Sport in the United Kingdom plays an important role in British culture and the United Kingdom has played a significant role in the organisation and spread of sporting culture globally. In the infancy of many organised sports, the Home Nations were heavily involved in setting out the formal rules of many sports and formed among the earliest separate governing bodies, national teams and domestic league competitions. After 1922, some sports formed separate bodies for Northern Ireland, though many continued to be organised on an all-Ireland basis. For this reason, in many though not all sports, most domestic and international sport is carried on a Home Nations basis, and England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland are recognised as national entities.
Sport in Cornwall includes two sports not found elsewhere in the world, except in areas influenced by Cornish culture i.e. the Cornish forms of wrestling and hurling. The sports otherwise most closely associated with Cornwall are rugby union football and surfing.
Christopher Calvin Harris from Truro, Cornwall, nicknamed Bomber, is a Great Britain international motorcycle speedway rider from England.
In London, a diverse array of athletics stretching from football to tennis have further granted its city the spotlight throughout the world. London has hosted the Olympic Games in 1908, 1948, and most recently in 2012, making it the most frequently chosen city in modern Olympic history. Other popular sports in London include cricket, rowing, rugby, basketball, and most recently American Football.
Sport in Milton Keynes covers a range of professional and amateur sport in the City of Milton Keynes unitary authority area. In 2019, Milton Keynes was officially designated as a European City of Sport for 2020. There are professional teams in football, in motorsport and in ice hockey. The National Badminton Centre, and the Marshall Milton Keynes Athletic Club train professional and amateur athletes. Most other sports feature at amateur level although there are semi-professional teams in rugby union and football among other sports. There is an international-standard karting track owned by Daytona Motorsport.
The Oxford Cheetahs are a British speedway team based at Oxford Stadium, in Oxford, England. They were founded in 1939 and are five times champions of Britain, in 1964, 1985, 1986, 1989 and 2001. The club folded in 2007 but returned to racing when participating in the SGB Championship 2022.
The sport of speedway in the United Kingdom has changed little since the first meetings in the 1920s. It has three domestic leagues, its own Speedway Grand Prix, and an annual entry into the Speedway World Cup / Speedway of Nations.
Leicester Lions are a speedway team which originally operated from 1968 until 1983. The club returned to speedway for the 2011 Premier League season, moving up to the Elite League for the 2014 season. Before the 2019 season, the club dropped down to the SGB Championship before returning to the Premiership in 2023.
Manchester City and Manchester United are popular Premier League football clubs in Greater Manchester. United's ground is in Old Trafford; Manchester City's home ground is the City of Manchester Stadium in east Manchester. Fixtures between the clubs are referred to as the Manchester Derby. Manchester United are historically the most successful football club in England with 66 elite honours won.
Daniel Robert King is a British speedway rider. He earned six international caps for the Great Britain national speedway team.
Leicester Lions are a rugby union club which currently play in the third tier of the English rugby union system, National League 1, following their promotion from National League 2 West in 2023. The Lions are a leading amateur club in Leicester and along with Loughborough University and Hinckley are the senior clubs in Leicestershire after Premiership Rugby side Leicester Tigers. The club was formed as a result of an amalgamation between two local clubs in 1998, these being Westleigh RFC and Wigston RFC.
Sport in Cardiff is dictated by, amongst other things, its position as the capital city of Wales, meaning that national home sporting fixtures are nearly always played in the city. All of Wales' multi-sports agencies and many of the country's sports governing bodies have their headquarters in Cardiff and the city's many top-quality venues have attracted world-famous sport events, sometimes unrelated to Cardiff or to Wales.
Bristol has a number of notable professional sports teams and a large number of active amateur sports clubs. There are also large numbers of participants in individual sports. The city has two Football League clubs: Bristol City F.C., who play in the second tier, and Bristol Rovers F.C., who play in the third tier. Gloucestershire County Cricket Club has its headquarters in the city. Bristol Bears are currently in Premiership Rugby.
The BAFANL is the primary American football domestic league competition in Great Britain. The league is run by the British American Football Association to coordinate contact football within England, Scotland and Wales. The top level is the Premier Division and the BritBowl is the annual final championship game.
Kyle Newman is an English motorcycle speedway rider.
The Sandwell Steelers are an American football team based in Walsall, West Midlands, England, that competes in the BAFA National Leagues NFC 1 South, the second level of British American Football. They operate from Walsall Rugby Club and were formed in 2013. The Steelers earned promotion to Division One in their second ever season an have won 3 Division titles in their 5 years as a BAFA League team. In 2019 they were promoted to the Premier Division North beating Northumberland Vikings in the NFC 1 Bowl game. The club also operate a selection Youth, Junior and Women's American Football teams.
The Leicestershire Rugby Union (LRU) is the governing body for the sport of rugby union in the counties of Leicestershire and Rutland in England. The union is the constituent body of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) for those counties. The LRU administers and organises rugby union clubs and competitions in those two counties and administers the Leicestershire county rugby representative teams.
The Leicestershire County Cup is an annual rugby union knock-out club competition organized by the Leicestershire Rugby Union. It was first introduced in 1890 with the inaugural winners being South Wigston. The competition was known as the Leicestershire League Cup until 1893 when it was changed to Leicestershire Senior Cup. The first competition was open to the top sides in the county apart from the Leicester FC first XV, who were considered too strong and would instead enter an 'A' team up until 1906. Smaller clubs in the county, as well as senior club second sides, played in the Leicestershire Junior Cup which had its inaugural competition three seasons earlier in 1887.
The 2022 National Development League was the third division/tier of British speedway for the 2022 season. It is a semi-professional development league, containing the junior sides of many SGB Premiership and SGB Championship clubs.
The 2023 National Development League was the third division/tier of British speedway for the 2023 season. It was a semi-professional development league, containing mainly the junior sides of SGB Premiership and SGB Championship clubs. Leicester Lion Cubs were the defending champions having won the title in 2022. Oxford Chargers won the title, defeating Leicester in a one-off Grand Final.
