SPORT IN BRITAIN

Sport in the United Kingdom plays an important role in British culture, and many people make an emotional investment in their favourite spectator sports. The most popular professionally funded sport is association football, except in Northern Ireland, where Gaelic games are the most popular sports, and Wales, where rugby union is generally perceived from outside as being the national sport, although there are more registered football clubs than rugby clubs.  

Cricket is popular in England and Wales, but is less popular in the other home nations.  

Rugby union and rugby league are the other major team sports, with union generally more popular in the south of England and league traditionally associated with the north. 

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.

 

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.

  

Rounders

Badmington

Curling