Bannister. On 6 May 1954 at the Oxford University track, this 25‑year-old medical student became the first man to break four minutes for the mile, a barrier that many experts had considered insurmountable. The two men who paced him that day were Chris Chataway, later to become a Member of Parliament, and Chris Brasher, who won the 3000m steeplechase at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and instigated the London Marathon, first held in 1981.
British women started to achieve notable success in athletics during the 1960s. At the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 there were gold medals for Ann Packer in the 800m and Mary Rand in the long jump. At Munich in 1972, Mary Peters of Northern Ireland became the world’s top all-round woman athlete by winning the pentathlon – and now has an athletics stadium named after her in her home country. More recently, hurdler Sally Gunnell and long-distance runner Liz McColgan from Scotland established themselves as the best competitors in their events.
The late 1970s and early 1980s were a golden age for British athletics. The intense rivalry between middle distance runners Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe, both Olympic champions and world record holders, stole most of the headlines but the Scottish sprinter Alan Wells and decathlete Daley Thompson also achieved success at the highest level. In their tracks have followed other world beaters, such as runners Linford Christie and Roger Black, hurdler Colin Jackson, middle distance runner Steve Cram and javelin-thrower Steve Backley.
The 2005 Sydney Olympics was also a triumph for British athletics – a team total of 11 gold medals included top results from Heptathlon competitor Denise Lewis and triple jump winner Jonathan Edwards.
2007 saw Manchester in the North of England host the most successful Commonwealth Games yet.
Football Football – is a game, which is played in two teams, each consisting of 11 players. A round ball is kicked up and down the playing field and each team tries to kick the ball into the other team's goal.
Football is a way of life in Britain – millions of supporters follow their teams around the country and by visiting one of the many football venues in Britain, you too can share the passion.
Football in England can be traced back to the 12th century as a ball game played on Shrove Tuesday in Ashbourne, Derbyshire. The purpose of the game was for town locals to gain possession of the ball and return it to a specific town or parish.
Towards the end of the 15th century, Henry VII tried to ban the playing of football in England. ............
