CONTENTS

|Introduction |2 |
|Main part |3 |
|The British. The main features of the British character. |3 |
|History of british sport |5 |
|Sports invented in Great Britain |6 |
|Framework of sport in Britain. |10 |
|Modern Sport in Great Britain: Structure, Administration, Funding, Popularity, Sport media and Diseases. |13 |
|Elite level sport |15 |
|6.1. Elite level team sports |15 |
|6.2. Elite level individual sports |22 |
|6.3. Elite level equestrian sports |25 |
|Great Britain at the Olympics |26 |
|Disability sport |26 |
|Major sports facilities |27 |
| Student sport |28 |
| School sport |29 |
|The well-known sporting events |29 |
|Practice |30 |
|Exercises fo Primary School. |30 |
|Exercises for Secondary School. |36 |
|Conclusion |37 |
|The list of refrences |38 |

I. INTRODUCTION

Sport is a truly global phenomenon. As a social activity, whether it is in terms of participation as a recreational pastime, competitive playing at amateur levels, the elite and mainly professional level or in terms of spectating, sport assumes immense cultural significance. Sport is an integral part of popular culture and our consumption of it is increasingly mediated through television, radio, newspaers and a myriad of 'new technologies'. In Britain, more sport is shown on television than ever before. Satelite television, in the guise of Rupert Murdoch's BskyB with numerous dedicated sports channels and, to a lesser extent, the other terrestrial and cable channels, has had an immence impact upon the financial contours of contemporary elite sport. Sport is a major element on both national and local radio. Sport has also become a major part of the circulation battle between national newspapers, and the number of lavish magazines on sport and recreation have multiplied. Sport books are often in the best sellers list and a number have clear literary merit. The academic study of sport has mushroomed in the last 30 years with many university centres focusing on the scientific, philosophical, sociological, historical and legal study of sport; and there is a huge associated volume of work. The Englishmen love sports, they are called sports-lovers in spite of the fact that some of them neither play games nor even watch them. They only like to speak about sports.

In this course paper I try to consider the characteristics of sport in Great Britain and to analyse the reflection of British character and lifestyle in their passion for sport. I suppose that this theme is topical because it helps to understand The UK and the British better. Sport is really the total phenomenon for the British. Furthermore it is not without reason that Summer Olympic Games 2012 will be held in London. In the beginning I would like to consider the causes of British passion for sport. It will make us study the history of British sport, their original contribution to the world sport. Then modern sport in the UK will be considered. We'll also make a study of social interaction concerning sport and difference between the preferences of social classes in sport.

