Sport in the United Kingdom Sport in the United Kingdom Sport in the United Kingdom plays an important role in British culture. The United Kingdom has given birth to a range of major international sports including: football, rugby, both (union and league), cricket, netball, darts, golf, tennis, table tennis, badminton, squash, croquet, fives, bowls, modern rowing, hockey, boxing, water polo, snooker, billiards, and curling. This has meant that in the infancy of many sports, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland formed among the earliest separate governing bodies, national teams and domestic league competitions. After 1922 some sports formed separate bodies for Northern Ireland though some continued
Sport in Australia identity as a sport-obsessed country, an identity which was embraced inside the country. This was so well known that in a 1962 edition of "Sports Illustrated", Australia was named the most sports obsessed country in the world. In 1967, Australia hosted the second World Netball Championships in Perth. That same year, South Australia became the last state to lift its ban on the playing of sports on Sunday. Starting in the early 1970s, Australian sport underwent a paradigm shift with sponsorship becoming one of the fundamental drivers of earnings for Australian sport on amateur and professional levels. By the mid-1980s,