Sport in Leeds

Leeds has a strong sporting heritage, with the Yorkshire County Cricket Club, Leeds Rhinos (the rugby league team) and Leeds Carnegie (the rugby union team) playing at Headingley Stadium, and Leeds United A.F.C. playing at Elland Road.

Teams based in Leeds

Football

In the early 20th Century Leeds was known as a rugby town. The first football team to bear the name of the city were called Leeds City. However this team was disqualified from the league for financial breaches. In 1919 Leeds United were formed. Unlike many northern cities such as Manchester and Sheffield, Leeds has just one football league team, being the city with the largest population to have just one team in the top four divisions of English football (the Premier League and the three leagues comprising The Football League).

Leeds United will play the 2007-08 season in Football League One, the third level of the English league system; this will be the first time since the club's election to The Football League in 1920 that they have played outside the top two divisions. They were relegated from the second-level Football League Championship as a direct result of a 10-point deduction for going into administration. They had been in The Championship since 2004, when a financial crisis and loss of key players cost them their Premiership status and almost put them out of business. Their greatest successes came under the leadership of manager Don Revie in the late 1960s and 1970s, when they were league champions twice as well as winning the League Cup, F.A Cup and European Fairs Cup. They also won the league title in 1992, when Howard Wilkinson was manager, the teams last major trophy. There is also an affiliated Ladies team Leeds United L.F.C. whose closest chance at silverware was in the 2006 FA Women's Cup, losing to Arsenal L.F.C..

Farsley Celtic AFC are a non-league football team from the Farsley district of West Leeds, and play their home games at Throstle Nest. They have recently been promoted to the Conference, meaning that only one league separates them from their more illustrious neighbours Leeds United. Another non-league team in Leeds is Garforth Town, who play in East Leeds.

Leeds City Vixens L.F.C. are a women's football team in Leeds. They play in the Northern Combination Women's Football League and last season the finished 2nd in the league. They moved ground from Adel Memorial to The Bracken Edge the same ground as Yorkshire Amateur A.F.C..

Leeds United Ladies Football Club are an English women's football club. They play at The Park, Tadcaster

Rugby league

Founded as Leeds St. Johns in 1895 the club is now known as the Leeds Rhinos have a long history. In recent years the team has comepted in several major finals. Under coach Graham Murray they competed in the first Super League grand final in 1998 but were defeated by Wigan Warriors. A year later Leeds won the Challenge Cup, defeating London Broncos at Wembley in the last final held at Wembley stadium before its re-building. After several years without a trophy the appointment of Tony Smith of coach saw Leeds top the league at the end of the season and went on to be crowned Super League champions on 16 October, 2004 after defeating arch rivals Bradford Bulls 16-8 at Old Trafford. In 2005 the Rhinos reached the final of both the Challenge Cup and the Super League but lost both games to Hull FC and Bradford Bulls respectively. Leeds now hold the 2007 crown after thrashing former champions St Helens 33-6 in the Grand Final. This was Coach Tony Smith's final game before leaving to be G.B coach and this win makes it two grand final trophies in four years. Leeds Rhinos are the best supported Rugby League club in the United Kingdom, their Headingley ground holds up to 22,500 spectators and is regularly filled, with sell out's particularly common, at games agains Bradford Bull, Saint Helens and Wigan Warriors. Leeds Based Tetley's Bitter, Leeds Building Society, Jet2 and Leeds Carnegie are all major sponsors of the Leeds Rhinos.

Hunslet Hawks are a rugby league team based in the Hunslet district of South Leeds. They were formed in May 1883 with the merger of two local teams. They were the first club to win All Four Cups, which they did in the 1907-08 season. They currently play in National League Two. Hunslet now play at the John Charles Centre for Sport (formerly the South Leeds Stadium). Hunslet have one of the best grounds in their league.

Bramley Buffaloes are a rugby league team based in the Bramley district of West Leeds. Bramley were founded in 1879. At the end of the 1999 season Bramley resigned from the Northern Ford Premiership to become a feeder team for Leeds Rhinos, but this never materialised. They were reformed as a supporter-owned club and now play in National League Three.

There are numerous BARLA teams based in Leeds. Leeds is considered to be in the Rugby League Heartland. East Leeds RLFC and Wetherby Bulldogs have enjoyed success in recent years as amature rugby league clubs. Rugby League is also played at many secondary schools in the Leeds district as well.