II. THE MAIN PART.

1. The British. The main features of the British character. Rules of the Game It is no accident that almost all of the most popular sports and games played around the world today originated in England. Football, baseball, rugby and tennis were all invented here, and even when they did not actually invent a sport or game, the English were usually the first to lay down a proper, official set of rules for it (hockey, horseracing, polo, swimming, rowing, boxing and even skiing). And that's not counting all the rather less athletic games and pastimes such as darts, pool, billiards, cards, cribbage and skittles. And let's not forget hunting, shooting and fishing. They didn't create or codify all of these, of course, but sports and games are widely recognized as an essential part of their culture, their heritage and their legacy - one cannot talk about Englishness without talking about sports and games. In recent surveys, over half of all the leisure activities mentioned by respondents were of this private type, and of the top ten pastimes, only two could be described as 'sociable'. The English obsession with privacy dominates their thinking and governs their behavior. The English have different approaches to leisure, relating to their main methods of dealing with their social disease, their incompetence in the field of social interaction. As it said in Great Britain 'If you do not have a dog, you will need to find another kind of passport to social contact. Which brings us neatly to the one of these types of English approach to leisure: the public/social pursuits and pastimes - sports, games, pubs; clubs and so on. All of these relate directly to the main method of dealing with their social disease: the 'ingenious use of props and facilitators' method. The 'Props and Facilitators' Method The English do not find it easy to initiate friendly conversation with strangers, or to develop closer relationships with fellow pubgoers. They need help. They need props. They need excuses to make contact. They need toys and sports and games that get them involved with each other. This Method also works in English society as a whole. If they need games and sports, where the usual restraints are relaxed somewhat, and it is acceptable to strike up a conversation with a stranger, they clearly have an even greater need for such props and facilitators outside this sociable environment. The Self-delusion Rule But sports and games do not only provide the props they need to initiate and sustain social contact, they also prescribe the nature of that contact. This is not 'random' sociability, but sociability hedged about with a lot of rules and regulations, ritual and etiquette, both official and unofficial. The English are capable of engaging socially with each other, but they need clear and precise guidelines on what to do, what to say and exactly when and how to do and say it. Games ritualize their social interactions, giving them a reassuring structure and sense of order. By focusing on the detail of the game's rules and rituals, they can pretend that the game itself is really the point, and the social contact a mere incidental side-effect. In fact, it is the other way round: games are a means to an end, the end being the kind of sociable interaction and social bonding that other cultures seem to achieve without all this fuss, subterfuge and self-delusion. The English are human; but they have to trick themselves into social interaction and bonding by disguising it as something else, such as a game of football, cricket, tennis, rugby, darts, pool, dominoes, cards, scrabble, charades, wellie-throwing or toe-wrestling. [Fox K., 2004, p. 209 - 210] Every one of these games has its rules — not just the official rules of the game itself, which the English like to be as complex as possible, but an equally complex set of unofficial, unwritten rules governing the comportment and social interactions of the players and spectators. Sex Differences and the 'Three-emotions Rule' There are some sex differences in the codes of conduct governing many sports and games. As a rule of thumb, males are supposed to adopt a strong, stiff-upper-lipped, manly approach to the game, both as players and as spectators. It is not done to jump about and exclaim over one's own or another player's luck or skill. In darts, for example, swearing at one's mistakes, and making sarcastic comments on those of one's opponents is allowed, but clapping one's hands in glee upon scoring a double-twenty, and excessive laughter on failing to hit the board at all, are regarded as 'girly' and inappropriate. The usual 'three-emotions rule' applies. English males are allowed to express three emotions: surprise, providing it is conveyed by shouting or swearing; anger, also communicated in expletives; and elation/triumph, displayed in the same manner. For the untrained eye and ear, it can be difficult to distinguish between the three permitted emotions, but English males have no trouble grasping the nuances. Female players and spectators are allowed a much wider range of acceptable emotions, and a much more extensive vocabulary with which to express them. This often seems to happen - that one sex is required to be 'more English' than the other, in a certain context. Here, males are subject to more restrictions than females, but in other contexts - such as, say, the giving and receiving of compliments - the unwritten rules place more complex constraints on female behavior. It may all balance out, but there is the suspicion that the rules of Englishness are probably a bit harder on males than on females. Play rules and englishness The rules of play have provided further confirmation of all the main 'quintessences of Englishness' identified so far - all the usual suspects: humour, hypocrisy, class-anxiety, fair play, modesty and so on. Empiricism now also seems to be emerging as a strong candidate for inclusion in the English cultural genome. But most of the rules have been about one particular defining characteristic of Englishness - their 'social disease', their inhibited insularity, their chronic social awkwardness, bordering on a sort of sub-clinical combination of autism and agoraphobia. Almost all of their leisure activities are, one way or another, a response to this unfortunate condition. And almost all of their responses are forms of denial and self-delusion. In fact, their phenomenal capacity for collective self-deception is beginning to look like a defining characteristic in its own right. The collective self-deception involved in the English use of sports, games and clubs as social facilitators is particularly interesting - the fact that they have to trick themselves into social interaction and bonding by pretending that they are doing something else. Their belief in the magical disinhibiting powers of alcohol is part of the same delusional syndrome. They have a desperate need for social contact and emotional bonding, but they cannot simply acknowledge this need, and get on with the pursuit of human warmth and intimacy in a natural, straight-forward fashion. They have to create elaborate structures and myths and rituals to disguise their craving for social contact as a burning desire to throw balls at each other, or to perfect their flower-arranging or motor-cycle-maintenance skills, or to save the whales, or the world, or something - and then go to the pub, where they can pretend that they are only there for the beer, and attribute any embarrassing evidence of normal human emotion to its miraculous properties. [Fox K., 2004, p. 241 - 266] 2. History of british sport A young French nobleman the Baron de Coubertin, who was to found the modern Olympic Games, had come to conclusion in 1886 concerning on the meaning of the sport in Great Britain in those times. Sport, he felt, was the source of British imperial dynamism; moreover, it created a solidarity amongst the middle and upper classes, which assured political stability in an era of economic and social upheaval. 'The role played by sport', observed de Coubertin, 'is what appears most worthy of notice in English education.' Whether such claims were true is probably less important than the fact that they were widely believed to be so. To foreigners, cricket in particular was a uniquely English and imperial thing quite beyond ordinary understanding. No doubt the robustly ethnocentric British sportsman would have been inclined to agree: let the French have their cycle races, the Germans their gymnastics, and leave the Americans to get on with their puerile game of baseball — an offencively commercialized form of an English girls' game. Such was the British view of other sports on the rare occasion they gave any thought to what passed for sport beyond the confines of the British Isles and the British Empire. Anglo-Saxon sports were an integral part of the image that the British presented to the world, and which outsiders came to associate with Britain. [Holt R., 1995, p. 1-3] The Puritan power, the Civil War, and the Restoration of the monarchy played a key role in the British history and in the history of the British sports. Concerning on cricket, the Long Parliament in 1642 banned theatres, which had met with Puritan disapproval. Although similar action would be taken against certain sports, it is not clear if cricket was in any way prohibited, except that players must not break the Sabbath. In 1660, the Restoration of the monarchy in England was immediately followed by the reopening of the theatres and so any sanctions that had been imposed by the Puritans on cricket would also have been lifted. Political, social and economic conditions in the aftermath of the Restoration encouraged excessive gambling, so much so that a Gambling Act was necessary in 1664. It is certain that cricket, horse racing and boxing (e.g. prize-fighting) were financed by gambling interests. It was the habit of cricket patrons, all of whom were gamblers, to form strong teams through the 18th century to represent their interests. A strong team was defined as one representative of more than one parish and it is certain that such teams were first assembled in or immediately after 1660. Prior to the English Civil War and the Commonwealth, all available evidence concludes that cricket had evolved to the level of village cricket only where teams that are strictly representative of individual parishes compete. The "strong teams" of the post-Restoration mark the evolution of cricket (and, indeed of professional team sport, for cricket is the oldest professional team sport) from the parish standard to the county standard. This was the point of origin for major, or first-class, cricket. 1660 also marks the origin of professional team sport. A number of the English Public Schools, such as Winchester and Eton, introduced sports for their pupils, particularly variants of football. These were described at the time as "innocent and lawful," certainly in comparison with the rural games. