Quote Originally Posted by skel1983 View Post
Quote Originally Posted by ryanman89 View Post
The reality is that the majority of the British public would say we are shit at sport. The general attitute is far too negative.
A few stats -
The most f1 drivers titles of any nation,
Football team ranked 7th (of 21
Rugby team that has reached last two world cup finals
Numerous boxing world champs
4th in medal table at Olympics.
Cricket team that has won 2 of the last 3 Ashes.
By far the dominant force in track cycling.

Not to mention the world beaters we have in squash, triathlon, darts, snooker, swimming etc etc.

I'm not saying Britian is the most successful sporting nation, but we are far better than the miserable, negative British public would say.
For example, Australia are our main sporting rivals, now if you asked the british public who was the better sporting nation id say 80% would say Australia. Yet we have beat them in last two rugby world cups, beat them in 2 of last 3 Ashes, beat them at 2008 Olympics. (im not mentioning football here as they don't reallt take it seriously). I could list loads of sports that the British beat them at, yet the only sports you could make a case for them are rugby, cricket and swimming. Ive already shown how the first two are debateable, so that leaves swimming. And we can give them that.
Some shit sports you mentioned mate, Darts, Snooker and Squash?? How many countires take them sports seriously, we did win the ashes but we also lost the last ashes in Australia 5-0 and we were just embarrased 6-1 in the one day internationals and made to look silly in the ICC event by the Australians again.

Also Australias population is over a third less than the Uk.

We are decent at some sports but we should be with the amount of inferstructure we have in place, in reality we are a disgrace if you look at the bigger picture, lets take Tennis for instance we have 1 player in the top 100, where as other nations who again are smaller in poulation have 5+players in the top 100 and all these nations work on a budget which is much less than a quater that we invest to produce champions, the same with cycling I would say that is the main sport where we are getting out results that the amount of money invested should do.

But like I say overall we underachieve in most sports when you consider the amount of money we invest.
I doubt we take Tennis very seriously. I grew up in the north east of England, and didnt know a single person who played tennis outside of PE lessons in school. I couldnt even tell you if there is even a tennis club in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear or Durham, and thats a hell of a big area.