英语国家概况 论文

The Sports Culture of the United Kingdom

---An Introduction to the UK

姓名：谢宏桥

学号：2012213047

班级：七班

分数：

2013 年 12 月20 日

When it comes to the United Kingdom, People will always think of the British gentlemen with traditional hat and cane. In fact, sports are as traditional as gentlemen in Britain. The United Kingdom, a traditional and strong country not only in the area of industry and comprehensive national strength, but also in the area of sports, has a long history for playing sports. A lot of major sports originated in the UK, including association football, golf, tennis, boxing, rugby league, rugby union, cricket, field hockey, snooker, billiards, squash, curling and badminton, all of which are popular in Britain. Even the table tennis and baseball, the Chinese and American national sports, originated from Britain. Now British sports not only affect the social context at home, but also have a great impact outside home. We even can regard the sports as a reflection of British cultur e. Let’s know about Britain from its sports culture.

1. Various important sports originating in the UK

1.1Association football.

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a very important sport originated in his traditional home—England in the 19th century. The laws of the game were originally codified in England by the Football Association in 1863 and have evolved since then. The UK has the oldest football league in the world. The English Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world and its biggest clubs include Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea. Now football has been the most famous sport internationally through hundreds of years’ developing. Now Association football is governed internationally by FIFA (Federation International Football Association), which organizes the FIFA World Cup every four years.

Actually, football can reflect the British culture completely. Beckham, the famous former football star of Britain, has said: “Football has been associated with our country’s culture and existed in our DNA. Since we were born to the world, football has been accompanying with us and never separated with us.” From these worlds, we can read the close relationship between football and culture in the UK. The most typical culture reflected in football is the gentility culture. In some sport reports in the 19th century, British football players are called “Mr.” all the time. Another aspect of culture reflected in the consciousness of nation. As we know, Britain takes four positions in the FIFA—they can take out four teams to take part in the World Cup. This reflects the leading position of the Great Britain in the 20th century while it reflects that the UK consists of four parts—England, Scotland, Wales, and North Ireland. As a result, until today, Football in Britain is renowned for the intense rivalries between clubs and the passion of the supporters. When we watch a football game of a team from Britain, it will be more attractive if we have known about the football culture of the UK.

1.2 Many other sports originated in the UK.

Compared with football, another similar famous sport called rugby also originated in the Britain. In 1845, rugby union was created when the first rules were written by pupils at Rugby School, Warwickshire. The first international

Rugby took place on March 27, 1871, played between England and Scotland. By 1881 both Ireland and Wales had teams. But in the world, rugby isn’t as famous as football.

The modern competitive golf originated in Scotland. The royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews in Scotland is this sport’s home course. The PGA (Professional Golfer' Association of America) European Tour is headquartered in England, and the main European Tour plays more events in the UK than in any other country. In the early 20th century British golfers, being the best in the world, won nearly all of the U.S. Open championships before World War I. Even though American golfers later became dominant, Britain has continued to produce leading golfers. A number of British golfers have reached the world’s top 10 in the early 2000s, such as the British famous golf star, Lee Westwood who ended Tiger Woods’ five-year reign atop the rankings in autumn 2010.

Tennis is yet another sport which originated in the England in 1870s. When it was created, the tennis spread all around the world. The oldest and famous tennis tournament in the world is the Wimbledon championships which first occurred in 1877. Today, the event takes place over two weeks in late June and early July. The most successful tennis player in Britain is called Fred Perry who was the eight-time Slam winner and one of the only seven men in history to have won all four Grand Slam events.

Cricket, the most typically British sport, has been in existence since the 16th century. The modern game of cricket was created in England in the 1830s when round arm bowling was legalized. The first-ever test match of cricket took place between an England team and an Australian team in 1876-1877. In the game, W.G. Grace is regarded as one of the greatest cricket players of all time because of the importance he made to the development of the sport. Now, the international game of cricket is the Five-day Cornhill Test Match.

As we can see, there are so many kinds of sports originated in the UK and what I list is just part of them. We can get a conclusion: the UK is a country which advocates sports very. They take their leisure time very seriously and they love sports, so they try their best to think of all kinds of way to relax their bodies and take part in sports. Then we can image what kind of nation and

traditional culture the Great Britain is competed with other nations such as China.

I think there is close relationship between the sports culture and the fast development of industry and comprehensive national strength later. On the one hand, the great creation reflected in sports improved that they were really creative and working hard, so there is no surprise that the UK became the strongest country in industry, on the other hand, with the industrial revolution in the 19th century, the industrialization and the urbanization in Great Britain, large quantities of people were liberated from hard work, and they had more free time. So they had more other ways to kill the time. As a result, various sports were created and got great development. I have to say this is a lucky nation and we are also lucky to get so many benefits from these sports.

2. The education of sports in the UK

With so distinctive sports culture, the education of sports in Britain must be paid much attention to. With the developing concept of education to sports, British people have formed an integrated system about physicaleducation. There are many differences about the physical education between China and the UK. I think it depends on the different sports cultures and the degree of importance is paid to the physical education.