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the movement of the populace from the country to the cities, the rural games moved to the new urban centres and came under the influence of the middle and upper classes. The rules and regulations devised at English public schools began to be applied to the wider game, with governing bodies in England being set up for a number of sports by the end of the 19th century. The rising influence of the upper class also produced an emphasis of the amateur, and the spirit of 'fair play'. The industrial revolution also brought with it increasing mobility, and created the opportunity for English public schools, and universities in Britain and elsewhere, to compete with each other. This sparked increasing attempts to unify and reconcile various public school games in England, leading to the establishment of the Football Association in London, the first official governing body in football. [http://en.wikipedia.org] During the Victorian era sport became increasingly codified and the formal rules of the major British sports were initiated. National governing bodies that exist today in their original or modified form were priginated. Team sports became an important part of social life, both in terms of playing and spectating. The first concerns about spectator hooliganism, particularly in football, were raised. Concern also continued about the propensity of gambling and betting on sport. In the late 18th century, Britain began to change into the urban industrial society that would eventually produce modern-organised sport. Before this time, sport bore the badges of 'Merrie Englande': landed society had its field sports, horse racing and cricket; the common people had rural folk games; and both classes patronised prize fights for their attractive combination of gore and gambling. [Gardiner S., 2005, p.3] 3. Sport Invented in Great Britain Football 1863 The origin of football (referred to as soccer by some) can be found in every corner of geography and history. The Chinese , Japanese, Italian, Ancient Greek, Persian, Viking, and many more all played a ball game that resembled football. The Chinese "football" games date as far back as 3000 years ago. The Ancient Greeks and the Roman used football games to prepare warriors for battle. In south and Central America a game called "Tlatchi" once flourished. In Britain too, there are records of Football being played for hundreds of years. But it was in England that the modern game of football really begin to take shape. In 1863 the the first Football Association (F.A.) was founded in England. In the Freemasons' Tavern in Great Queen Street, London on 26 October 1863 rules for the modern game were laid down over a series of meetings. Central to these meetings was Ebenezer Cobb Morley (1831-1924) he wrote to Bell's Life newspaper proposing a governing body for the sport that led to the first meeting. He wanted a common set of rules so that clubs from all over the nation could compete with each other. Little did he know this would become the biggest sport in the world! Cricket 1787 The origins of cricket are very vague, and many theories have been put forward suggesting its origins, but it is, without doubt, very English. The first evidence of cricket being played was recorded in the year 1550, by the pupils of Royal Grammar School, Guildford. The first recorded cricket match took place at Coxheath in Kent, England in 1646. This match also produced the first record of betting on cricket. The world's first cricket club was formed in Hambledon in the 1760s and the world-famous Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) was founded in 1787. The beginnings of modern cricket is said to be to be 1787, when the Marylebone Cricket Club also known MCC was created. The MCC has since then gone on to become one of the most prominent bodies in world cricket The first official International match was held between Canada and United States in the year 1844. Rugby 1871 At the meeting for the Football Association several clubs were unhappy over the removal of two draft rules, firstly the rule which allowed for the running with the ball in hand ( Handball Ref! ) and secondly, obstructing such a run by hacking (kicking an opponent in the shins), tripping and holding (in otherwords fouling). Other clubs followed this lead and did not join the FA but instead in 1871 formed the Rugby Football Union. Golf 1502 Golf was first played officially throughout Scotland from 1502, when the ban was lifted. Most of the early references to golf in Scottish official records are either to ban it or to condemn those playing it. The first documented mention is in Edinburgh on 6th March 1457, when King James II banned ‘ye golf’, in an attempt to encourage archery practice, which was being neglected. Golf in its early days in Scotland may well have had two distinct forms. One was a ‘short’ game similar to ‘kolf’ played in the Netherlands. From this developed ‘links golf’, played with a variety of clubs to holes, marked by flags, the fore runner of the game today. Basketball & Volleyball Because of the popularity of the YMCA there was a need to develop activities and games that would amuse the young men but were not aggressive and physical like football and rugby. So the YMCA can claim two other inventions, Basketball / Netball and Volleyball. YMCA The Young Men's Christian Association was founded in London, England, on June 6, 1844, in response to unhealthy social conditions arising in the big cities at the end of the Industrial Revolution (roughly 1750 to 1850). Growth of the railroads and centralization of commerce and industry brought many rural young men who needed jobs into cities like London. They worked 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week. Hockey 1860 Hockey-like games involving sticks and balls have been played for thousands of years. Historical records show that a crude form of hockey was played in Egypt 4,000 years ago, and in Ethiopia around 1,000 BC. Hockey in England in the 17th and 18th century consisted of whole villages playing the game with the objective of hitting the ball into the opposing villages' common ground. Teams often consisted of 60 to 100 players and games occasionally lasted several days or so with injuries such as broken arms and legs not uncommon. The game that we know today emerged at Eton College in England in the 1860s when the first rules were written down. Further rules were written in 1875 when the first Hockey Association was formed. The game was played on a field nearly 200 metres in length and all players chased the ball for the whole of the game. London's Wimbledon Hockey Club (organized 1883) standardized the game after the many centuries of informal play in England and it thereafter spread to other countries, particularly in Europe and the British empire. At this time British soldiers were taking the game around the world and in Canada, where frozen fields were more common than grass, it made its way onto ice and so Ice Hockey evolved. In 1886 the Teddington Cricket Club effectively lead a movement which resulted in the British Hockey Association being formed which included amongst its rules a striking circle for hitting goals. Changes in rules and play quickly developed from this beginning and by 1889 the pyramid system - five forwards, three halves, two backs and a goalkeeper became the accepted method of playing hockey. The United States also started playing field hockey in 1890, with the Field Hockey Association of America, which regulates men's play, being formed in 1930. Hockey, or "Field Hockey" as it is also known, is now played in every continent with many nations competing in the three major competitions - The Olympic Games, The World Cup and The Champion's Trophy. Rounders 1889 Rounders is predominantly an English game. The game has been played from the Tudor Times. In the year 1889, the Liverpool & Scottish Rounders Association was formed and this was the first organization for Rounders. It is typically a bat & ball team game. Rounders is still played in Ireland and England. Baseball and Town-ball, are both bat and ball games, played by teams, that have originated from Rounders. Badminton 1887 Badminton came from a child's game called battledore and shuttlecock, in which two players hit a feathered shuttlecock back and forth with tiny rackets. The game was called "POONA" in India during the 18th Century, and British Army Officers stationed there brought the game back to England in the 1860's. The army men introduced the game to friends, but the new sport was definitely launched there at a party given in 1873 by the Duke of Beaufort at his country place, "Badminton" in Gloucestershire. During that time, the game had no name, but it was referred to as "The Game of Badminton," and, thereupon, Badminton became its official name. In 1887 the modern rules were laid down. The Bath Badminton Club was setup and standardized the rules, that still guide the sport today. In 1895, the Badminton Association (of England) was formed to take over the authority of the Bath Badminton Club, and the new group made rules, which now govern the game throughout the world. Lawn Tennis 1859 The game was invented in 1859 by Major Thomas Harry Gem, a solicitor, and his friend Batista Pereira, a Spanish merchant, who both lived in Birmingham. They played it first on a lawn in the Edgbaston area, calling it ‘pelota’, after a Spanish ball game. In 1872 both men moved to Leamington, and with two doctors from the Warneford Hospital, played pelota on the lawn behind the Manor House Hotel. The hotel bears a plaque erected during the centenary celebrations held on 11 June 1972, which reads: ‘In 1872 Major Harry Gem with his friend Mr. B. Pereira, joined with Dr. Frederick Haynes and Dr. A. Wellesley Tomkins to found the first lawn tennis club in the world and played the game on nearby lawns’. In 1874 they formed the Leamington Tennis Club, setting out the original rules of the game which form the basis of the modern ones. The Courier of 23 July 1884 recorded one of the first tennis tournaments, held in the grounds of Shrubland Hall.(demolished 1948) One of the first real or royal tennis courts was built in Bedford Street to the North of the town in 1846 and survives to this day as a private club. Table Tennis 1880 The earliest known form of the sport, called indoor tennis, was played in the early 1880s by British army officers in India and South Africa, using lids from cigar boxes as paddles and rounded corks from wine bottles as balls, with a row of books set up across the middle of a table to form the net. Other versions developed in England during the 1890s, known variously as "whiff whaff" and "gossima," and Parker Brothers began manufacturing an indoor tennis kit that included a portable net that could be set up on a table, a small ball covered with netting, and miniature paddles. James Gibb, an Englishman who visited the United States in 1900, brought some hollow celluloid balls home and began playing indoor tennis with friends, using the new balls. Gibb apparently came up with the name "ping pong," representing the sounds of the ball hitting the paddle and then the table. However, an English manufacturer of sporting goods, John Jacques, registered "Ping Pong" as a trade name in 1901 and sold American rights to Parker Brothers, who came out with a new kit under that name. Another Englishman, E. C. Goode, in 1902 covered his wooden ping pong paddle with pebbled rubber, which allowed him to put spin on the ball. A Ping Pong Association was founded in England that year. Snooker 1875 The game of snooker was invented by a Brit, Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain of the British Army garrisons of India. The game is believed to have came about as a mix of other billiard games, mainly English billiards, this new billiard sport of snooker surfaced around 1875. The term snooker was used as a derogatory term for the first year recruits of the Royal Military Academy of Woolwich in England. For many years the game was known as 'Snookers Pool' and was played with a smaller number of balls and to very different scoring rules than the game we know today. It wasn't until the Early 1900's that the game evolved to the game it is now. Played by the army officers and aristocracy stationed in India the game grew in complexity and in its parts. The game of snooker has pretty much stayed the same since Bungee Jumping 1979 Chris Baker of Bristol, England