Sport

Organised sport is a significant part of daily life across the UK, with a number of disciplines commanding especially broad followings. Many of the biggest professional fixtures are staged in large purpose-built national stadiums — Wembley Stadium in north-west London, and the Millennium Stadium in central Cardiff, are the two most frequently mentioned venues for exam purposes.

A wide range of participatory facilities — municipal gymnasiums, swimming pools, local tennis courts, football and rugby pitches, and in colder regions dry ski slopes — is provided through a mix of local councils and private operators. An observer of British sporting history quickly notices how many of the world's most widely played games actually began on these islands: football and rugby, cricket, lawn tennis and golf all trace their origins back to Britain.

Parade of Nations during the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony · Photograph by Richj1209, 2012. CC-BY-SA-3.0. Wikimedia Commons.

The UK has been the host nation for the Olympic Games on three occasions across the 20th and 21st centuries: first in 1908, again after the Second World War in 1948, and most recently in 2012. The central Olympic precinct for the 2012 Games was built on reclaimed industrial land in Stratford, in East London — the area was redeveloped into a new park with several permanent venues. The Games themselves were a success for Team GB: the British team finished third in the medal table across a wide span of Olympic disciplines, behind only the United States and China.

London also staged the 2012 Paralympic Games in the same set of venues over the weeks that followed. The Paralympic movement itself traces its origins to the clinical work of Dr Sir Ludwig Guttman, a German-born refugee who practised at the Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire during and after the Second World War. Guttman pioneered new treatments for patients with spinal injuries and actively encouraged them to pursue competitive exercise and sport as part of their recovery. The organised games he set up for his patients at Stoke Mandeville in the late 1940s are widely regarded as the direct antecedent of the modern Paralympic Games.

British athletes across many disciplines have accumulated an impressive haul of records, Olympic titles and world championship wins over the past century. The selective roll-call below — a mix of household names and question-material standards — spans athletics, motor racing, football, cricket, ice dancing, rowing, Paralympic competition, yachting, cycling, tennis and swimming. A striking number of the individuals listed below have been honoured by the state for their sporting achievement, with knighthoods (Sir), damehoods (Dame) or life peerages (Baroness) appearing against their names, and the chapter's question material occasionally turns on those titles.

A few patterns are worth tracking as you read through the list. First, the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London were a notable high-water mark for British sport — several of the athletes named here won their headline medals during that single home-soil Games. Second, Paralympic sport is represented at length, including distance wheelchair racing and competitive swimming. Third, motor racing, cycling and yachting — each a technology-intensive discipline — feature repeatedly, reflecting the UK's strength in engineering as well as in athletic performance.

Cricket is an English invention that has since spread across much of the Commonwealth and beyond. One of the game's distinctive features is its format: a single match can stretch to five days of play and still finish as a draw, a trait that has lent the game its reputation for patience, nuance and gentlemanly conduct. British English draws heavily on cricket for everyday idiom; among the phrases that have made the jump from the field of play into general use are 'rain stopped play', 'batting on a sticky wicket', 'playing a straight bat', 'bowled a googly' and the dismissive 'it's just not cricket'. The most closely followed international fixture in the sport is the Ashes, a series of Test matches contested between the English and Australian national sides.

Wembley Stadium exterior — home of England football matches and FA Cup finals · Photograph by Alfie Basford. Unsplash Licence. unsplash.com

Football is the single most popular sport in the UK, with a deep institutional history stretching back into the late 19th century, which is when the first professional clubs were established. The four nations of the UK — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — each run their own separate league systems. Of these, the English Premier League commands the largest international television audience and attracts many of the most decorated players in the world.

A number of UK clubs also play in the UEFA Champions League alongside the top sides from other European countries. At international level, each of the four UK nations fields a separate national team for tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Football Championships. England's sole victory at a senior international tournament came at the 1966 World Cup, which was itself held in the UK.

Beyond the professional game, football is also a major amateur sport played every week in parks and on community pitches the length of the country.

Rugby is an English invention of the early 19th century and remains a major sport in the UK today. Two codes with distinct rules have developed alongside one another: rugby union and rugby league. Each code has its own club leagues and national teams, and in both codes the four UK nations field separately — though Northern Ireland plays together with the Republic of Ireland. The headline rugby union tournament is the Six Nations Championship, which brings together England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France and Italy. The equivalent flagship club competition in rugby league is the Super League.

Horse racing has a very long history in Britain — evidence of races being run on these islands reaches back to the Roman period. The sport has also long been bound up with the monarchy, and racecourses exist across the four nations. Among the most famous fixtures are Royal Ascot, a five-day summer meeting in Berkshire attended each year by members of the Royal Family; the Grand National, held at Aintree near Liverpool; and the Scottish Grand National, which is run at Ayr. The National Horseracing Museum is based in Newmarket in Suffolk.

The modern game of golf has its origins in 15th-century Scotland and remains widely played today, both socially and at a professional level. Public and private golf courses are found across the UK, and the Scottish town of St Andrews is traditionally recognised as the home of the sport. Of the four 'Major' golf tournaments in the professional calendar, only one — The Open Championship — is held outside the United States, and it rotates between a different British golf course each year.

Modern tennis was codified in England during the late 19th century. The first organised tennis club in the country was founded in Leamington Spa in 1872. Britain's pre-eminent tournament is The Wimbledon Championships, held every summer at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in south-west London. Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament of its kind anywhere in the world, and it is the only one of the four 'Grand Slam' events still played on natural grass courts.

Sailing remains a widely followed sport in the UK — a reflection of the country's long maritime history and its extensive coastline. Two milestones from the 1960s are particularly notable and often turn up in exam question material. In 1966/67 the British sailor Sir Francis Chichester became the first person to sail solo around the world; he made one stopover for repairs along the route. Two years later Sir Robin Knox-Johnston pushed the achievement a step further by becoming the first person to accomplish the same feat without stopping anywhere along the way. Sailing events take place on British waters throughout the summer season, the most widely followed being the annual regatta held at Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

Rowing is similarly popular in the UK, practised both as a recreational activity and as a competitive sport at school, club and university level. One of the longest-running fixtures in the entire British sporting calendar is the annual Boat Race, which pits crews from Oxford and Cambridge Universities against one another on a stretch of the River Thames in west London — a fixture that dates from 1829 and now draws substantial crowds along the banks each spring.

The UK has a long history in both car and motorcycle racing. Organised motor-car racing on British soil dates from 1902. The country remains a world leader in the design and manufacture of motor-sport technology: a large share of Formula 1 team bases and specialist suppliers are located in Britain, and the UK hosts one of the Formula 1 Grand Prix events every year. Successive generations of British drivers have claimed the Formula 1 World Championship; recent title-holders include Damon Hill, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

Skiing is also a growing leisure pursuit in the UK, though many participants travel abroad to the Alps or similar ranges. Dry ski slopes operate throughout the UK; Scotland alone has five full-function ski centres, and the longest dry ski slope anywhere in Europe is located near Edinburgh.

All key facts from this chapter at a glance — read this to revise the full chapter quickly.