Since long time ago in China, the field of PE was bounded to the traditional concept of education. In physical education, children’s basic knowledge and skills were paid more importance to while the personal value and personal development were ignored. At the same time, students’ creation on sports was ignored, as a result of which, students’ interests and hobbies could not grow. In modern China, PE classes are also treated as a secondary course all the time and there never be an examination on PE class before the college education. Even in college, the PE classes are also not paid enough attention. On the other hand, because of the low attention of the PE education, students have formed the concept that a PE class is not important. Then the result is that generally the physical education is in a low level compared with other countries. In the UK, things are different. Enough importance is paid to physical education.

The important fact in Britain is that the PE course is attributed to the “core courses” in the British educational syllabus, it means that the position of PE course is as important as the major courses in any stage of teens’ education. Secondly, the standard to the final scores does not just depend on the final exams, and it consists of two parts, the ordinary score and the final score. This standard just appears in college education in China. Thirdly, in Britain, PE courses are various, not only in college, but also in any stage of teens’education. There is a fact about British PE course: in 1988, the nation made a standard about PE course, which showed that the available PE courses consist of six fields—the track and field, dance, playing games, gymnastics, the activities outside door and swimming. What’s more, the points are set in each stage of PE courses depending on the stage of age.

In a word, the PE education in Britain is successful enough. As a result of this kind of successful model of physical education, lots of famous sports events and adventurous people appear in Britain. The sports cultures are also reflected from the education on sports. We can feel the efforts British people did on sports education. They realized that before it becomes a real strong country, it should become a strong country in sports. And the education about sports can directly affect the attitude teens hold to the sports and then affect the future of sports.

3. The Olympic Games and the sports culture of Britain.

As a country from which many sports originated, Britain is also connected closely with the Olympic Games. If the World War II hadn’t happened, London would have been the first city that has three experiences of holding the Olympic Games in the history. However, London realized her dream in 2012, holding the Olympic Games thirdly. Even though in the recent several Olympics, the UK did not win so many gold medals, the influences British sports made to the world are great and the position of British sports is high in the world. Britain is also one of the countries which firstly had the tradition of the Olympics. Britain has attended all the summer Olympic Games and got excellent grades. About the excellent sports culture of Britain and the Olympic Games, there is a simple story.

As what I have mentioned, before the modern Olympic Games were held, the sports in Britain had been very advanced. This caused enough attention of Coubertin, the father of modern Olympic Games, to British sports. As a result, Coubertin pay visits to Britain for four times. He found that the students in Oxford and Cambridge University were nearly all strong, energetic and in good grooming, and the colleges were all strict to students’ sports skills. This gave Coubertin lots of inspiration. On the initiative of Coubertin, the sports in French schools became more and more positive. What’s more, Coubertin put his inspiration from British sports culture into the building of the modern Olympic Games, which made great contributions to the improvement of Olympics.

The sports level of a country doesn’t depend on the ranking on the Olympic list or the quantity of medals it wins. The UK delegation attended all the summer Olympic Games from 1896 and it has ever get the first in the ranking of medals in 1908. In the Olympic competitions, British delegation has many superior traditional events, including Track and Field, badminton, shooting, box, jujitsu, rowing, sailing, kayak, bicycle, horsemanship, Modern Pentathlon, and especially football.

In a word, the Olympic Games reflect the excellent sports culture of Britain. To be a strong country, it’s really necessary to have superior sports culture and spirit, and it is the same with other countries.

4. The British sports culture reflected in the British upper class.

Not only the normal people in Britain love sports, but also the British upper class has the hobbies and culture in sports. There are many sports played in the upper class of Britain, including tennis, bowling, golf, snooker, cricket, horsemanship, and especially fox terrier. I want to introduce the sport of fox terrier specially.

The sport of fox terrier was known as a great culture heritage in Britain. It is also a kind of social intercourse activity famous in the ruling class and upper class of Britain. Because of the specialclimate in Britain, the grassland in the country of Britain was very fertile. So, the country has been the home of foxes. These foxes did great harms to the crops. To protect the crops and harvest, the

famers had to kill the foxes by training horses and hunter dogs. However, the cost was so high that the farmers couldn’t pay it off. So then the upper class took part in the activity of fox terrier to help kill the foxes. As time went by and the policy of protecting the animals came out, this kind of sport became the specific sport for the upper class in Britain. The fox terrier often happened in autumns. Many upper men got together to hunt for foxes with hunting dogs and horses. The most fox terrier activity was organized by BiFuDe Duke. According To Statistics, there were about 12,000 foxes dying from this activity.

Recently, under the load of laws of protecting animals, hunting animals turned to just searching for fun of chasing the foxes, and until then this became a real sport in a degree. But this kind of sport is also limited in the ruling and upper class of Britain.

From the history of this kind of sport, we can really feel that how superior the sports culture in the upper class of Britain is. People in Britain, from common people to upper class, all have great love to sports.

Conclusion:

First, sports in Britain may not be the most magnificent, but the sports culture in Britain is superior. This is reflected in many aspects, including the origin of so many kinds of sports, the education of sports, the Olympic culture of sports, and even the sports culture in upper class.

Second, a real strong country must pay much importance to sports and sports culture. The development of a country doesn’t only reflect on the industry and comprehensive national strength, but also reflects on the development of sports culture.

Other countries, such as China, may have done well in sports, but there are also many aspects that should be improved. At this time the Britain can be an standard example for them to learn.