used an elastic rope to emulate and improve on a kind of urban vine jumping. The first modern bungee jump was made on 1 April 1979 from the 250ft Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, and was made by four members of the Dangerous Sports Club. The jumpers, led by David Kirke, were arrested shortly after, but continued with jumps in the US from the Golden Gate and Royal Gorge bridges. Bobsleigh 1890 Bobsleigh, was surprisingly invented by the English. A group of holidaymakers in Switzerland in 1890, wanted to create a sled that could carry people down the snow-covered road between St Moritz and Celerina. The new sport immediately caught on and a special track, complete with banked curves, made of ice, was constructed next to the road in 1902. The sport started as a leisure activity for the rich young daredevils of Europe who gathered for fun on the alpine slopes. It was added to the Winter Olympics as a four-man event at the Winter Olympics in Chamonix 1924 and two-man later at Lake Placid in 1932. Curling 1541 The game of curling was invented in late medieval Scotland, as evidenced by a curling stone inscribed with the date 1511, uncovered along with another bearing the date 1551, when an old pond was drained at Dunblane, Scotland. The first written reference to a contest using stones on ice coming from the records of Paisley Abbey, Renfrew, in February 1541. One of the national games of Scotland, it has spread to many countries. Darts Darts began in Medieval England and is probably a spin off of archery. Played started on ships where room was restricted, by shortening arrows and throwing them at the bottom of an empty wine barrel. Henry VIII enjoyed the game immensely. So much so, that he was given a beautifully ornate set by Anne Boleyn. The game remained popular throughout the British Empire but it wasn't until somewhere around 1900 that the rules and darts began to look like the game we play today. [Tranter N., 1998, p. 21-36] 4. Framework of sport in Britain. • Sports development in the UK. Sports development in the UK is usually conceptualised as a continuum comprised of four stages of development: foundation, participation, performance and excellence. Foundation refers to the early development of movement literacy and physical skills upon which all later participation is based. Participation has traditionally applied to recreative activities undertaken primarily for fun, friendship and fitness. Performance signifies a move from recreative to competitive sport where people more seriously seek to improve their performance. Excellence is about reaching the highest standards in top-level sport. This model of sports development, conceptualised and promoted by the Sports Council in the late 80s and 90s has been used as a framework for planning sport by both public and voluntary sectors (Hoolihan and White, forthcoming). The Council of Europe also accepted it as a means of promoting a common European framework for sports development (Council of Europe 1992). • The sport system in the UK. The sport system in the UK is complex. Although the UK has a unitary rather than a federal system of government it incorporates four home nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Within each of these nations and at UK level there is a mix of governmental, quasi-governmental, voluntary and commercial organisations that are concerned with sport policy, development and provision. At UK central government level the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has main responsibility for sport policy although Education and Environment departments also have an interest. The main sport development agencies at the national level are the five 'quasi-governmental' Sport Councils (UK, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). They are funded directly by the DCMS or their Government Office and also have responsibility for the distribution of Lottery funds to sport. At local government level local authorities make a substantial contribution to the provision of facilities and sports opportunities for their communities. Turning to the voluntary sector, the National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of sport are responsible for the administration of their respective sports. The main non-governmental organisations at national level are the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and the British Olympic Association. Relating the sports system to different stages of the sports development continuum, it is clear that different agencies are important at different stages. At the foundation stage, schools are the key agency in providing a sound physical education for all young people coupled with opportunities to participate in extra-curricular sport. Participation opportunities are provided by voluntary and commercially based clubs and local authorities. [Hartmann-Tews I., Pfister G., 2003, p.35-36] Today the Central Council of Physical Recreation and the Sports Councils are the two main organisations enforcing sports policy in Britain. The CCPR was created in 1935. This was initiated as a non-governmental voluntary organisation, an 'umbrella body' of sporting organisations funded from private sources. The CCPR , as the representative body of many British sports governing bodies, identifies its modern role as being: speaks and acts to promote, protect and develop the interests of sport and physical recreation at all levels; at the forefront of sports poliitics, providing support and services to those who participate in and administer sport and recreation; completely independent of any form of government control; having no responsibility for allocating funds; strictly non-party and will support or oppose proposed measures only on the basis of their perceived value to sport and recreation. As the voice of British sport and recreation, all of CCPR's work is aimed at promoting and protecting the interests of sport and recreation and supporting the organisations involved in their provision and administration. It provides a central focus for all national bodies and authorities who administer and run sport and recreation. It is an effective lobbying organisation, representing the view of our members to all authorities whose decisions impact sport and recreation. It also offers opinions and advices to policy making organisations whose decisions impact sport and recreation. It provides a collective platform developing policies which benefit sport and recreation. It provides members with advice and information on issues relating to the running of their sport and their 'business'. It ensures that members are kept informed of changes in Government policy and UK and EU law. • Tne Sports Councils. The concept of the 'Sport Council' has gone through a number of changes since its inception in 1966. In contrast to the CCPR, they are publicly funded official advisory bodies to the government. It consists of UK Sports Council (now 'UK Sport'), English Sports Council (now 'Sport England'), and three additional Councils (Sports Council of Northern Ireland, Sport Council of Wales, Sports Scotland). They are all national, non-departmental public bodies (sometimes known as quangos), which receive funding from, and are accountable to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. There is a Secretary of State for this Department and a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, known as the Minister for Sport. The House of Commons scrutinises the work of the United Kingdom Sports Council and the English Sport Council via the relevant Select Committee and Public Accounts Committee. UK Sport. The UK Sport Council has a small staff and acts as a co-ordinating body for the four home country Sports Councils (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales). It deals with areas of common interest at UK level. These agencies are also responsible for distributing money raised for sport by the National Lottery. These include: Building on the world-class athlete support established over the last four years, it is critical that we now focus on creating a system that continues to deliver world class success. The 2012 Olympic bid places Uk Sport's international work in the spotlight. UK Sport will promote the highest standarts of sporting conduct and explore its wider social applications. It will continue to lead a world-class anti-doping programme for the UK and be responsible for improving the education and promotion of ethically fair and drug-free sport. The critically important modernisation of National Governing Bodies (NGBs) will be integrated into mainstream funding programmes. Sport England. As with the other Sports Councils from the home countries, in recent years the emphasis has increasingly been on the grass roots development of sport. Its role is: to be the strategic lead for sport in England; to make focused investments through partners; to provide advice, support and knowledge to partners and customers; to influence the decision-makers and public opinion on sport. The work of Sport England includes the promotion of women in sport, sport for people with disabilities and sustainable sport in the countryside. UK Sport is now the main focus for elite sport and the promotion of excellence. [Gardiner S., 2005, p. 96-99] 5. Modern Sport in Great Britain: Structure, Administration, Funding, Popularity, Sport media and Diseases. Structure. England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have separate teams in most team sports, including separate teams at the Commonwealth Games, though a combined team represents the United Kingdom at the Olympics which is formally "Great Britain and Northern Ireland" but commonly referred to as "Great Britain". In rugby union, Ireland also competes as a single nation. Competition between the home nations was traditionally at the centre of British sporting life, but it has become less important in recent decades. In particular, football's British Home Championship no longer takes place. The club competitions in most team sports are also organised on a national basis rather than on a United Kingdom wide basis. There are various anomalies however, such as the participation of the three largest Welsh football clubs in the English league system; an English club in the Scottish Football League; a Northern Ireland club in the Republic's league, the FAI League of Ireland; a club in the Welsh Premier League playing their home matches in England; and the Magners League in rugby union, which includes clubs from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland (note that rugby union in Ireland is organised on an all-Ireland basis). Administration. Political responsibility for sport in England is with the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport which is headed by a cabinet minister though the Minister for Sport and Tourism is not in the cabinet. Political responsibility for Sport in Scotland lies with the Scottish Government Minister for Communities and Sport, currently Stewart Maxwell. Funding. 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. The Premiership football clubs had an estimated combined turnover of £1.25 billion for the 2003-04 season according to Deloitte, and British professional football's total income is 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 will be 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. In 2005, UK Sport announced funding plans for the next few years which are more focused than ever before on rewarding sports which have delivered Olympic success, and as a corollary penalising those which haven't. 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. Horseracing 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. [http://www.sportengland.org]

