1. British are keen to practically all kinds of sports and games linked with physical activity.
2. Soccer, chess, domino, volleyball, tennis, golf, billiards are the most popular and favourite sports and games in England being played by young people and the elderly.
3. Rugby, soccer, golf, tennis, billiards, curling, cricket and water polo are sports that have been invented by the English people.
4. In England, football is considered the national sport and is governed by the Football Association (FA), which generates a turnover of approximately 310 million British pounds per year. So it could be said, that football (or soccer as Americans call it) is extremely popular, and there are a lot of special "football schools" for talented children dreaming to become professional football players.
5. Cricket is mainly a gentleman's game, played by the rich and the middle class. As there are more working class people than rich, football is more popular there. Also, the time duration. Football needs only 90 mins, while cricket can stretch from 4 hrs to 5 days!! And cricket is considered as recreational, quiet game which is more appropriate for people over 40.
6. At first, boxing was a popular amateur competitive sport in England. Then this kind of sport turned into the way of doing business because many amateur boxers started to participate in various competitions winning enormous amounts of money. It declined in popularity in the 80th of the twenty century because of complaints from organizations protecting human rights claiming that it was rather a cruel and tough kind of sport. But after awhile its popularity went up again, thanks to the advertisement on television and the Internet.