Leisure Kicks - The essencial sport and leisure guide

Football is England’s national sport. It is also wildly popular the world over as a spectator sport and as a hobby, with hundreds of millions of people playing it regularly across the globe. It is incredibly accessible, simplistic and very cheap to play. All you need is a ball, a space to play on and a bunch of friends to play with.  It is played in the poorest and richest communities alike, by the young and old and by the disabled as well. The sport is also played at a professional level everywhere and draws in passionate spectators by the millions.

The simple objective in football is to score points by manoeuvring the ball into the opposing team’s goal and the team who scores the most points wins. As the name suggests, only the players’ feet may be used to advance the ball down the field – with the exception of the goalkeeper who may use their hands. The game is played between two teams of eleven players, but of course this in only in competition and as long as teams are even this fluctuates when it comes to football as a just-for-fun activity. 

Choose your sport

The FA wants you to play at any level