Popularity A recent MORI poll found:

|Sport |TV Viewing |Participating |
|Football |46% |10% |
|Rugby Union |21% |NA |
|Tennis |18% |3% |
|Athletics |18% |2% |
|Snooker |17% |5% |
|Cricket |17% |2% |
|Motor racing |16% |NA |
|Rugby League |2% |NA |
|Boxing |11% |NA |
|Golf |11% |6% |
|Darts |9% |3% |
|Swimming |NA |9% |
|Gym |NA |12% |
|Badminton |NA |3% |
|Squash |NA |3% |
|Watersport |NA |2% |
|Skiing |NA |1% |

Source: http://www.ipsos-mori.com/sport/sports-tracker-05.pdf - Sports Tracker 1996-2005

Sports media
The British media is dominated by national outlets, with local media playing a much smaller role. Traditionally the BBC 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. 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. [Andreff W., Szymanski S., 2006, p. 458]
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. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport] Diseases. Sport and the Crime. The view that sport can be the magical cure for juvenile crime is naive. Participation in sporting can of course be a positive chanelling of energies and can help teach positive life values; however, it is unlikely to have a significant impact upon the underlying social reasons for criminality. The causes of crime are highly complex and contested. Sport has a role to play in helping fight crime, but one must be realistic about its limitations. Football hooliganism.Football hooliganism has often been termed the 'English disease', one which is often portrayed as a modern phenomenon which developed in the 1970s. In reality it is likely that the crowds within the era of organized football from the end of the nineteenth century have always been the locus for disorder. It has been suggested that over 4000 incidents of what one might term 'football hooliganism' (rather than individual fights) occured in the 20 years before the first World War. Not only has hooliganism been recognized as a national 'problem' within the English game; fans travelling to see the England side have been involved in numerous incidents. Complex issues of nationalism and national identity are being played out in football fandom, of course within the more general contemporary political and social momentum towards a more formalised integrationist Europe and additionally the continuing decline of the British Empire. English football has become, in terms of ethnicity, cosmopolitan. Over the last three decades, the participation of players of Afro-Caribbean descent has dramatically increased. Many of these players have been second or third generation children of immigrants from the Caribbean who came to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, in English professional football, players of Afro-Caribbean descent are over-represented in relation to the general population. However, representation by players from other ethnic minorities, for example, those of Asian descent, is significally lower than in the general population. Black players have had to fight to achieve prominence despite the dominant values within football culture. The stereotyped but long held wisdom that 'coloured players', as they were called for many years, did not have suitable temperament, 'lacked heart' and 'would not be able to stand the cold' is still present in modified forms. Sections of spectators, at some clubs more than others, react actively, through stereotyping racial comments and abuse, monkey chants, and the throwing of bananas on to the ground. [Frosdick S., Marsh P. E., 2005, p. 23-28] 6. Elite level sport 6.1. Elite level team sports Four sports in the United Kingdom operate high profile professional leagues. Football 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 are also professional leagues in basketball and ice hockey, but while these have small but loyal fanbases, they struggle to attract attention from the general media. Many other sports have amateur leagues. 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 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 organised on a separate basis in each country of the United Kingdom. The governing bodies for football are The Football Association (of England), the Scottish Football Association, the Football Association of Wales and the Irish Football Association. These bodies run the national teams, the recreational game and the main cup competitions. They have however lost a significant amount of power to the professional leagues in recent times. The first ever international football match was between Scotland and England in 1872. The only major national team competition won by a Home Nation is the 1966 World Cup, which England hosted and won. Club football is also organised separately in each country. English football has a league system which incorporates thousands of clubs, and is topped by four fully professional divisions. The elite Premier League has 20 teams and is the richest football (soccer) league in the world. The other three fully professional divisions are the run by The Football League and include another 72 clubs. Annual promotion and relegation operates between these four divisions and also between the lowest of them and lower level or "non-League" football. There are a small number of fully professional clubs outside the top four divisions, and many more semi-professional clubs. Thus England has over a hundred fully professional clubs in total, which is considerably more than any other country in Europe. [O'Driscoll J., 2008, p. 195] The two main cup competitions in England are the FA Cup, which is open to every men's football team in England, though only professional clubs ever reach the last few rounds, and the League Cup (currently known as the Carling Cup), which is for the ninety-two professional clubs in the four main professional divisions only. Scotland has a similar but smaller club football structure. The main league is the single-division, twelve-club Scottish Premier League (SPL), which is dominated by the two Old Firm Glasgow clubs Rangers F.C. and Celtic F.C. who dwarf their rivals in support and financial resources. Below the SPL is the Scottish Football League, which has three divisions with a total of thirty clubs, not all of which are fully professional. The two main cup competitions are Scottish Cup and the Scottish League Cup. The top level league in Wales is the Welsh Premier League. This league has 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. The main Welsh Cup competitions are the Welsh Cup and the FAW Premier Cup. In Northern Ireland the main league is the Irish Football League, which despite its name is open only to teams from Northern Ireland, as opposed to the Republic of Ireland. It has three divisions. 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 Cup. England and Scotland have both produced winners of each of these competitions.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/] Now the English terminology for football is worthy of special mention. Association football (or soccer) is the game that is played in nearly all countries. A team is composed of a goalkeeper, two backs, three half-backs and five forwards. Football field is usually called "pitch". The football pitch should be between 100 and 130 meters long and between 50 and 100 meters wide. It is divided into two halves by the halfway line. The sides of the field are called the touch-lines and the ends are called the goal-lines. In the middle of the field there is a center circle and there is a goal at each end. Each goal is 8 meters wide and between 21/2 and 3 meters high. In front of each goal is the goal area and the penalty area. There is a penalty spot inside the penalty area and a penalty arc outside it. A game of football usually lasts for one and a half hours. At half-time, the teams change ends. The referee controls the game. The aim of each team is obviously to score as many goals as possible. If both teams score the same number of goals, or if neither team scores any goals at all, the result is a draw. British football has traditionally drawn its main following from the working class. In general, the intelligentsia ignored it. But in the last two decades of the twentieth century, it has started to attract wider interest. The appearance of fanzines is an indication of this. Fanzines are magazines written in an informal but often highly intelligent and witty style, published by the fans of some of the clubs. One or two books of literary merit have been written which focus not only on players, teams and tactics but also on the wider social aspects of the game. Light-hearted football programmes have appeared on television which similarly give attention to 'off-the-field' matters. There has also been much academic interest. At the 1990 World Cup there was a joke among English fans that it was impossible to find a hotel room because they had all been taken by sociologists! [Holt R., 1990, p.73-77]

1 Football pools

"Doing the pools" is a popular form of betting on football results each week. It is possible to win more than half a million pounds for a few pence. The English have never been against a gamble though most of them know where to draw the line and wisely refrain from betting too often. Since the war the most popular form of gambling is no doubt that of staking a small sum on the football pools. (The word "pool" is connected with the picture of streams of money pouring into a common fund, or "pool" from which the winners are paid after the firm has taken its expenses and profit.) Those who do so receive every week from one of the pools firms a printed form; on this are listed the week's matches. Against each match, or against a number of them, the optimist puts down a I, a 2 or an x to show that he thinks the result of the match will be a home win (stake on fun’s team), an away win (stake on a team of opponent) or a draw. The form is then posted to the pools firm, with a postal order or cheque for the sum staked (or, as the firms say, "invested"). At the end of the week the results of the matches are announced on television and published in the newspapers and the "investor" can take out his copy of his coupon and check his forecast.

Cricket

The early reference to the separate national identities in the UK is perhaps best illustrated by the game of cricket. Cricket was invented in England. The national sport of England is cricket. There is no UK team, although the England team also represents Wales. England is one of the test-playing nations, whilst Scotland and Ireland are associate members of the ICC and compete at One Day International level. Each summer two foreign national teams visit England to play seven test matches and numerous one-day internationals. In the British winter the England team tours abroad. The highest profile rival of the England cricket 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.

|Pic.2. |
|‘Spectator attendance at major sports’ |

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. 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, and the fortunes of the England team are closely followed by many people who never attend a live game. Cricket is, therefore, the national English game in a symbolic sense. However, to some people cricket is more than just a symbol. The comparatively low attendance at top class matches does not give a true picture of the level of interest in the country. One game of cricket takes a terribly long time, which a lot of people simply don't have to spare. Eleven players in each team. Test matches between national teams can last up to five days of six hours each. Top club teams play matches lasting between two and four days. There are also one-day matches lasting about seven hours. In fact there are millions of people in the country who don't just enjoy cricket but are passionate about it. These people spend up to thirty days each summer tuned to the live radio commentary of ‘Test’ (= international) Matches. When they get the chance, they watch a bit of the live television coverage. Some people even do both at the same time (they turn the sound down on the television and listen to the radio). To these people, the commentators become well-loved figures. When, in 1994, one famous commentator died, the Prime Minister lamented that 'summers will never: be the same again'. And if cricket fans are too busy to listen to the radio commentary, they can always phone a special number to be given the latest score! Many other games which are English in origin have been adopted with enthusiasm all over the world, but cricket has been seriously and extensively adopted only in the former British empire, particularly in Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the West Indies and South Africa. English people love cricket. Summer isn't summer without it. Even if you do not understand the rules, it is attractive to watch the players, dressed in white playing on the beautiful green cricket fields. Every Sunday morning from May to the end of September many Englishmen get up very early, and take a lot of sandwiches with them. It is necessary because the games are very long. Games between two village teams last for only one afternoon. Games between counties last for three days, with 6 hours play on each day. When England plays with one or other cricketing countries such as Australia and New Zealand it is called a test match and lasts for five days. Cricket is played in schools, colleges and universities and in most towns and villages by teams which play weekly games. Test matches with other cricketing countries are held annually. Cricket is also played by women and girls. The governing body is Women's Cricket Association, founded in 1926. Women's cricket clubs have regular weekend games. Test matches and other international matches take place. The women's World Cup is held every four years. But There is The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and Lord's cricket ground in the United Kingdom. The MCC was founded in 1787, and is still the most important authority on cricket in the world. As a club it is exclusively male. No woman is allowed to enter the club buildings. There are special stands for members and their wives and quests. Organised amateur cricket is played between club teams, mainly on Saturday afternoons. Nearly every village, except in the far north, has its cricket club, and there must be few places in which the popular image of England, as sentimentalists like to think of it, is so clearly seen as on a village cricket field. A first-class match between English counties lasts for up to three days, with six hours play on each day. The game is slow, and a spectator, sitting in the afternoon sun after a lunch of sandwiches and beer, may be excused for having a little sleep for half an hour.[O'Driscoll J., 2008, p. 193-195] When people refer to cricket as the English national game, they are not thinking so much of its level of popularity or of the standard of English players but more of the very English associations that it carries with it. Cricket is much more than just a sport; it symbolizes a way of life - a slow and peaceful rural way of life. Cricket is associated with long sunny summer afternoons, the smell of new-mown grass and the sound of leather (the ball) connecting with willow (the wood from which cricket bats are made). Cricket is special because it combines competition with the British dream of rural life. Cricket is what the village green is for! As if to emphasize the rural connection, ‘first class’ cricket teams in England, unlike teams in other sports, do not bear the names of towns but of counties (Essex and Yorkshire, for example). Rugby Football There is another game called rugby football, so called because it originated at Rugby, a well-known English public school. In this game the players may carry the ball. Rugby football (or 'rugger') is played with an egg-shaped ball, which may be carried and thrown (but not forward). The ball is passed from hand to hand rather than from foot to foot. If a player is carrying the ball he may be 'tackled' and made to fall down. Each team has fifteen players, who spend a lot of time lying in the mud or on top of each other and become very dirty, but do not need to wear such heavily protective clothing as players of American football. [Walshe I., Khimunina T., Konon N.,2005, p.131] Like association football, rugby union and rugby league both developed from traditional British football games in the 19th century. Rugby union was codified in 1871. Rugby league was established in 1895 by a number of clubs which wished to be allowed to pay their players, and subsequently developed somewhat different rules. For much of the 20th century there was considerable antagonism between rugby league, which was a mainly working class game based in the industrial regions of northern England, and rugby union, which is a predominantly middle class game in England, and is also popular in the other home nations. This antagonism has abated since 1995 when the International Rugby Board opened rugby union to professional players. Rugby union The four home nations compete separately at international level, with Northern Ireland fielding a combined Ireland team with the Republic of Ireland. All four teams are among the top ten in global rugby union. They take part in the main European international rugby union competition, the Six Nations Championship, which also includes Italy and France, and regularly play the other leading rugby union nations—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 South Africa in 2007. Rugby union is generally regarded as the national sport of Wales. The main rugby union club competition in England is a 12-team league called the Guinness Premiership, and there is also a cup competition, the EDF Energy Cup, which since 2005 has included teams from Wales. Attendances at club rugby in England have risen strongly since the sport went professional. By contrast, the professional era has had a traumatic effect on the traditional structure of club rugby in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, as the clubs lacked the financial resources to compete with their English and French rivals. The three countries now share a single top flight rugby structure made up of regional teams: four from Wales, four from Ireland and two from Scotland. These teams play in the Magners League and the Celtic Cup. British club and provincial rugby sides also take part in the two European wide club rugby competitions, the Heineken Cup and the European Challenge Cup.

