Sport in Belfast

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Watching and playing sports is an important part of culture in

SSE Arena where the multiple time Elite Ice Hockey League champion Belfast Giants are based. The Belfast Marathon is run annually on May Day, and attracted 14,300 participants in 2007.[2]
Cycling, triathlon and athletics are also popular as both participation and spectator sports, with the first two stages of the 2014 Giro d'Italia starting from Belfast City Centre, and the annual high profile Belfast International Cross Country event being held in the grounds of Stormont Castle every year until 2009. The Stormont Estate is also one of the four home grounds for the Ireland cricket team, alongside Bready, Malahide and Clontarf, and also hosts the Northern Cricket Union provincial teams.


Football

Windsor Park

The

FIFA World Rankings[3] plays its home matches at Windsor Park
. Belfast was the home town of the renowned Northern Irish footballer, George Best who died in November 2005. On the day he was buried in the city, 100,000 people lined the route from his home on the Cregagh Road to Roselawn cemetery.[4] Since his death the City Airport has been named after him and a trust has been set up to fund a memorial to him in the city centre.[5]

Four NIFL

.

Notable defunct clubs include Belfast Celtic F.C., one of the most successful teams in Ireland until it withdrew permanently from the Irish League in 1949. The club was refounded in 2019 when Sport & Leisure Swifts F.C. rebranded.

Gaelic football and hurling

Gaelic football is the most popular spectator sport in the island of Ireland.[6] Casement Park, in West Belfast has a capacity of 32,000 which makes it the second largest Gaelic Athletic Association ground in Ulster. It was named after Sir Roger Casement, one of the revolutionaries of the 1916 Easter Rising. Home to Antrim GAA, Casement was regularly host to finals in the Ulster Hurling Championship, which Antrim dominated before it was suspended. Football finals, traditionally have been played in Clones, County Monaghan.

University of Ulster, Jordanstown compete in the Sigerson Cup. This is the top division championship of university Gaelic football in Ireland. They also compete in the Fitzgibbon Cup, which is the Hurling
university championship equivalent.

Rugby Union

Ulster Senior Cup are also competitions entered by senior rugby clubs in Ulster
.

There are seven junior clubs in Belfast: Belfast Met, CIYMS, Civil Service, Cooke, Grosvenor, Instonians and PSNI; and six schools play rugby: Campbell College, Belfast Royal Academy, Grosvenor Grammar School, Methodist College Belfast, Royal Belfast Academical Institution and Wellington College.

Cricket

Belfast boasts Ireland's premier

ICC World Twenty20
was held there.

At club level, Belfast has nine senior teams: CIYMS, Instonians and Civil Service North of Ireland are in the Premier League of the NCU Senior League; Cregagh and Woodvale are in Section 1; BISC are in Section 2; and Cooke Collegians, Dunmurry and Newforge are in Section 3.

Hockey

Cliftonville, NICS and Queen's University
; and one junior club: PSNI.

There are nine senior ladies' clubs:

Pegasus, Belfast Harlequins, Victorians, Knock, Queen's University, CIYMS, NICS, PSNI, Instonians
and Cooke.

Ice hockey

Odyssey Arena
and watched by up to 7000 fans.

Roller derby

Belfast Roller Derby was founded in 2010, and was the first roller derby league in Northern Ireland.[9]

Other sports

See also

References

  1. ^ "Chapter Twelve: Sport and Recreation as an activity". The Organisation of Sport & Recreation in the UK. Central Council of Physical Recreation. 2005. Retrieved 18 May 2007.
  2. ^ a b "Mutai wins Belfast Marathon". Belfast City Council. 7 May 2007. Retrieved 18 May 2007.
  3. ^ "FIFA/Coca Cola World Rankings". FIFA. December 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
  4. ^ McCann, Nuala (3 December 2005). "A city mourns for the Belfast Boy". BBC News Northern Ireland. BBC. Retrieved 18 May 2005.
  5. ^ "George Best Memorial Trust". George Best Trust. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 18 May 2007.
  6. ^ "Information and Statistics" (PDF). GAA Attendance Figures. Gaelic Athletic Association Gaelic Athletic Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 May 2006. Retrieved 18 May 2006.
  7. ^ a b "Belfast Giants History". Coors Belfast Giants. 2007. Archived from the original on 2 July 2007. Retrieved 18 May 2007.
  8. ^ "Giants clinch Elite League title". BBC Sport: Ice Hockey. 5 March 2006. Retrieved 18 May 2007.
  9. ^ Alex Gulrajani, "Roller skate revolution", BBC News, 18 August 2010