Sport in GB
1)The British are known to be great sport-lovers, so when they are
neither playing, nor watching games, they like to talk about them. 2)
Many of the games we play now have come from Britain.
3) one of the most British games is cricket. 4) nobody knows exactly
how old the game is, but some form of cricket was being played in England
in the 13th century. 5) summer isn’t summer without cricket and, moreover,
to many Englishmen cricket is both a game and a standard of behaviour.
6) when they consider anything unfair, they sometimes say: “That isn’t
cricket.” 7) Cricket is a very long game, and slow too.8) Most cricket
matches last one day, but important matches can last six days. 9)Cricket
is not played only by men, and girls and women play this game too. 9)
In England cricket is played in schools and universities, and almost
all villages and towns have their cricket teams which play regularly
at least one match in week during the season. 10) Unlike in Britain,
cricket in Russia isn’t popular.
11) But as almost everywhere else in the world, the game which attracts
the greatest attention is Association football, or soccer. 12) I know
that both the British and the Russian are great football players.13)
although Englishmen played a kind of football in the Middle Ages or
even earlier, as an organized game it dates from just over a century
ago.14) Soccer matches get big crowds. The Cup Final is one of the most
important football matches of the year in England and it’s always played
at the Wembly stadium, near London, which holds 100 000spectators. 15)
the British are famous for their sense of humor and here is one of their
jokes about football: “Football is a game in which one side of the stadium
wants to see eleven men killed, and the other side of the stadium wants
to see eleven men killed.”
16 ) another kind of football, in which the players carried the oval
ball in their hands, appeared in 1859 at Rugby School and that’s why
the game took the name of Rugby or “rugger”. 17) the rules of the game
are different from soccer, and there are 15 players instead 11 in a
team.
18) next to football, the chief spectator sport in British life is horse-racing.
19) a lot of people are interested in the races and risk money on the
horse which they think will win. 20) Britain is also famous for motor-car
racing, boat-racing, and even races for donkeys.
21) a great number of people play and watch lawn tennis. Tennis tournaments
at Wimbledon are known all over the world. 22)these championships, in
which men and women of many nationalities compete, gather large crowds.
23) The British also like to play golf, baseball, hockey. Various forms
of athletics, such as running, jumping, swimming, boxing are also popular.
24) many children in Britain learn to swim at school, or during holidays
at the seaside, and swimming as a summer pastime is enjoyed by millions
of people. 25) there are also indoor swimming pools which makes swimming
possible all-the-year round and they are popular among the British.
26 ).swimming championships and competitions are widely reported in
the press, over the radio and on television
27) you can sometimes hear that there are no typically Russian winter
sports in England. 28) of course the English weather is not always cold
enough to ski, skate, or toboggan, but winter is a good season for hunting
and fishing.
29) sport can be not only profession and a business, but sport can be
fun as well. 30) besides, it helps to stay in good shape, to keep fit
and to be healthy.
31) indeed, sport is one form or another is an essential part of daily
life in Britain.
