The British invented and codified the rules of many sports and games which are now played all over the world - football, rugby, hockey, cricket, golf, boxing, lawn tennis. Rowing, polo, horse and greyhound racing also have a long history in England. Major annual sporting events in Britain are also major events in the international sports calendar, e.g. Wimbledon - one of the four grand slam tennis tournaments. Britain has pioneered facilities for sports for disabled people.
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Golf
originated in Scotland, where for centuries it has borne the title of the Royal and
Ancient Game, but it did not become really well-known in the other countries of the United
Kingdom until towards the end of the nineteenth century. Since then, however, it has
steadily gained in popularity. Nowadays there are golf courses in many vicinities of most
towns and villages - in all parts of Great Britain - some owned by local authorities, but
the majority is owned by golf clubs.
The main event of the golfing year is the British Open Golf
Championship, which was first played in the year 1860. Other important matches include the
Walker Cup (for amateurs) and the Ryder Cup (for professionals), the Amateur Championship,
the World Amateur Team Championship and the Ladies Championship.
Golf is a game in which
clubs with wooden and iron heads are
used to hit a small rubber-cored
ball over a course of 9 to 18
holes with the
minimum of strokes. On a first-class golf course there are eighteen small holes.
They are
indicated by a flag and they are several hundred years away from the next. There are
either two or four players. There is no time limit. Between the eighteen smooth
greens
there are fairways. The rest is rough ground. A
caddie is a boy who
carries the players' clubs about. The
tee is the peg or mould of sand on
which the ball is placed for the drive - it is the hit or strike of the ball with force.
It is difficult to say when cricket was first played.
It may have been as early as the 13th century. Cricket is called the English
"national" game, demanding a perfect pitch, sunny weather, a lot of time to
spare and crowds of spectators. The game is played all over the country and cricket teams
play at least one match a week in the cricket season which lasts from late April to the
end of September.
The focus of the season centres on a series of "Test matches"
played between England and a touring team from overseas - Australia, New Zealand, India,
Pakistan or the West Indies. The first of those matches was played in Melbourne between
England and Australia in the year 1877. Since then international tours have taken place
regularly between countries of Test Status (now there are seven of them).
The matches last 30
playing hours spread over five to six days and arouse great popular interest.
Before the second world war the game was played by many top-class
amateurs. Recently the number of true amateurs who can afford to play full-time cricket
has greatly reduced and since the year 1963 the distinction between amateur and
professional in Test cricket has been abolished.
Cricket is played on a
grassy field. Two
wickets
stand 20 metres apart, each consisting of three
stumps of wood about 70 centimetres
high. Two pieces of wood are called
bails and they are laid across the tops of the
stumps of each wicket.
The game is played by two teams of 11 men each. The judges of the
matches are called umpires.
The team batting places a
batsman at each wicket. There are
two bowlers, one stationed at each bowling crease, which is a line 2.7 metres long.
From behind the bowling crease opposite to one of the batsmen the bowler delivers the
ball. His object is to make the ball knock the bails of the wicket behind the batsman. The
batsman tries to hit the ball or to stop it, with his bat. If he thinks that he has hit it
safely he runs to the other wicket, changing places with the batsman who was stationed
there. Each time when this exchange is made it counts as a
run.
A batsman is "out" when a bowled ball knocks the bails off
the wicket. When ten batsmen of one team have been put out the opposing team comes to bat.
The side making the largest number of runs in two innings wins, but the game is played so
slowly that often two innings are not finished in a whole afternoon.
The rules are rather complicated, aren't they?
Oxford and Cambridge are Britain's two oldest universities. In the nineteenth century, rowing was a popular sport at both of them. In 1829 the universities agreed to have a race. They raced on the river Thames and the Oxford boat won. That started a tradition. Now, every spring, the University Boat Race goes from Putney to Mortlake on the Thames. That is 6.7 kilometres. The Cambridge rowers wear light blue shirts and the Oxford rowers wear dark blue. There are eight men in each boat. There is also a "cox". The cox controls the boat. Traditionally coxes are men, but Susan Brown became the first woman cox in 1981. She was the cox for Oxford and they won.
Ascot is a small quiet town in the south of England. But in June for one week it becomes the centre of the horse-racing world. It's called Royal Ascot because the Queen always goes to Ascot. She has a Iot of racehorses and Iikes to watch racing. But Ascot week isn't just for horseracing. It's for fashion, too. One woman, Mrs Gertrude Shilling, always wears very big hats. You can see hats of every shapes and sizes here.
WIMBLEDON
The world's most famous tennis tournament is Wimbledon. It started at a
small club in south London in the nineteenth century. Now a lot of the nineteenth-century
traditions have changed. For example, the women players don’t have to wear Iong skirts.
And the men players don't have to wear long trousers.
But other traditions haven't changed at Wimbledon. The courts are still
grass, and visitors still eat strawberries and cream. The Ianguage of tennis hasn't
changed either. Did you know that "love" (zero) comes from "l'oeuf"
(the egg) in French?
THE LONDON TO BRIGHTON VINTAGE RALLY
"Vintage" cars have to be more than
fifty years old and in very good condition. Lots of people keep or collect vintage cars.
And on the first Sunday in November there is a race or "rally" for them. It
starts in London and it finishes in Brighton, a town on the south coast of England. That's
a distance of seventy kilometres. A lot of people in the rally wear "vintage"
clothes.
Before 1896 a man with a red flag had to walk in front of cars. In 1896
it changed. A group of happy drivers broke their flags and drove to Brighton. There they
had a party. Now the rally is a sporting tradition.
BOXING DAYS HUNTS
Traditionally Boxing Day is a day for
foxhunting. The huntsmen and huntswomen ride horses. They use dogs, too. The dogs (fox
hounds) follow the smell of the fox. Then the huntsmen and huntswomen follow the hounds.
Before a Boxing Day hunt, the huntsmen and huntswomen drink hot wine.
But the tradition of the December 26th hunt is changing. Now, some people want to stop
Boxing Day hunts (and other hunts, too). They don't like foxhunting. For them it is not a
sport - it is cruel.
This sporting tradition is Scottish. In the Highlands (the mountains of Scotland)
families, or "clans", started the games hundreds of years ago.Some of the sports at the games are international : the high jump and the long jump, for example. But other sports happen only at the Highland Games. One is tossing the caber. "Tossing" means throwing, and a "caber" is a long, heavy piece of wood. In tossing the caber you lift the caber (it can be five or six metres long). Then you throw it in front of you.
At the Highland games a lot of men wear kilts. These are national Scottish skirts for men. But they're not all the same. Each clan has a different "tartan". That's the name for the pattern on the kilt. So at the Highland games there are traditional sports and traditional clothes. And there is traditional music, too, from Scotland's national instrument - the bagpipes. The bagpipes are very loud. They say Scots soldiers played them before a battle. The noise frightened the soldiers on the other side.
