Sport
Each year at Easter the 125 miles (201 km) Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Marathon is held on a course between Devizes and Westminster in London. First contested in 1948, the event was one of the first to be included on the international race calendar when marathon canoeing gained worldwide popularity in the 1960s.
The local football (soccer) team is Devizes Town F.C. who play in the Western Football League.
The local rugby union team is Devizes R.F.C. founded in 1876, known as the 'Saddlebacks' (after the Wessex Saddleback) who play in the Southern Counties (South) League.
Devizes Cricket Club was founded in 1850.
Devizes Hockey Club plays in the Premier 1 Hockey League. Under the chairmanship of Toby Gilliat Brown – grandson of Sidney Gilliat – the club has played its way up the hockey league winning successive promotions over nine seasons.
Devizes Netball Club was founded in 1979. It has six teams in the Moonraker Netball Leagues. The A Team was champion of the Premier Division in 2007–08, 2008–9 and again in 2009–10.
Moonrakers Athletics Club is based at Devizes School. It provides coaching in throws, sprints, long distance and jumps.
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Famous quotes containing the word sport:
“Every American travelling in England gets his own individual sport out of the toy passenger and freight trains and the tiny locomotives, with their faint, indignant, tiny whistle. Especially in western England one wonders how the business of a nation can possibly be carried on by means so insufficient.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)
“For generations, a wide range of shooting in Northern Ireland has provided all sections of the population with a pastime which ... has occupied a great deal of leisure time. Unlike many other countries, the outstanding characteristic of the sport has been that it was not confined to any one class.”
—Northern Irish Tourist Board. quoted in New Statesman (London, Aug. 29, 1969)
“What sport shall we devise here in this garden
To drive away the heavy thought of care?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)