Cheshire - Culture, Media and Sport

Culture, Media and Sport

Cheshire has one league football team, Crewe Alexandra who play in League One, and two Conference National teams, Stockport County and Macclesfield Town. Chester City were also a League Two team until they were relegated to the Conference National in April 2009 and later dissolved. A new club, Chester F.C., was formed in 2010 and currently plays in the Conference North.

Cheshire also is represented in the highest level basketball league in the UK, the BBL, by the Cheshire Jets, formerly Chester Jets.

Warrington Wolves are the premier Rugby League team in Cheshire and play in the Super League. Widnes Vikings are currently in Super League from the 2012 season. There are also numerous junior clubs in the county, including Chester Gladiators.

Cheshire County Cricket Club is one of the clubs that make up the Minor counties of English and Welsh cricket.

The county has also been home to many notable sportsmen and athletes, including footballers Dean Ashton, Djibril Cissé, Peter Crouch, Seth Johnson, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney. Other local athletes have included cricketer Ian Botham, marathon runner Paula Radcliffe, Great Britain Olympic oarsman Matthew Langridge, Shirley Strong, and mountaineer George Mallory, who died in 1924 on Mount Everest.

Each May, Europe's largest motorcycle event, the Thundersprint, is held in Northwich.

Cheshire has also produced a military hero in Norman Cyril Jones, a World War I flying ace who won the Distinguished Flying Cross.

The county has produced several notable musicians, including popular artists John Mayall (John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers), Ian Astbury (The Cult), Tim Burgess (Charlatans) and Ian Curtis (Joy Division). Another artist from Cheshire is a singer from the British/Irish boy band One Direction that got third place in the X Factor UK in 2010 and is now the most popular boy band worldwide, Harry Styles, who was born and raised in Holmes Chapel. Concert pianist Stephen Hough, singer Thea Gilmore and her producer husband Nigel Stonier also reside in Cheshire. The county has also been home to several writers, including Hall Caine (1853–1931), popular romantic novelist and playwright; Alan Garner; Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, whose novel Cranford features her home town of Knutsford; and most famously Lewis Carroll, born and raised in Daresbury, hence the Cheshire cat. Artists from the county include ceramic artist Emma Bossons and sculptor and photographer Andy Goldsworthy. Actors from Cheshire include Daniel Craig, the 6th James Bond; Dame Wendy Hiller; and Lewis McGibbon, best known for his role in Millions.

Local radio stations in the county include Dee 106.3, Heart and Gold for Chester and West Cheshire, Silk FM for the east of the county, Signal 1 for the south, Wire FM for Warrington, Wish FM, which covers Widnes, and community station Cheshire FM, which covers central Cheshire. The BBC covers the west with BBC Radio Merseyside, the north and east with BBC Radio Manchester and the south with BBC Radio Stoke. There were plans to launch BBC Radio Cheshire, but those were shelved in 2007 after a lower than expected BBC licence fee settlement.