Sport in England

Sport in England plays a prominent role in English society. Popular teams sports in England include football, field hockey, cricket, rugby union, rugby league, and netball. Major individual sports include badminton, athletics, tennis, boxing, golf, cycling, motorsport, and horseracing. Cricket is regarded as the national summer sport. Association football is the most popular sport, followed by Cricket, Tennis and Rugby. A number of modern sports were codified in England during the nineteenth century, among them cricket, rugby union, rugby league, football, field hockey, squash, tennis, and badminton. The game of baseball was first described in 18th century England.[1][2]

England has its own national team in most team sports, but the United Kingdom sends a combined team to the Olympics. 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. In some sports there are still national English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish teams.

• The Club Competitions in most team sports are also English affairs rather than British ones. There are various anomalies however, such as the participation of five Welsh football clubs in the English league system and an English club in the Scottish Football League.

There are four sports in England which operate high-profile professional leagues. Association football is by far 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 appeal to the family market, and take advantage of the faster pitches.

Sport is compulsory for all students up to the age of sixteen, but the amount of time devoted to it is often small and pupils often find fictitious excuses to avoid doing it. The leading body for physical education in the United Kingdom is the Association for Physical Education. Sportsmark is Sport England's accreditation scheme for secondary schools. The scheme recognises a school's out of hours sports provision.