Sports and society  in the UK

What kind of sports you would imagine as Sports in the UK? Some may say football (soccer), some may say rugby, or tennis. As you can see, lots of people outside of UK know about British sports. Sports are very important factors in the British society and rooted deeply in its culture.

First of all, simple fact:  The United Kingdom has given birth to a range of major international sports including: Football, rugby (union and league), cricket, golf, tennis, badminton, squash,  snooker,  and curling.  Lots of sports that we can watch on TV or play by ourselves came from the UK. Then as you can imagine, lots of sports scenes are firmly related to people’s daily life in Britain.

I would like to introduce you brief information about sports scenes in the UK.

Football: Even if you don’t like football, you might have heard a word “Premier league” or “Champion ship”. There are over 40,000 football teams in England and over 50 teams in Scotland. Historically football teams strongly related to region, politics, and culture of each city or towns. Some people are very passionate about their local team or favourite team. So historically football teams have been contributing to local society for long time. But recently some football teams are more involving in society in big scale. For example premier league teams started to contribute to NHS’s Primary Care Trust (PCT) to solve a problem which men (who usually bigger fan of football) more likely to neglect their health.

Rugby: Rugby union and league are both very popular sports in the UK. The name “Rugby” came from an area in UK and Rugby has long history as well. Each region has Governing body of rugby in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Rugby’s world cup will be held in New Zealand in September this year. In addition to that professional rugby, there are lots of amateur rugby teams in local areas in the UK. So if you like to play or watch rugby, you can check local team’s websites.

Tennis: This year’s Wimbledon championship has just finished. People from all over the world enjoy professional plays and exciting games at the court and on TV. Comparison to other countries, you may see its easy to find tennis court around you in the UK. Tennis is very familiar sports to lots of people. Some councils or cities in the UK open tennis court for free, so you can check your local council’s website to check availabilities.

Sports journalism: This is not exact a sport, but sports journalism or sports science are quite popular subject to study in the UK.  This is because UK has long history of sports and also society is affected by sports a lot.