Тема 16. What kinds of sports are popular in Britain? Are they popular in our country? What kind of sport is your family interested in?
One of the most popular British games is cricket, which foreigners can hardly understand. There are two teams of 11 players. Matches last from one to five days. It is played all over the country in the summer. To many Englishmen cricket is both a game and a standard of behavior. When they consider something unfair they say “That isn’t cricket.” Almost all Englishmen become fans when they watch a traditional cricket match between the teams of Great Britain and Australia, or New Zealand.
Another game which attracts great attention is soccer (European football). There are plenty of amateur and professional soccer clubs in every town. Professional soccer is big business. The Cup Final played in London is the culminating event of the football season. Rugby football is also very popular, but it is played mainly by amateurs.
A great number of people play and watch tennis. Among many tennis tournaments the most famous is the one in Wimbledon. Horse racing is also extremely popular in Great Britain. The racing season includes five races. The annual race for “Derby” is perhaps the most famous sporting event in the whole world. Englishmen also go in for golf, baseball, hockey, basketball, bowling, and badminton. Athletic sports, such as running, jumping, rowing, swimming, boxing and gymnastics, are practiced at schools and colleges. The annual Oxford-Cambridge boat race on the river Thames attracts lots of people and is very popular. In Scotland, where there are good conditions for winter sports, skiing is very popular.
Almost all these games are popular in Russia. Russian people even began to play cricket. And plenty of bowling clubs appeared in our country. This is because we can hardly overestimate the meaning of sport in our life and day-to-day activities.
In my family we prefer skiing. On weekends when the weather is good we go out of city and ski. In summer we like to go to a big park and ride a bicycle.