Leeds Carnegie (Part of Leeds Metropolitan University) sponsor the Challenge Cup as well as Headingley Stadium, they have become one of the biggest sponsors in British Sport outside of Football.

Rugby union

Leeds Carnegie were founded in 1991 as Leeds RUFC after the merger of Roundhay and Headingley and played their first match on 1 September 1992 against Hull Ionians. In 1998, after the club amalgamated with Leeds Rhinos, it took the name Leeds Tykes. The club won their first ever trophy in 2005 with battling performance to defeat huge favourites Bath in the Powergen Cup final. However the teams fortunes declined and in 2006 they were relegated from the Guinness Premiership. After one season in National Division One they won promotion back to the top flight of rugby union.

Shortly after the end of the 2006-07 season, Leeds Metropolitan University bought a 51% stake in the club and renamed it Leeds Carnegie, after the university's sport faculty of Carnegie College. [cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/english/6653619.stm |title=University buys into Leeds Tykes |publisher=BBC |date=2007-05-14]

Cricket

Yorkshire County Cricket Club have played most of their games at Headingley Stadium, Leeds since 1888.

Test match cricket has been played there since 1899. As shown in the picture right.

Other

Leeds City AC is amongst the biggest and most successful athletics clubs in the North of England and has had the most successful men's harriers section in the country in the 21st century. Since the turn of the millennium the team has never been out of the top 4 in the National Cross Country Championships, winning in 2003 and 2006. In 2006 the team achieved the 'Grand Slam' of wins - Yorkshire, North of England and English National Champions.

Sports facilities and stadia in Leeds

Leeds has a wealth of sports facilities including the 40,000 capacity Elland Road football stadium, a host stadium during the 1996 European Football Championship, 22,000 capacity Carnegie Headingley Stadium, world famous for both Cricket and rugby league, Leeds International Pool (50m), [http://www.leeds.gov.uk/bowls South Leeds Stadium] used for athletics, bowls, football, rugby league and tennis. Other facilities include [http://www.theleedswall.co.uk the Leeds Wall] (climbing), [http://www.xscape.co.uk/snow/castleford/ Xscape] (real snow indoor ski and snowboard slope with ice climbing wall) and [http://www.leeds.gov.uk/Leeds%20Sailing%20and%20Activity%20Centre%20course%20programme/page.aspx?style= Yeadon Tarn] , sailing centre.

Horse Racing

There is one racecourse within the Leeds City area, and that is Wetherby Racecourse. Wetherby is a National Hunt racecourse (incidentally the only one in Yorkshire). West Yorkshire has a flat racecourse at Pontefract. Racedays attract people from across the UK to Wetherby. Wetherby is a medium sized raceourse (although one of the larger ones in Yorkshire). The nearest major racecourse to Leeds is York.

Golf facilities in the Leeds area

Leeds is also home to many top classFact|date=February 2008 golf courses. With over 20 courses within 30 mins drive of the city centreFact|date=February 2008 Leeds offers golf courses of all varieties.

Amongst the best coursesFact|date=February 2008 in the area are Alwoodley, Moortown and Moor Allerton. Alwoodley is an 18 hole heathland course which has hosted many national tournamentsFact|date=February 2008. Moortown is also a 18 hole heathland course which has, in the past staged many national eventsFact|date=February 2008 and the Ryder CupFact|date=February 2008. Moor Allerton is a 27 hole parkland course that has hosted many national tournamentsFact|date=February 2008 including European Tour eventsFact|date=February 2008.

All 3 of these courses can be found north of the city, just north of the Leeds city ring road.

Swimming

Leeds' first major pool was the Leeds International Pool, designed by disgraced architect, John Poulson, this opened in 1967 and was inches too narrow to qualify as an Olympic standard pool. These closed in October 2007 and were replaced by the Aquatics Centre at the John Charles Centre for Sport. This offers an enlarged diving pool with a movable floor for alterations to the pools depth, as well as a 50m Olympic standard pool, with two inflatable booms enabling it to be divided up should this be desired. The new Aquatics centre also has an enlarged area for spectators around both pools. The Leeds International Pool has now closed, however still stands on the Western edge of the City Centre.

Notes and References

See also

*Leeds
*Football in Leeds
*Sport in England
*Sport in the United Kingdom