Sports and Leisure
The main local football club is Great Yarmouth Town, also known as the Bloaters, who play in the Eastern Counties League. Currently managed by Mike Derbyshire, their ground is at Wellesley Recreation Ground (named after Sir Arthur Wellesley). They have a strong East Anglian rivalry with Gorleston. The club has enjoyed limited success in the past. Local football clubs are served by the Great Yarmouth and District League.
Yarmouth has a horse-racing track which features a chute allowing races of one mile (1.6 km) on the straight.
Speedway racing was staged in Great Yarmouth before and after the Second World War. The meetings were staged at the greyhound stadium in Caister Road. The post war team were known as the Yarmouth Bloaters (after the smoked fish). Banger and Stock car racing is also staged at this stadium.
The main Leisure Centre is the Marina Centre. Built in 1981 the centre has a large swimming pool, conference facilities and live entertainment including their famous Summer Pantomimes and Summer Variety Shows produced by local entertainers Hanton & Dean. The centre is run by the Great Yarmouth Sport and leisure Trust. The Trust was set up in April 2006 to run the building as a charitable non profit making organisation.
At the beginning of the 2008 summer season a worlds first Segway Grand Prix was opened at the Pleasure Beach gardens.
The English Pool Association (EPA), the governing body for 8-Ball Pool in England, holds its National Finals Competitions (including Inter-County and Inter-League, singles and team competitions, and England trials) over several weekends through the year, at the Vauxhall Holiday Park on the outskirts of Great Yarmouth.
Read more about this topic: Great Yarmouth
Famous quotes containing the words sports and, sports and/or leisure:
“Falling in love is the right adventure for those who dislike sports and travel.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“... in the fierce competition of modern society the only class left in the country possessing leisure is that of women supported in easy circumstances by husband or father, and it is to this class we must look for the maintenance of cultivated and refined tastes, for that value and pursuit of knowledge and of art for their own sakes which can alone save society from degenerating into a huge machine for making money, and gratifying the love of sensual luxury.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)