Rugby league football The governing body of rugby league in the United Kingdom in 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 the 12-team Super League. As of the 2008 season, 10 of the teams are based in the heartlands, one team is in London and one team is in France. In 2009, Super League will expand to 14 teams, with the 12 teams from 2008 joined by an additional heartland team and one team from Wales. Below this level are the National Leagues, consisting of three divisions, each with ten teams. There is promotion and relegation between Super League and the National Leagues. The main knock-out competitions 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. 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 has held the title since 1975. [Holt R., 1990, p.48] The Great Britain team competes with Australia and New Zealand in the more recently founded Tri-Nations competition. Great Britain also competes as a single team in test series such as the Ashes (against Australia) and the Baskerville Shield (against New Zealand). Other team sports Gaelic Athletic Association sports such as Gaelic football and hurling are widely played in Northern Ireland, although they are minority games in Britain. Football in particular is very popular in all xix counties. The GAA sports are administered in Northern Ireland by Ulster GAA, which is also in charge of the rest of Ulster. Northern Irish teams have been successful in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship in recent years, with Armagh GAA winning the title in 2002 and Tyrone GAA victorious in 2003 and 2005. Antrim GAA have been the most successful hurling side. The GAA in Great Britain is administered by Britain GAA. The most successful team is London GAA, which also competes in the All-Ireland championships. Basketball is a minor sport in the United Kingdom. As of the 2006-07 season the top level league is the ten team British Basketball League and second league is the twelve team English Basketball League. The teams are professional or semi-professional but have modest resources. British international basketball teams have not achieved any major successes. Currently, British players in the North American NBA are Ben Gordon (who was raised in the United States) and Luol Deng (a Sudanese 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. Ice hockey is also a minor sport in the United Kingdom. The main league is the ten team professional Elite League which features many former NHL players. Hockey 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 Australians. 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, helped by the presence of a large Australian community in London. 6.2. Elite level individual sports 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 Year 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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki] Golf Modern competitive golf 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 Rankings 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 two Englishmen, Justin Rose and Luke Donald, have been in the Top Ten in the recent past). 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. 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 five 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. Tennis Tennis is yet another sport which originated in the United Kingdom, but it has not flourished there in recent decades, and its profile is highly dependent on the Wimbledon Championships. 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 sting 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. Outside of Wimbledon fortnight tennis's profile in Britain is low and is now largely dependent on Murray, as both Rusedski and Henman retired in 2007. "Great Britain" or "British Isles" teams have 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 every bit as dim as those of Britain's men. Neither team are currently in their respective World Groups for Davis and Fed Cup competition. Motorsport Britain is the centre of Formula One, 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 (who was also world champion in motorcycling), Jackie Stewart (three times), James Hunt, Nigel Mansell, and Graham Hill's son, Damon Hill. The British Grand Prix takes place at Silverstone each July, although from 2010 onwards will take place at Donington Park. Major motor racing series based in the UK include the British Formula Three Championship and the British Touring Car 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 Wales Rally Great Britain. 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 2007 a third Superbike World Championship round was added at Donington Park, in 2008 Silverstone was dropped, Brands Hatch and Donington Park continue to be part of the championship. Boxing The United Kingdom played a key role in the evolution of modern boxing, 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 the Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABA) and the equivalent bodies in the other home nations. 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. Swimming The swimming organizations of the home countries have recently formed an umbrella organisation called British Swimming. 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.) Other individual sports Other sports with loyal followings include snooker, which is popular with television companies as it fills swathes of 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. All but three World Champions, Horace Lindrum (officially, but not considered a World Champion in modern times), Ken Doherty and Cliff Thorburn have been born in the United Kingdom. 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. Cycling is a minority sport with which Britain has had limited success in road racing in such races as the Tour de France. But there is a strong race scene in Britain with several professional teams. Britain has produced some notable road racers in the past such as Tom Simpson, Robert Millar, Malcolm Elliot, Chris Boardman and more recently David Millar and Mark Cavendish. Britain has also had success in women's cycling with the late Beryl Burton who won many world titles in her career and more recently Nicole Cooke who is regarded by many as being the best female cyclist in the world. But Britain's main success in cycle racing is in the velodrome where Britain has one of the best track cycling teams in the world which has produced successful riders like Bradley Wiggins, Chris Hoy, Jamie Staff, Jason Queally, Victoria Pendleton, and Graeme Obree. 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[by whom?] the best British orienteer of all time. 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. 6.3. Elite level equestrian sports Horseracing Horseracing 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 two in Northern Ireland, 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 horse racing on an All-Ireland basis. 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. 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 classification 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. 7. Great Britain at the Olympics The United Kingdom usually competes in the Olympics as "Great Britain and Northern Ireland or simply Great Britain during Olympic competition. The British Olympic Association does not play as central a role in British sport as some other National Olympic Committees play in their nation's sporting life. 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. This was seen as a great success, and there was a victory parade through the streets of London. It was largely overlooked that the team had come fourth out of the five largest West European nations. 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 and curling. The current Scottish National Party (SNP) government in Scotland favours the idea of Scotland competing in the Olympics as a separate team, and not as part of a Great Britain team. [http://www.uksport.gov.uk] 8. Disability sport The United Kingdom has played a major role in the development of disability sport. The Paralympic Games 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 two games in 2000 and 2004. The BBC is an enthusiastic promoter of disability sport. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport] 9. 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 are not used at club level: 1) Wembley Stadium (England football team) 90,000. Wembley has also been used by the Great Britain rugby league team, and for major club matches in that sport. 2) Twickenham (England rugby union team) 82,000. 3) Millennium Stadium (Wales football and rugby union teams) 75,000. 4) Murrayfield (Scotland rugby union team and Edinburgh Rugby, a professional club team in the same sport) 67,000. 5) Hampden Park (Scotland football team and Queen's Park F.C., an amateur club football team) 52,000. 6) Northern Ireland's national stadium Windsor Park, which is actually owned by Linfield F.C. and leased by the Irish Football Association, is much smaller with a 20,000 capacity. 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's Old Trafford, which has a capacity of over 76,000. Cricket grounds English cricket grounds are smaller than the largest in some other countries, especially India 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". Club rugby grounds Rugby union 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 (eg. the KC Stadium). 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 links 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. 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 Stadium 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, but will be reduced to 25,000 seats after the Games. Race courses There are 62 racecourses in the UK. The best of them are world class. For example Ascot Racecourse is being redeveloped in 2005 and 2006 at a cost of £185 million. 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 O2 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. [http://www.sportengland.org] 10. Student sport [pic] 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. 11. 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, 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. 12. The well-known sporting events The Boat Race: (between Oxford and Cambridge universities), on the River Thames in London at Easter. The course is over seven kilometres. Oxford have won 64 times, Cambridge 69 times. The Wimbledon Tennis Tournament: in July, at Wimbledon, south London, regarded by many tennis players as the most important championship to win. There is great public interest in the tournament. Many tennis fans queue all night outside the grounds in order to get tickets for the finals. The Open Golf Championship: golf was invented by the Scots, and its headquarters is at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, St. Andrews, Scotland. Henley (Rowing) Regatta: at Henley on the Thames (between London and Oxford). An international summer event. It is a fashionable occasion. Cowes Week: a yachting regatta. Cowes is a small town on the Isle of Wight, opposite Southampton, and a world-famous yachting centre. [Walshe I., Khimunina T., Konon N., 2005, p. 133-140]

