MOSCOW STATE TEACHER`S TRAINING UNIVERSITY
COURSE PAPER
SPORT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
Written by Varlamova Anna
group 301
Checked by Makhmuryan K.
MOSCOW 2001
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE MAIN PART
1. The social importance of sport
2. Football ( Football pools
3. Rugby
4. Cricket
5. Animals in Sport
6. Racing
7. Gambling
8. Wimbledon
9. Other Sports
. CONCLUSION
. Questions
. The list of literature
Why
have I chosen such theme? Sport is supposed to be interesting
only for men, not for women. But I think it is a mistaken opinion. Sport is
one of the most amusing things in the world, because of fillings,
experiences, excitements connected with it. Particularly it is so when we
speak about the UK.
Think of your favorite sport. Whatever it is, there is good chance
that it was first played in Britain, and an even better chance that its
modern rules were first codified in this country.
Sport probably plays a more important part in people’s life in Britain
than it does in most other countries. For a very large number it is their
main form of entertainment. Millions take part in some kind of sport at
least once a week. Many millions more are regular spectators and follow one
or more sports. There are hours of televised sport each week. Every
newspaper, national or local, quality or popular, devotes several pages
entirely to sport.
The British are only rarely the best in the world at particular sports
in modern times. However, they are one of the best in the world in a much
larger number of different sports than any other country (British
individualism at work again). My course paper looks at the most publicized
sports with the largest followings. But it should be noted that hundreds of
other sports are played in Britain , each with its own small but
enthusiastic following. Some of these may not be seen as a sport at all by
many people. For most people with large gardens, for example, croquet is
just an agreeable social pastime for a sunny afternoon. But to a few, it is
a deadly serious competition. The same is true of the game such as indoor
bowling, darts or snooker. Even board games, the kind you buy in a shop,
have their national championships. Think of any pastime, however trivial,
which involves some element of competition and, somewhere in Britain, there
is probably a ‘national association’ for it which organized contents.
The British are so fond of competition that they even introduced it
into gardening. Many people indulge in an informal rivalry with their
neighbors as to who can grow the better flowers or vegetables. But the
rivalry is sometimes formalized. Though the country, there are competitions
in which gardeners enter their cabbage, leeks, onions, carrots or whatever
in the hope that they will be judged ‘the best’. There is a similar
situation with animal. There hundreds of dog and cat shows throughout the
country at which owners hope that their pet will win a prize. There are a
lot of such specific kinds of sport in the United Kingdom but I want to
stop my thought on consideration of more widespread.
The
British are great lovers of competitive sports; and when they are neither
playing nor watching games they like to talk about them, or when they
cannot do that, to think about them. Modern sport in Britain is very
different. 'Winning isn't everything' and 'it's only a game' are still well-
known sayings which reflect the amateur approach of the past. But to modern
professionals, sport is clearly not just a game. These days, top players in
any sport talk about having a 'professional attitude' and doing their 'job'
well, even if, officially, their sport is still an amateur one. The middle-
class origins of much British sport means that it began as an amateur
pastime - a leisure-time activity which nobody was paid for taking part in.
Even in football, which has been played on a professional basis since 1885,
one of the first teams to win the FA (Football Association) Cup was a team
of amateur players (the Corinthians). In many other sports there has been
resistance to professionalism. People thought it would spoil the sporting
spirit. May be they are right.
The social importance of sport
The importance of participation in sport has legal recognition in
Britain. Every local authority has a duty to provide and maintain playing
fields and other facilities, which are usually very cheap to use and
sometimes even free. Spectator sport is also a matter of official public
concern. For example, there is a law which prevents the television rights
to the most famous annual sporting occasions, such as the Cup Final and the
Derby, being sold exclusively to satellite channels, which most people
cannot receive. In these cases it seems to be the event, rather than the
sport itself, which is important. Every year the Boat Race and the Grand
National are watched on television by millions of people who have no great
interest in rowing or horse-racing. Over time, some events have developed a
mystique which gives them a higher status than the standard at which they
are played deserves. In modern times, for example, the standard of rugby at
the annual Varsity Match has been rather low - and yet it is always shown
live on television.
Sometimes the traditions which accompany an event can seem as
important as the actual sporting contest. Wimbledon, for instance, is not
just a tennis tournament. It means summer fashions, strawberries and cream,
garden parties and long, warm English summer evenings. This reputation
created a problem for the event's organizers in 1993, when it was felt that
security for players had to be tightened. Because Wimbledon is essentially
a middle-class event, British tennis fans would never allow themselves to
be treated like football fans. Wimbledon with security fences, policemen on
horses and other measures to keep fans off the court? It just wouldn't be
Wimbledon!
The long history of such events has meant that many of them, and their
venues, have become world-famous. Therefore, it is not only the British who
tune in to watch. The Grand National, for example, attracts a television
audience of 300 million. This worldwide enthusiasm has little to do with
the standard of British sport. The cup finals of other countries often have
better quality and more entertaining football on view - but more Europeans
watch the English Cup Final than any other. The standard of British tennis
is poor, and Wimbledon is only one of the world's major tournaments. But if
you ask any top tennis player, you find that Wimbledon is the one they
really want to win. Every footballer in the world dreams of playing at
Wembley, every cricketer in the world of playing at Lord's. Wimbledon,
Wembley and Lord's are the 'spiritual homes' of their respective sports.
