Oi! Yanks! No!

Sport

The UK has many sports. Many. There are, however, two that matter, and also matter to the rest of the world. There's another one played by us and the Commonwealth countries (Commonwealth : countries that are or were ruled by Britain - Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Jamaica, etc), but I have no understanding about that one beyond a vague yawning. Just because Americans don't play them is no reason to ignore them.

Football

Played the world over. Consists of twenty-two men (ten men, one goalkeeper per side), one spherical ball, a rectangular pitch and two goals. IT IS NOT CALLED SOCCER. Actually, you don't even need the 22 men and pitch. Just so long as you've got a ball, two sides and 2 defined goals, you're doing fine. Can be played absolutely anywhere, requires no special kit or abnormal height/body weight, and the pitches aren't the same size.

The game when played normally is 90 minutes long (with extra for stoppage and injury), in 2 halves, and you score points by getting goals in the other team's goal. One point for each goal. And no, we refuse to widen the goal so it's easier to score. No touching the ball with your hands or arms. A foul, if severe enough, gets the other team a free kick. Really severe and done near the goal gets the other team a penalty kick against your goalie.

Yellow card shown to a player is a warning for bad behaviour. Red card is for terrible behaviour, and the player is sent off the pitch without replacement. It is traditional to argue with the ref, though with the more shirty ones this can get you carded. In some grudge matches it's been known for sides to get down to 7 men.

England aren't the most skillful team out there - that's probably Brazil or similar. Each part of the world's got its own way of playing. We play like most of Northern Europe - physical, fairly simple. The game in England is played the fastest of all.

In England, the teams are divided up due to skill and how they've performed in the past season - points awarded on goals scored and whether it was a win, lose or draw - and thus over the years. You go up and down the divisions due to this, the top and bottom teams playing each other at the end of the season to see who gets relegated and who goes up.
Premiership - most highly paid, consists of the more famous teams. These tend to be the matches that get reported live on Radio 5 and shown on telly, the ones that people will watch if it's not their team playing that day.
Then it goes First Division, Second, and Third.
(It used to be First, Second, Third and Fourth, but the First Division made a deal with satellite tv for more money, so, new name.) Being in the Premiership automatically guarantees you more people coming to the game.
There are, of course, teams that don't even make the Third Division and are thus non-league. The top level of the non-league teams is known as the Conference. Scots, Irish and Welsh teams have their own leagues.

The World Cup :
Much more important than the Olympics. You don't get whole countries celebrating in street parties or staying in to watch the telly at strange hours of the night/morning during the Olympics. The mood of the nation is not affected by the country's performance in the Olympics.

Age : The youngest player taken on by a top professional side was 16 (Wayne Rooney of Everton - one of the Liverpool sides), and 17 or 18 is quite common, players normally being picked from the team's youth side. Education is not valued in a football player, and it's bloody amazing, never mind rare, for a football player to have a degree. Most of them are worn out by their mid-thirties if they play professional, due to the sheer amount of matches they play - the English play the most matches per year of anyone, more if you make it through to the various championships. Goalkeepers (Goalies) last a bit longer than normal players.

Singing :
On observation of most of the matches in the world cup, The UK appears to be the only set of countries where their supporters sing at the matches. The most other countries seem to do is let loose the drummers. This is done in support of the team, to taunt the other side, to take the piss out of the ref and certain players. Most songs are adaptations of popular chart hits or chants. Teams have their own adopted songs. The chants/songs are taken up within seconds by large proportions of the crowd. Mexican waves just aren't any fun. Samples :
'Are you watching, are you watching, are you watching [insert name here]'
'You're shit and you know you are' (sung to the tune of 'Go West')
'I'm forever blowing bubbles'
Any singing/whistling of the tune to the Great Escape is normally reserved for England matches, specifically against Germany, but other teams will do.

And remember : Football isn't a matter of life and death, it's more important than that. Religion has nothing on it.

Hooliganism : Please don't ask. It's embarassing, they're a very small proportion of footie supporters (though a very loud and noticeable proportion), and are generally regarded as morons who fuck up the game and travelling abroad for everyone else. I mean, seriously, people who go to matches for the fighting? Christ. Hey-day was in the seventies.

Small note : Manchester United? Anyone English who does not live in Manchester, come from Manchester or has relatives in Manchester, who supports Man U is a wanker. That's all there is to it. They're just fairweather supporters, who probably supported Liverpool back when they were constantly on top. And yes, I'm being very opinionated.

Rugby

What American football grew out of. Sort of similar, except there's no padding involved. Padding is for wimps.

Respect the ref at all times, for his word is law.

Rugby grew out of public school and universities, so the players are often a bit older and can form complete sentences, unlike football players.

Rugby's split into two versions, League and Union, with slightly different rules for each.

Small note here - there's a phrase sometimes used to compare footie and rugger, which is 'Football is a gentleman's game played by thugs and rugby is a game for thugs played by gentlemen.' Might give you some idea, though it's normally a matter of what's played locally that determines which you go in for. For instance, Cornwall is much more focussed on rugby than football.

International song for rugby is 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot', sometimes interspersed with 'Bread of Heaven', but mostly only if you're Welsh.

Cricket

Basically a game where a man stands in front of a set of stumps (wicket) with a bat, and someone bowls a ball at him trying to hit the stumps, so the bails (two little bits of wood balanced on top) come off. The batsman hits it as far away as possible so he can make runs between the two sets of stumps (there's another set a short distance away that the bowler bowls from after a run-up), points earned for how many runs he manages. He continues batting until he's knocked out. Rain stops play, and the games can go on for frickin' hours, if not days. Even without the rain.

If someone catches the ball, he's out. (normally with a cry of 'Howzat') If the ball knocks the bails off, he's out. If he gets caught between the sets of stumps by the time the fielders have got the ball back to the stumps, he's out.

I know very little of the rules of cricket. Except the LBW rule - Leg Before Wicket. Basically, no protecting the wicket with your leg. Padding restricted to the batsman and wicketkeeper - helmets with faceguards and massive great shinpads that come over your knee. I know I said padding was for wimps, but in cricket there's a reason. The ball is small, rock-solid, and bowled at speeds of over a hundred miles per hour. You can cause serious injury with it.

Have since been informed that there is a world cup for cricket. Grudge matches also take place between individual countries. Especially the Ashes, which is played between Australia and England over the ashes of the bails from Lords, the main cricket ground in England.