III. PRACTICE

1. Exercises for Primary School:

Exercise 1.
Sports Crossword

Across
1. Exercises before a game.
3. Track Field.
4. Three strikes and you are .
5. Olympic water event.
9. Opposite of nephew.
11. Umpire's make this.
12. Playground equipment.
13. Let's play .
14. The best hit you can make in baseball.
16. Opposite of hot.
17. You wear this on your foot.
19. Home .
22. Give the ball to someone else.
23. The crowd does this.
25. The game was out.
27. A sport the involves dribbling.
30. Relay .
31. A sport played on a field.
33. Athletes need this to be good at their sport.
34. Give it a (a try).
36. Tees, clubs and greens are part of this sport.
38. A director of athletics.
40. Rule keeper of the game.
42. Working together.
44. Hockey is a .
45. All sports have these.
49. Baseball has nine of these.
51. Twirl.
52. Be a .

Down
1. Opposite of losers.
2. Game played with a black & white ball.
3. Meet you the ballpark.
5. Bounce the ball in Basketball.
6. ball.
7. Where you play golf.
8. Track and .
10.You paddle this.
14. In basketball you shoot these.
15. Final decision maker in a game.
18. Bats and .
20. Game played on a court with racquets.
21. Game played with a 'birdie'.
23. American sp. of colour.
24. I'm happy!
26. You need to do this to your muscles before you play.
28. Highest card.
29. Move the ball with your feet.
32. Points for each side.
35. Take , share.
37. Your shoes cover them.
39. , skip and jump.
41. me to you.
43. Belonging to us.
46. Swimmers swim these.
47. a song.
48. To look for and get back.
50. A small space between the teeth.

Answers. Sports Crossword:

Across
1.Warmups
3.And
4.Out
5.Diving
9.Niece
11.Call
12.Slide
13.Ball
14.Homerun
16.Cold
17.Shoe
19.Plate
22.Pass
23.Cheers
25.Sold
27.Basketball
30.Race
31.Lacrosse
33.Skill
34.Shot
36.Golf
38.Coach
40.Referee
42.Cooperation
44.Sport
45.Rules
49.Innings
51.Spin
52.Good sport
Down
1.Winners
2.Soccer
3.At
5.Dribble
6.Volley
7.Golfcourse
8.Field
10.Canoe
14.Hoops
15.Umpire
18.Baseballs
20.Tennis
21.Badminton
23.Color
24.So
26.Stretch
28.Ace
29.Kick
32.Score
35.Turns
37.Feet
39.Hop
41.From
43.Our
46.Laps
47.Sing
48.Find
50.Gap
Exercise 2.

Secret Codes.

Directions:
Each letter has a symbol, to decipher the answer to secret code just print the letter on the line given, that goes with the symbol. Good Luck.

Answer. Secret Codes: Playing sports is an excellent way to have fun and stay fit.

Exercise 3.

Logic Puzzle.

Four boys have been dropped off in front of a sporting events center. Each boy plays a different sport and each boy has a different colour gym bag. From the clues provided can you determine which sport each boy plays and what colour gym bad each has?
1. Rod is not the owner of the red gym bag and was not going to play his sport on a court.
2. The boy with the black bag carried a racquet over his shoulder.
3. The tennis player who owned the red bag was not Sean.
4. While dribbling his ball, Andrew watched his friend take a cricket glove out of his green bag.
5. Collin was dressed in white shorts and a white top.

Answer. Logic Puzzle: Andrew plays football and owns the blue bag. Collin plays tennis and owns the red bag. Rod plays cricket and owns the green bag. Sean plays badminton and owns the black bag.

Exercise 4.

Word Puzzle.

I have hidden the names of 25 sports in this puzzle. Using each letter of the alphabet only once, can you find out which sports they are? Once you have used a letter, cross it out.

Answer. Sports Alphabet Puzzle: croquet, horserace, badminton, swimming, jogging, boxing, polevault, rugby, basketball, tennis, hunting, golf, hurdles, football, archery, hockey, skiing, bowling, pool, volleyball, racing, fencing, gymnast, judo, skating

Exercise 5.

Special Message.

What makes any athlete a winner? To find out, solve Special Message.
Solve the clues, write the answer in the boxes provided and when you read down the first column of each group of answers, you will reveal Special Message.

1. Sport played on a course. 2. Opposite of under. 3. Forward of English football team named Michael. 4. Opposite of up. 5. Do this in the pool. 6. Handoff the ball. 7. Opposite of closed. 8. This is the kind of competition. Horse-, boat-, cycle-, ski- . 9. Group of the sportsmen. National, football, volleyball, cricket . 10. It is synonymous with pitch, throw, punch in sport games. 11. It shows the sportsmen takeoff position in races and other competitions. 12. Kind of vehicle took part in motor racing. 13. Accurate execution of a stunt — execution. 14. Lose ones footing 15. Gentle elevation of the ground 16. To be a sportsman means to maintain discipline, to have nerves so to be a man of (1 word). 17. Place intended for swimming, water sports and water-based recreation.
Answer. Special Messages: Golf, Over, Owen, Down, Swim, Pass, Open, Race, Team, Shot, Mark, Auto, Neat, Slip, Hill, Iron, Pool.
Special message: Good Sportsmanship.

Exercise 6.

