Watching and playing sports is an important part of culture in

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

where almost six out of ten (59%) of the adult population regularly participate in one or more sports. Belfast has several notable sports teams playing a diverse variety of sports including football (

Windsor Park The National Football Stadium at Windsor Park (officially the Clearer Twist National Stadium at Windsor Park for sponsorship reasons), or the National Football Stadium, also known as Windsor Park is a association football, football stadium in B ...

being the home of the

Northern Ireland national football team The Northern Ireland national football team represents Northern Ireland in men's international association football. From 1882 to 1950, all of Ireland was represented by a single side, the Ireland national football team (1882–1950), Ireland ...

as well as

Linfield F.C. Linfield Football Club is a Northern Ireland, Northern Irish professional Association football, football club, based in south Belfast, which plays in the NIFL Premiership – the highest level of the Northern Ireland Football League. The four ...

), rugby (including at Ravenhill's Kingspan Stadium, home of former European champions

Ulster Rugby Ulster Rugby is one of the four professional provincial rugby union teams from the island of Ireland. They compete in the Irish regional pool of the United Rugby Championship and in the European Rugby Champions Cup, each of which they have won ...

), traditional Irish Gaelic games, and North American sports such as American football and ice hockey (at the SSE Arena where the multiple time

Elite Ice Hockey League The Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL), sometimes referred to internationally as the British Elite League, is an ice hockey league in the United Kingdom. Formed in 2003 following the demise of the Ice Hockey Superleague, it is the highest level ...

champion

Belfast Giants The Belfast Giants (known officially as the Stena Line Belfast Giants due to sponsorship) are a professional ice hockey team based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They compete in the UK's Elite Ice Hockey League, Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL). T ...

are based. The

Belfast Marathon The Belfast City Marathon takes place in Belfast in Northern Ireland. The organisers describe it as the "largest mass sport participatory event in Northern Ireland" with between 15,000 and 18,000 participants taking part in several events. These ...

is run annually on May Day, and attracted 14,300 participants in 2007. Cycling, triathlon and athletics are also popular as both participation and spectator sports, with the first two stages of the

2014 Giro d'Italia The 2014 Giro d'Italia was the 97th running of the Giro d'Italia, one of cycling's Grand Tour (cycling), Grand Tour races. The race started off in Belfast, on 9 May, with a team time trial and concluded in Trieste, on 1 June, with a flat st ...

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

The

, ranked 54th in the February 2019

FIFA World Rankings The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, first introduced in December 1992. The men's teams of the member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their gam ...

plays its home matches at

. Belfast was the home town of the renowned

Northern Irish The people of Northern Ireland are all people born in Northern Ireland and having, at the time of their birth, at least one parent who is a British Nationality Law, British citizen, an Irish nationality law, Irish citizen or is otherwis ...

footballer,

George Best George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional association football, footballer who played as a winger (association football), winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United F.C., Manchester Un ...

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. 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. Four NIFL Irish League

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

teams are based in Belfast;

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

, Cliftonville F.C.

Glentoran Glentoran Football Club is a professional football club based in East Belfast, Northern Ireland, that plays in the NIFL Premiership. The club was founded in 1882 and has since won more than 130 major honours. They are one of three Northern Iris ...

, and

NIFL Championship teams include Dundela, Harland & Wolff Welders F.C., Knockbreda F.C. and PSNI F.C. Intermediate-level clubs Queen's University, Newington Youth and Sport & Leisure Swifts compete in the

NIFL Premier Intermediate League The NIFL Premier Intermediate League (Known as the Playr-Fit NIFL Premier Intermediate League for sponsorship reasons) is the third level of the Northern Ireland Football League, the national association football league in Northern Ireland, and t ...

. Albert Foundry F.C., Bloomfield F.C., Colin Valley, Crumlin Star F.C., Dunmurry Rec., Dunmurry Young Men F.C., East Belfast F.C., Grove United F.C., Immaculata F.C., Iveagh United, Malachians F.C., Orangefield Old Boys, Rosario Youth Club F.C., St Luke's, St Patrick's Young Men F.C., Shankill United F.C., Short Brothers F.C., Sirocco Works F.C. and

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

compete in the

Northern Amateur Football League The Northern Amateur Football League, also known as the Northern Amateur League and often simply as the Amateur League, is an association football league in Northern Ireland. It contains 13 divisions. These comprise four intermediate sections: ...

and Brantwood, Donegal Celtic and St James Swifts in the Ballymena & Provincial League. 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 Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

is one of the most popular spectator sports in the island of Ireland. Casement Park, in West Belfast has a capacity of 32,000 which makes it the second largest

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sports, amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional Irish sports o ...

ground in Ulster. It was named after Sir Roger Casement, one of the revolutionaries of the 1916 Easter Rising. Home to

Antrim GAA The Antrim County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association () or Antrim GAA is one of the 32 county boards of the GAA in Ireland, and is responsible for Gaelic games in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The county board is also responsible for t ...

, 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 Clones ( ; , meaning 'meadow of Eois') is a small town in the west of County Monaghan in Ireland. The area is part of the List of regions of the Republic of Ireland, Border Region in the Republic of Ireland, earmarked for economic development b ...