Sport is a British export!
There are a lot of sports in Britain today and of course, there is no
use in considering all of them. I try to make a short review of the most
famous in the world on the one hand and unusual sports on the other hand.
And the first one is the most popular game in the world:
Football
Football is the most popular team game in Britain. The British
invented it and it has spread to every corner of the world. There is no
British team. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland compete
separately in European and World Cup matches. The English and Welsh clubs
have together formed a League with four divisions. The Scottish League has
three divisions. The champions of the English First Division, and the
Scottish Premier Division qualify to play in the European Cup competition.
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!
Many team sports in Britain, but especially football, tend to be men-
only, 'tribal' affairs. In the USA, the whole family goes to watch the
baseball. Similarly, the whole family goes along to cheer the Irish
national football team. But in Britain, only a handful of children or women
go to football matches. Perhaps this is why active support for local teams
has had a tendency to become violent. During the 1970s and 1980s football
hooliganism was a major problem in England. In the 1990s, however, it
seemed to be on the decline. English fans visiting Europe are now no worse
in their behavior than the fans of many other countries.
For the great mass of the British public the eight months of the
football season are more important than the four months of cricket. There
are plenty of amateur association football (or 'soccer') clubs, and
professional football is big business. The annual Cup Final match, between
the two teams which have defeated their opponents in each round of a knock-
out contest, dominates the scene; the regular 'league' games, organised in
four divisions, provide the main entertainment through the season and the
basis for the vast system of betting on the football pools. Many of the
graffiti on public walls are aggressive statements of support for football
teams, and the hooliganism of some British supporters has become notorious
outside as well as inside Britain.
Football has been called the most popular game in the world, and it
certainly has a great many fans in Britain. And now I want to mention the
English terminology for football.
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.
Association football remains one of the most popular games played in
the British Isles. Every Saturday from late August until the beginning of
May, large crowds of people support their sides in football grounds up and
down the country, while an almost equally large number of people play the
game in clubs teams of every imaginable variety and level of skill. Over
the last 20 years though, the attendance at football matches has fallen
away sharply. This is because of changing lifestyles and football hooligans
about I have already written but I want to add that violence at and near
the football grounds increased, there was an ever-increasing tendency for
people to stay away, leaving the grounds to football fans.
After serious disturbances involving English supporters at the
European Cup Finals in Brussels in 1985 which led to the deaths of 38
spectators, English clubs were withdrawn from European competitions for the
1985-1986 season by the Football Association. The Cup Final at Wembley
remains, though, an event of national importance. Here is a drawing of a
football field, or "pitch", as it is usually called.
The football pitch should be between 100 and 130 metres long and between
50 and 100 metres 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 centre circle and
there is a goal at each end. Each goal is 8 metres wide and between 21/2
and 3 metres 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.
The final of the football competition takes place every May at the
famous Wembley stadium in London. Some of the best known clubs in England
are Manchester United, Liverpool and the Arsenal. In Scotland either
Rangers, Celtic or Aberdeen usually win the cup or the championship.
Today, many people are only interested in football because of the
pools and the chance of winning a lot of money.
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.
Rugby
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.
There are two forms of rugby - Rugby Union, which is strictly amateur,
and Rugby League, played largely in the north, which is a professional
sport. Rugby Union has fifteen players, while Rugby League has thirteen,
but the two games are basically the same. They are so similar that somebody
who is good at one of them can quickly learn to become good at the other.
The real difference between them is a matter of social history. Rugby union
is the older of the two. In the nineteenth century it was enthusiastically
taken up by most of Britain's public schools. Rugby league split off from
rugby union at the end of the century. There are two versions of this fast
and aggressive ball game: rugby union and rugby league. Although it has now
spread to many of the same places in the world where rugby union is played
(rugby union is played at top level in the British Isles, France,
Australia, South Africa and New Zealand; also to a high level in North
America, Argentina, Romania and some Pacific islands). Rugby can be
considered the 'national sport' of Wales, New Zealand, Fiji, Western Samoa
and Tonga, and of South African whites. Its traditional home is among the
working class of the north of England, where it was a way for miners and
factory workers to make a little bit of extra money from their sporting
talents. Unlike rugby union, it has always been a professional sport.
Because of these social origins, rugby league in Britain is seen as a
working class sport, while rugby union is mainly for the middle classes.
Except in south Wales. There, rugby union is a sport for all classes, and
more popular than football. In Wales, the phrase 'international day' means
only one thing — that the national rugby team are playing. Since 1970, some
of the best Welsh players have been persuaded to 'change codes'. They are
'bought' by one of the big rugby league clubs, where they can make a lot of
money. Whenever this happens it is seen as a national disaster among the
Welsh.
Rugby union has had some success in recent years in selling itself to
a wider audience. As a result, just as football has become less exclusively
working class in character, rugby union has become less exclusively middle
class. In 1995- it finally abandoned amateurism. In fact, the amateur
status of top rugby union players had already become meaningless. They
didn't get paid a salary or fee for playing, but they received large
'expenses' as well as various publicity contracts and paid speaking
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