London Sports Travel Tips by easyoar

Theme: Other

Football to anyone in Britain has nothing to do with oval shaped balls, stupid amounts of body cladding or being able to pick the ball up and run around with it (we are talking FOOTball after all). That is a later bastardisation of a noble sport ;-).

The original game of Football was invented in England well over 100 years ago. If you wish to watch a professional game of Football in London, you have a lot of possibilities. The current two best sides in England both play in London (Chelsea and Arsenal). There are also other London teams such as Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs), Fulham, Queens Park Rangers (QPR) and Brentford. There are others, but this is just a list off the top of my head.

If you want to play, at the weekend, you can see ad-hoc games being played in most of the parks, normally just using a couple of coats as goal posts. This picture was taken in London's Hyde Park.

BTW, In most London Parks, walking or running on the grass is not a problem, unless there are signs stating otherwise.

Equipment: Some coats and a ball in the worst case!

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Address: Any London Park

Theme: Boating/Sailing

The Serpentine is a large lake in the middle of London's Hyde Park. There are a lot of boats that you can rent if you fancy a bit of a paddle.

If you do go out, try to remember to put the blade of the oar in square to the water. Basically that means keep it perpendicular to the horizon when it is in the water. If you slant it, the oar will dive down and in rowing parlance you will "catch a crab". It is unlikely to get you into too much trouble in a small boat like this, but in a large rowing boat like an 8 (i.e. 8 rowers in it), of you get things wrong, I have seen the oar actually eject people out of the boat - not a pleasant experience...

This guy is obviously a stunning rower. He managed to catch a crab on both sides and even get one of his oars to come out of its gate!

I like the body language of his missus, she does not look terribly impressed at all! And it was probably meant to be a romantic trip ou on the water!

Equipment: All rentable. I have seen people getting dragged back in by a launch when they are unable to return under their own steam, so you don't even need to worry about that!

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Address: Serpentine, Hyde Park

Theme: Other

In London's Parks, it is normally pretty free to do what you like (well within reason of course). You can therefore find people engaging in all sorts of passtimes and recreations in them.

With a lot of paved paths going through Hyde Park, it is quite popular for roller-bladers to do there thing here. I have never seen skate-boarders, but I don't see why they shouldn't be here too.

In this case, the girl had been trying to weave in and out of the little bollards whilst going backwards, although in this picture she was simply going backwards!

Equipment: Bring your own gear. You'll need the normal roller-blades and protection (such as padding etc).

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Address: London's Parks

Theme: Other

This is probably one of the easier passtimes you can get up to in the parks. You don't need much space really, you're unlikely to hurt anyone too bady if you're crap, and you don't need much in the way of kit (a frisbee is both cheap and light).

About the only thing you do actually need is a partner to catch and return the frisbee to you! I can imagine it being a bit of a lonely sport if you tried doing it solo.

This was another passtime going on in London's Hyde Park, although there are numerous other parks (Kensington Gardens and Green Park both seem to be quite laid back about people doing this sort of thing) in London if you get bored with Hyde Park.

Equipment: A cheap plastic dish (a.k.a. a frisbee) and at least one other person to play with.

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Address: A London Park

Theme: Other

London is a big busy place, but if you want to go running/jogging, there are loads of parks, or paths along the River Thames which are quite safe. During the day you can see quite a few unaccompanied women joggers, although I would definitely not recommend that later on.

The Thames is a nice place to run along. You can watch the boats on one side, and the historic buildings that line the river on the other side, and you can go on for as long as you want. If you cross a bridge, you don't even have to backtrack to get home again! (well you'd need to cross twice of course!)

Equipment: Running shoes and some appropriate clothing!

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Address: Almost anywhere!

Theme: Biking

Well it does help if you actually turn the pedals!

Some of London's Parks (especially Hyde Park) are so large, it is possible to cycle around inside them for a while without covering too much of the same area too many times.

There's also the Serpentine lake to ride around as you can see in this picture.

I wouldn't recommend cycling round London's roads too much though unless you have a death wish or are a little unhinged!

Equipment: A bike and something to lock it up with if you stop anywhere

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Theme: Kayaking/Canoeing

This looks like a seaside shot of some canoeists just about to go out. Well it's actually the bank of the Thames. Not your normal sporting tip for London, but I can imagine paddling a canoe along the Thames past all the sites must be quite enjoyable way to spend a weekend morning. Take care for those Police speedboats that bomb up and down the Thames though! Little craft like canoes get rather buffeted by the wake of larger craft, especially from ones gaoing fast.

Equipment: I guess you'd have to join a club or bring your own canoe.

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