. Queen's University and the University of Ulster, Jordanstown compete in the

Sigerson Cup The Sigerson Cup is the trophy for the premier Gaelic football championship among Higher Education institutions (Universities, Colleges and Institutes of Technology) in Ireland. It traditionally begins in mid January and ends in late February. T ...

. This is the top division championship of university

in Ireland. They also compete in the Fitzgibbon Cup, which is the

Hurling Hurling (, ') is an outdoor Team sport, team game of ancient Gaelic culture, Gaelic Irish origin, played by men and women. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goa ...

university championship equivalent.

Rugby Union

1999 1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons. Events January * January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers. * January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...

European champions

Ulster Ulster (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...

, play at

Ravenhill Stadium Ravenhill Stadium (known as the Kingspan Stadium for sponsorship reasons until June 2025) is a rugby stadium located in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the home of Ulster Rugby. With the opening of a new stand for the 2014 Heineken Cup quarter ...

in South Belfast. The All-Ireland League is the national league for the 50 senior

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

clubs in Ireland. There are three Belfast clubs in the league: Malone and Queen's University (Division 2A) and

Belfast Harlequins Belfast Harlequins is a multi-sports club located off the Malone Road in south Belfast, Northern Ireland. The club name provides the overall umbrella for rugby union, men's and ladies' field hockey, hockey, and Squash (sport), squash. The club i ...

(Division 2B). The Ulster Senior League and the Ulster Senior Cup are also competitions entered by senior rugby clubs in

. 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 Grosvenor Grammar School (formerly Grosvenor High School) is an 11–18 co-educational, grammar school and sixth form in Belfast, Northern Ireland. History Grosvenor Grammar School was founded in 1945 as Grosvenor High School, by the Belfast ...

Methodist College Belfast Methodist College Belfast (MCB), locally known as Methody, is a co-educational voluntary grammar school in Belfast, located at the foot of the Malone Road, Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1865 by the Methodist Church in Ireland and is one of e ...

, Royal Belfast Academical Institution and Wellington College.

Cricket

Belfast boasts Ireland's premier

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

venue at Stormont, Belfast. The Ireland cricket team plays many of its home games at this venue, which, in 2006, also hosted the first ever

one-day international One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

(ODI) between

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

and

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. In 2007, Ireland,

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

played a triangular series of one-day internationals at Stormont, and in 2008 the qualifying tournament for the 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 The Northern Cricket Union (NCU) Senior League is the provincial cricket league within the Northern Cricket Union of Ireland, NCU jurisdiction in Ireland, which covers counties County Antrim, Antrim, County Armagh, Armagh, County Down, Down and so ...

;

Cregagh Cregagh () is an area in the southeast of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the name of a townland and has been adopted as the name of an electoral ward of Belfast City council. The townland dates back to medieval times, when it was part of the ...

and Woodvale are in Section 1; BISC are in Section 2; and Cooke Collegians, Dunmurry and Newforge are in Section 3.

Hockey

Hockey ''Hockey'' is a family of List of stick sports, stick sports where two opposing teams use hockey sticks to propel a ball or disk into a goal. There are many types of hockey, and the individual sports vary in rules, numbers of players, apparel, ...

is a major participatory sport in Belfast, for both men and women. There are four senior men's clubs: Instonians,

Cliftonville Cliftonville is a coastal area of Margate in the Thanet District, Thanet district of Kent, England. It includes the Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay estate, built in the 1930s with wide avenues and detached and semi-detached houses with driveways, gar ...

, NICS and Queen's University; and one junior club: PSNI. There are nine senior ladies' clubs:

Pegasus Pegasus (; ) is a winged horse in Greek mythology, usually depicted as a white stallion. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa. Pegasus was the brother of Chrysaor, both born from Medusa's blood w ...

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

Ice hockey

Belfast is represented in the

by Ireland's first professional ice hockey team, the

. The game was brought to Belfast by Canadian businessman Bob Zeller in 2000. The team won the British Ice Hockey Superleague Championship in 2002 and were crowned the Elite League Champion in 2006. Ex-NHL star Theo Fleury played for the team and was named the

most valuable player In team sports, a most valuable player (MVP) award is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particular competition, or ...

in the league during his time there. Home matches are played at the Odyssey Arena and watched by up to 7000 fans.

Roller derby

Belfast Roller Derby was founded in 2010, and was the first

roller derby Roller derby is a roller skating contact sport played on an oval track by two teams of five skaters. It is played by approximately 1,250 amateur leaguesA Roller Derby league is synonymous with an individual club or team in other team sports, as ...

league in Northern Ireland.Alex Gulrajani,
Roller skate revolution
,

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

, 18 August 2010

Other sports

* Double world champion Alex "Hurricane" Higgins and Joe Swail are both professional snooker players from Belfast. The city also runs its own District Snooker League. * Belfast Knights and Belfast Trojans

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

teams represent Belfast in the IAFL, competing for the Shamrock Bowl. * Belfast has produced several world champion boxers including Wayne McCullough and Rinty Monaghan. The

Ultimate Fighting Championship The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promoter (entertainment), promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by TKO Group Holdings, a majority owned subsidiary of Endeavor ( ...

recently announced that UFC 72 will take place at Odyssey Arena on 16 June 2007. * The

is run annually on May Day, attracting 14,300 participants in 2007. * In 2013 Belfast held the World Police and Fire Games. * Dave Finlay, a professional wrestler, is from Belfast.

References

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