British Sports Trivia
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46 free British Sports trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
British sport runs on stories: a goalkeeper who finished a cup final with a broken neck, a world snooker final decided on the last ball after midnight, a rugby trophy melted down from rupees, and a horse so beloved he is buried at the winning post. This quiz is built from fifty of those moments, each with a clue in the question for anyone who does not know the answer cold. The fifty questions cover football from the world's oldest club to the Lionesses, the Ashes and county cricket, rugby union and rugby league, Wimbledon, the green baize and the darts oche, the Grand National and the Boat Race, plus the Olympians and record-breakers who became household names. Roughly a third are straightforward, a third will split the table and a third are for the person who always takes the sports round. It is written for a pub quiz night, a works social or a long car journey, and every answer comes with a short explanation so the arguments can be settled on the spot. Play it on your phone with instant scoring, or print the sheet for the table.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which ex-POW goalkeeper finished the 1956 FA Cup final for Manchester City with a broken neck?
Bert Trautmann
Bert Trautmann broke his neck diving at the feet of Birmingham's Peter Murphy, yet kept making saves to protect a 3–1 lead; an X-ray three days later found the fracture.
Q 02Which horse won the Grand National in 1973, 1974 and 1977, finishing second in the two years between?
Red Rum
Red Rum is buried at the Aintree winning post, and his name is simply the last three letters of his dam Mared and his sire Quorum.
Q 03Who beat Steve Davis on the last black of the 1985 world snooker final, seen by 18.5 million after midnight?
Dennis Taylor
Dennis Taylor potted the black at 12:23 a.m. to win 18–17 after trailing 8–0; as of 2026 it was still British television's most-watched broadcast after midnight.
Q 04To which Ravel piece did Torvill and Dean skate for twelve perfect 6.0s at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics?
Boléro
Boléro ran 18 seconds over the time limit, so Torvill and Dean began on their knees: timing started only when a skate blade touched the ice. Every judge gave them 6.0 for artistic impression.
Q 05Which club won the 2015–16 Premier League having begun as 5000–1 outsiders with the bookmakers?
Leicester City
Leicester City had spent over four months bottom of the table a year earlier and stayed up only by winning seven of their last nine games; in the title season Jamie Vardy scored in a record 11 straight league matches.
Q 06Which British heavyweight floored Cassius Clay with a left hook at Wembley in 1963, then lost on a cut eye?
Henry Cooper
Henry Cooper's 'Enry's 'Ammer dropped Clay in the final seconds of round four; a tear in Clay's glove, shown to the referee by trainer Angelo Dundee, became the bout's lasting controversy.
Q 07Which rower said anyone who found him near a boat again could shoot him, then won a fifth Olympic gold in 2000?
Steve Redgrave
Steve Redgrave gave that 'permission to shoot me' interview on television minutes after his 1996 gold, then won the coxless four in Sydney while managing diabetes diagnosed in 1997.
Q 08Who scored the first hat-trick in a World Cup final, in England's 4–2 win over West Germany at Wembley in 1966?
Geoff Hurst
Geoff Hurst only played because Jimmy Greaves had gashed his leg against France, and his second goal, which bounced down off the crossbar, is still argued over today.
Q 09Whose 1936 Wimbledon men's singles title was the last by a Briton for 77 years, until Andy Murray's in 2013?
Fred Perry
Fred Perry won three straight Wimbledons from 1934 to 1936, then turned professional and took US citizenship, disillusioned with the class-conscious British tennis establishment.
Q 10Which club won the 1967 European Cup with a team all born within 30 miles of its home city?
Celtic
Celtic fell behind to an early Inter Milan penalty in Lisbon, then won 2–1 through Tommy Gemmell and Stevie Chalmers, adding the European Cup to the league title and both Scottish cups.
Q 11Which club, founded in 1857, is recognised by FIFA as the oldest still playing football anywhere in the world?
Sheffield FC
Sheffield FC's own Sheffield Rules introduced corners and free kicks for fouls to football, and in 2004 the club received the FIFA Order of Merit, an award given to only one other club, Real Madrid.
Q 12Which club remains the only side from outside England to win the FA Cup, beating Arsenal 1–0 at Wembley in 1927?
Cardiff City
Cardiff City's winner slipped through the arms of Arsenal's Welsh goalkeeper Dan Lewis, who blamed his greasy new jersey; by club legend, Arsenal keepers have washed new jerseys before wearing them ever since.
Q 13Who came off the bench to score England's 110th-minute winner against Germany in the Euro 2022 final at Wembley?
Q 21Which rugby trophy between England and Scotland was made by melting down a disbanded club's silver coins?
Calcutta Cup
The Calcutta Cup was first played for in 1879 at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh, after the Calcutta club's dwindling members withdrew its ₹270 of funds to be melted into a trophy.
