[djn]

Looking at the fixtures advertised over the summer months made me realise how many sports we (try to) play in the UK. There's a lot of countries better than us at a lot of them, but I can't think of many who play as many as seriously.

For example, Brazil and Germany are both great at fitba, but neither play rugby or cricket. India and Pakistan are good at Cricket, but how many golfers or tennis players do they produce?

Apart from the "big three" US sports (Basketball, American Football and Baseball - which are mainly just the US, Canada and a token Asian presence), are there any International sports that we don't have players/ teams from the UK playing at a reasonable level at? (maybe not the best in the world, but would qualify for tournaments in)

(for the sakes of argument, I'm ignoring games predominantly played in just one country like "Aussie Rules" or Sumo)

[Widge]

We not really play handball.

[Shengus Khan]

Sumo wrestling

[theentomologist]

lacrosse.
water polo?
laser tag

and many others of these

[Chuckinho]

Badminton anyone
Table Tennis

BTW, Baseball is no token game in Japan - it is like a religion.

[Zanetti]

Chuckinho, on Jun 3 2009, 16:07, said:

BTW, Baseball is no token game in Japan - it is like a religion.

I was going to say that, in fact I'm pretty certain it's a bigger spectator sport than football.

[Uncle Psychosis]

Handball is the big one that springs to mind, wikipedia reckons there are 30 million players world wide yet most Brits haven't even heard of it in my experience.

I don't really follow it much but we seem pretty disinterested in basketball, that game has a huge following outside of the US now. To describe it as "mainly US, Canada and a token Asian following" is nonsense!

Also, what about things like speed skating? I don't know much about it, but for an olympic sport it seems to have a very small profile in the UK.

This post has been edited by Uncle Psychosis: 03 June 2009 - 16:18

[shuggierip]

Count Von Count, on Jun 3 2009, 13:19, said:

Looking at the fixtures advertised over the summer months made me realise how many sports we (try to) play in the UK. There's a lot of countries better than us at a lot of them, but I can't think of many who play as many as seriously.

For example, Brazil and Germany are both great at fitba, but neither play rugby or cricket. India and Pakistan are good at Cricket, but how many golfers or tennis players do they produce?

Apart from the "big three" US sports (Basketball, American Football and Baseball - which are mainly just the US, Canada and a token Asian presence), are there any International sports that we don't have players/ teams from the UK playing at a reasonable level at? (maybe not the best in the world, but would qualify for tournaments in)

(for the sakes of argument, I'm ignoring games predominantly played in just one country like "Aussie Rules" or Sumo)

Log rolling.

[Widge]

I saw curby on that list of sports, that takes me back a couple of years.

[banana]

Count Von Count, on Jun 3 2009, 13:19, said:

Apart from the "big three" US sports (Basketball, American Football and Baseball - which are mainly just the US, Canada and a token Asian presence)

Basketball is absolutely not "mainly just the US, Canada and a token Asian presence". What gave you that impression?

[Chuckinho]

It seems obvious that these sports aren't that big in the UK 'cause some posters are aware how big they are elsewhere.

Volleyball
Beach Volleyball
Surfing

This post has been edited by Chuckinho: 03 June 2009 - 17:19

[Milevskiy]

Volleyball's fucking ace, hilarious too if you're all shite at it

[fishy]

Floorballs one that I'd never heard of before coming to Czech Republic and it seems to be popular in central europe and scandanavia.
wiki link

Edit: Made an arse of the link

This post has been edited by fishy: 03 June 2009 - 17:36

[djn]

Uncle Psychosis, on Jun 3 2009, 17:17, said:

Handball is the big one that springs to mind, wikipedia reckons there are 30 million players world wide yet most Brits haven't even heard of it in my experience

That's a hell of a lot - genuinley surprised!

Apologies for not knowing more about Baskeball internationally, but it's certainly not had a lot of coverage here (since we don't do it)

[Milevskiy]

There was a lad in my class at school that was on the fringe of the Team GB olympic Handball team - it is known around here aye.

[centralparker]

Uncle Psychosis, on Jun 3 2009, 17:17, said:

Handball is the big one that springs to mind, wikipedia reckons there are 30 million players world wide yet most Brits haven't even heard of it in my experience.

Aye, I noticed big posters for professional handball games when I was in Berlin.

[FC_1919]

There was an article in the Hearld or Scotsman about two years ago, basically asking for taller people to take up handball and vollyball so they would be ready for the 2012 Olympics. Seemed a bit desperate.

[Chuckinho]

Ised used to watch weekly womens Handball from Denmark on German television - that aint a sport - it is much better than that ...

[Savage Henry]

Count Von Count, on Jun 3 2009, 22:04, said:

That's a hell of a lot - genuinley surprised!

Apologies for not knowing more about Baskeball internationally, but it's certainly not had a lot of coverage here (since we don't do it)

Not to pick on you, but neither is baseball limited to North America and a token Asian presence.

The coverage of these sports has taken a massive kick in the teeth when Five decided to scrap their live coverage with an extra sixteen hours a week of Quiz Call.

[Savage Henry]

banana, on Jun 3 2009, 18:10, said:

Basketball is absolutely not "mainly just the US, Canada and a token Asian presence". What gave you that impression?

No, neither is baseball.

[trgf]

Jim Pansy, on Jun 4 2009, 00:08, said:

No, neither is baseball.

Baseball is very much limited to America (and Cuba) + Japan, South Korea & Taiwan in East Asia.

After those Netherlands are 6th in the world rankings ffs, followed by Canada, Mexico, Panama and Australia.

[Lossie Loon]

Handball is great. We used to have a team in Lossiemouth (going back 15 years ago at least now), but hardly anyone else played the game so we would have to wait weeks and weeks just to get a game against someone - invariably Aberdeen, although I recall games against teams from the Central Belt too - often from Universities.

[Swarley]

theentomologist, on Jun 3 2009, 14:38, said:

laser tag

Awesome.

Chuckinho, on Jun 3 2009, 15:07, said:

Badminton anyone
Table Tennis

Britain won the silver medal at the mixed doubles at the Athens Olympics. They also do pretty well in the World Champs although the sport is dominated by China, Korea and Indonesia.

Other sports not played
- Aussie Rules Football

This post has been edited by Swarley: 04 June 2009 - 08:12

[Shengus Khan]

We used to play handball in PE and I really enjoyed it. It's awful to watch though. Eurosport show it quite a lot and I believe they have a Handball Champions League.

As for the claims about basketball being a US sport, well it's bloody massive in Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain and the Balkan countries. I don't think a week goes by without Eurosport showing another riot at a Greek basketball match. I also believe the European players are rapidly cathing up with their US counterparts.

[Swarley]

Shengus Khan, on Jun 4 2009, 08:14, said:

As for the claims about basketball being a US sport, well it's bloody massive in Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain and the Balkan countries. I don't think a week goes by without Eurosport showing another riot at a Greek basketball match. I also believe the European players are rapidly cathing up with their US counterparts.

Pretty big in Oz as well, highlights from the playoffs are on the sports news every night.