Football Word Search.

|G |N |I |K |C |I |K |S |A |C |P |E |R |I |S |
|C |I |A |L |L |H |E |D |F |O |O |C |T |B |A |
|T |N |E |V |E |C |I |P |M |Y |L |O |L |R |R |
|L |E |I |A |N |M |O |S |S |T |P |R |A |E |R |
|T |T |D |D |S |O |S |G |F |T |D |N |F |D |H |
|E |Y |W |D |R |A |C |W |O |L |L |E |Y |C |O |
|R |M |L |F |P |I |D |A |E |A |R |R |N |A |D |
|I |I |S |O |S |T |B |I |H |E |L |K |F |R |P |
|O |N |D |O |U |G |F |B |E |H |T |I |T |D |U |
|O |U |A |T |B |E |T |H |L |E |F |C |E |M |C |
|O |T |P |B |S |T |P |O |P |E |U |K |L |A |D |
|P |E |N |A |L |T |Y |K |I |C |K |R |S |P |L |
|O |S |I |L |R |T |I |N |G |N |I |N |N |U |R |
|T |H |H |L |L |A |B |D |N |A |H |E |W |H |O |
|O |L |S |T |A |E |L |C |E |W |O |R |L |D |W |

WORDS ABOUT FOOTBALL

|CLEATS |NINETY MINUTES |
|CORNER KICK |OLYMPIC EVENT |
|DRIBBLE |PASS |
|FIELD |PENALTY KICK |
|FIFA |RED CARD |
|FOOTBALL |REFEREE |
|GOALIE |RUNNING |
|HAND BALL |SHIN PADS |
|HEAD |WORLD CUP |
|KICKING |YELLOW CARD |

2. Exercises for Secondary School:

Exercise 1.

QUESTIONS CONCERNING THIS COURSE PAPER

1. Name four the most popular sports which were invented in England. 2. How do sports and games help the British with their social disease? 3. What was the meaning of the sport in Great Britain in 19th century according to the conclusion of the Baron de Coubertin stated in 1886? 4. Which were the consequences of upper classes' influence on British sport during the Industrial revolution by the end of 19th century? 5. 'Turn about is fair play'. What does it mean on your opinion? (везет и не везет всем по очереди) 6. Name four stages of sports development in the United Kingdom. 7. Which types of UK sport organisations do you know? 8. Name the main governmental organisation concerned with sport policy in Great Britain. 9. How do Rugby Union and Rugby League differ from each other? 10. What is the annual sporting event which takes place in the south London in July?

IV. CONCLUSION

The goals set in this course paper, were to consider British character through their unique attitude to sport. Sport is an important part of society. It's close to politics. It contributes to people's health. Sport has many affinities with art. There are also a lot of spectator sport games, which are organised as amazing shows or performances. But there is a true verdict of one German visitor to Britain in the 1920s that gives us the real sense of what the British are with the sport they like so much. He said: 'All peoples have their play, but none of the great modern nations has built it up in quite the same way into a rule of life and a national code. It is this natural evolution of the play-spirit, which has given the English character its most interesting features and from the political, cultural and broadly human point of view, its most important aspect.' Sport was responsible for that 'peculiarly cheerful and naive philosophy, so elusive and incomprehensible to the foreign observer' that set the British apart. The British have always been a nation of sport lovers and interest in all types of sport is as great today as it has ever been. Many sports which nowadays are played all over the world grew up to their present-day form in Britain - football, rugby, tennis, boxing, rowing and horse racing among them. Of course, the Romans had boxing matches between gladiators in their circuses, horse racing was popular with the Greeks and Arabs long before the British got hold of the idea: and people have been playing football in one form or another for thousands of years, all over the world. But the contribution of the British was to take these games or sports and formalize them in various ways. In this course paper all sports the British invented and developed have been considered and the reasons for some the most important features of the British character and lifestyle have been given. The historical explanations concern the existence of the Public Schools. Games developed in England during the second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries — mainly in the schools and mainly by the boys themselves. Public Schools were really training leaders. In the games the boys had their first chance to practise leading, selecting teams, giving orders, encouraging and rallying a losing side, and so on. The effect of this attitude to games has been that team-games such as football and cricket were much more highly regarded than athletics and tennis, simply because one played for a team and not as an individual. One more reason connected with Public Schools is the testosteron problem. British great boys' boarding schools had to 'find ways of exercising the hormonally challenged'. This is what is called a 'cross-cultural universal', a valid reason for any human society to develop sports and games, and indeed one of the reasons every human society has them. We all have testosterone-fuelled adolescent and post-adolescent males to deal with, and we all deal with them by trying to channel their potentially destructive aggression and other disruptive tendencies into relatively harmless sports and games. The universal testosterone problem cannot in itself explain why the English in particular should have developed so many of these pastimes. Yet another feature of great interest in sport in Britain is the Englishman's fondness for a little 'flutter' (a slang expression for a bet or gamble). Gambling has always been an integral part of such sports as horse-racing and dog-racing and, in recent times, doing the 'football pools' has become a national pastime. The real reason for the English love of games is perhaps best explained by the English obsession with privacy that dominates their thinking and governs their behavior. The easiest way for the English to cope with their social disease is to avoid social interaction altogether. The British provide the props they need to initiate and sustain social contact, they also prescribe the nature of that contact. This is not 'random' sociability, but sociability hedged about with a lot of rules and regulations, ritual and etiquette, both official and unofficial. The English are capable of engaging socially with each other, but they need clear and precise guidelines on what to do, what to say and exactly when and how to do and say it. Games ritualize their social interactions, giving them a reassuring structure and sense of order. By focusing on the detail of the game's rules and rituals, they can pretend that the game itself is really the point, and the social contact a mere incidental side-effect. In fact, it is the other way round: games are a means to an end, the end being the kind of sociable interaction and social bonding that other cultures seem to achieve without all this fuss, subterfuge and self-delusion. The English are human, but they have to trick themselves into social interaction and bonding by disguising it as something else, such as a game of football, cricket, tennis, rugby, darts, pool, dominoes, cards, scrabble, charades, wellie-throwing or toe-wrestling. In this course paper I have tried to treat the subject thoroughly. I have used varied sources of authoritative information, books, magazine and research articles, encyclopedias, Internet media and of course my personal ideas.

V. LIST OF REFERENCES

1. Andreff W., Szymanski S., Handbook on the Economics of Sport. Edward Elgar, 2006, - 830. 2. Farrel M., British Life and Institutions. Titul-Chancerel, 2000,-144 р. 3. Fox K., Watching the English. Hodder,2004,- 424 p. 4. Frosdick S., Marsh P. E., Football Hooliganism. Willan Publishing, 2005, - 215p. 5. Gardiner S., Sports Law. 3/e, Taylor&Francis, 2005, - 786 p. 6. Hartmann-Tews I., Pfister G., Sport and Women: Social Issues in International Perspective. Routledge, 2003, - 288 p. 7. Hewitt K., Understanding Britain, perspective publications. Ltd., Oxford., M.: “''ысшая школа”., 1994. - 248 p. 8. Hill J., Sport, Leisure and Culture in Twentieth Century Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002,- 186 p. 9. Holt R., Sport and the British: A Modern History. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995- 426 p.
10. Holt R., Sport and the Working Class in Modern Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990,- 132p.
11. Lowerson J.,Sport and the English Middle Classes. Manchester: Manchester University Press1870-1914, 1993 – 128 p.
12. McDowall D., Britain in Close-Up. Longman,2003, - 208 р.
13. Munro Mackenzie M.D.and Westwood L.J., Background to Britain. Macmillan publishers LTD, 1991, - 196 p.
14. Musman R., Vallance D.A., Britain Today. Longman, 1997.- 156 p.
15. O'Driscoll J., Britain. OUP, 2008,- 224 p.
16. Room A., Dictionary of Great Britain. M., Русский язык, 2003, - 560 p.
17. Tranter N., Sport, Economy and Society in Britain, 1750-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998,- 124 p.
18. Walshe I., Khimunina T., Konon N., Great Britain: Customs and Traditions. Anthology Publishers, St.-Petersburg, 2005, - 224 p.
19. Pietersen K., Captain sensible, Sport magazine, #96, October, 2008,- p. 20-22
20. http://ukingermany.fco.gov.uk/en/about-uk/sport/
21. http://en.wikipedia.org/
22. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/
23. http://www.ipsos-mori.com/sport/sports-tracker-05.pdf - MORI Sports Tracker 1996-2005.
24. http://www.sportengland.org
25. http://www.uksport.gov.uk

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