Q 22Whose drop goal in the last minute of extra time won England the 2003 Rugby World Cup final 20–17 against Australia?
Jonny Wilkinson
Jonny Wilkinson had sent earlier drop-goal attempts wide before striking the winner with his right foot; the squad were named in the 2004 New Year Honours, and head coach Clive Woodward was knighted.
Q 23Which rugby ground is nicknamed 'the Cabbage Patch', after the market garden the RFU bought for £5,500 in 1907?
Chloe Kelly
Chloe Kelly whipped off her shirt to celebrate and collected a yellow card, echoing Brandi Chastain's celebration at the 1999 World Cup final; Chastain publicly congratulated her.
Q 14Which club won back-to-back European Cups in 1979 and 1980 under Brian Clough, having won just one league title?
Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest are the only club in Europe with more European Cups than domestic titles, and the 1979 winner was headed in by Trevor Francis, English football's first £1 million player.
Q 15Which hymn has been a pre-match tradition at the FA Cup final since 1927?
Abide with Me
Abide with Me was written by Henry Francis Lyte in 1847 as he was dying of tuberculosis; a choir's impromptu rendition while the overcrowded pitch was cleared at the 1923 final may have started the custom.
Q 16Which club played at Anfield from 1884 until a rent dispute with landlord John Houlding drove it out in 1892?
Everton
Everton moved to Goodison Park, the first major football stadium built in England, and Houlding, left with an empty Anfield, formed a new club to fill it: Liverpool.
Q 17Which ground staged FA Cup finals from 2001 to 2006 while Wembley was being rebuilt?
Millennium Stadium
The Millennium Stadium's south dressing room seemed jinxed: every team given it for a major final lost, even after a feng shui blessing, until Stoke City won a 2002 play-off final days after a mural was painted on its wall.
Q 18Which newspaper's mock obituary of English cricket, after a first home defeat by Australia in 1882, named the Ashes?
The Sporting Times
The Sporting Times notice, written by Reginald Shirley Brooks, said the body would be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia; the urn later given to England's captain reputedly holds a burnt bail.
Q 19Whose unbeaten 135 at Headingley in 2019 won an Ashes Test by one wicket after England had been bowled out for 67?
Ben Stokes
Ben Stokes was joined by last man Jack Leach with 73 still needed; Leach made one not out in their unbroken stand of 76.
Q 20Which bowler took 19 of the 20 Australian wickets in the 1956 Old Trafford Test, a feat still unequalled?
Jim Laker
Jim Laker's Surrey spin partner Tony Lock took the one wicket he missed, and Laker's match figures of 19 for 90 remain a world record in all first-class cricket.
Twickenham
Twickenham's plot grew cabbages among other vegetables before the RFU bought it, and during the First World War the ground went back to pasture, grazed by cattle, horses and sheep.
Q 24What informal 'prize' goes to the Six Nations' bottom team, borrowed from a Cambridge booby prize for maths exams?
Wooden Spoon
The Wooden Spoon was dangled from the Senate House galleries over the lowest-placed maths honours candidate as he took his degree; the last, awarded in 1909, has a handle made from an oar.
Q 25Who dived over to finish 'that try' for the Barbarians against the All Blacks at the Arms Park in 1973?
Gareth Edwards
Gareth Edwards seemed to intercept the last pass of a move Phil Bennett had started by sidestepping three tackles near his own line, all inside the first four minutes of the match.
Q 26In which town's George Hotel did northern clubs break from the RFU in 1895 over 'broken time' payments?
Huddersfield
Huddersfield's George Hotel hosted the vote to form the Northern Rugby Football Union after the RFU rejected 'broken time' pay of up to six shillings for wages lost when players missed work for matches.
Q 27Which Briton won the women's singles at Wimbledon's centenary championships in 1977, the Queen's Silver Jubilee year?
Virginia Wade
Virginia Wade won it in her 16th year of trying, after beating defending champion Chris Evert in the semi-final, with the Queen at her first Wimbledon final since 1962.
Q 28Which game, still in the full name of the club that hosts Wimbledon, was its sole purpose when founded in 1868?
Croquet
Croquet was the All England Club's only game until one lawn was set aside in 1875 for the infant sport of lawn tennis, then called Sphairistikè; the first championship followed in 1877.
Q 29Which Briton won the 2021 US Open aged 18 without dropping a set, the Open era's first qualifier to win a major?
Emma Raducanu
Emma Raducanu, ranked 150th, came through three qualifying rounds and sealed the final with an ace against Leylah Fernandez, whom she had also beaten at junior Wimbledon in 2018.
Q 30Which theatre, snooker's home since 1977, carries a 'curse': as of 2026, no first-time champion there had retained the title?
The Crucible
The Crucible is named for crucible steel, developed in its home city in 1740, and every first-time champion there, from Terry Griffiths in 1979 to Zhao Xintong in 2025, lost the title the following year.