English essay: the business of sport
Bloc 4

Rugby in France and in the United Kingdom
[pic]
Intro
Rugby is a sport now played by both men and women in over 100 countries across the world. It is one of the most popular sports in the United Kingdom and has been booming during the past decades. England's win at the 2003 World Cup in Australia and France hosting the last World Cup, recruited even more fans, who flock to games in their thousands.
In this essay, we will first talk about the birth of rugby and its development in France and in the United Kingdom before explaining that it is an important business. To finish, we will compare this business to the football’s in these countries.
History and development of rugby in the United Kingdom and in France [pic]

Rugby developed in 1823 thanks to an infraction of the rules of soccer by a English Rugby School boy, William Webb Ellis, who picked the ball up and ran with it. In 1843, the Guy’s Hospital -the first rugby club- was founded in England. Rugby is played with an oval-shaped ball. Two teams score at the other end of the pitch by kicking the ball over the post or by touching it over the line. Players are usually strong and fast. In Scotland, Rugby became popular in 1871 thanks to the first international rugby match between England and Scotland. As for Wales, we can say that rugby is part of the welsh culture! But England, who won the 2002 World Cup, is a very good rugby team (the best one? ). These three teams show how much rugby is popular in Great-Britain. Each country has got an embleme (The leek in Wales, the rose en England and the thistle in Scotland), an hymn and a specific rugby shirt. In the United Kingdom, there are two types of rugby: rugby union, with teams of 15 players, which is played in competitions such as the Six Nations and the rugby union World Cup, and rugby league which is played nationally.