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50 free British Sports trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 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 50 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 Birmingham's Peter Murphy with 17 minutes left, 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, in what remains the most-watched broadcast after midnight in British television history.
Q 04To which Ravel piece did Torvill and Dean skate for twelve perfect 6.0s at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics?
Boléro
Boléro earned Torvill and Dean 6.0s for artistic impression from every judge, the highest single-programme score in figure skating history, a year after their Barnum routine had drawn the world's first perfect score.
Q 05Which club won the 2015–16 Premier League having begun as 5000–1 outsiders with the bookmakers?
Leicester City
Leicester City's Jamie Vardy scored in a record 11 consecutive Premier League games that season, and Riyad Mahrez became the first African winner of the PFA Players' Player of the Year.
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 became a US citizen in 1939, disillusioned with the class-conscious British game.
Q 10Which club won the 1967 European Cup with all but two of its squad born within 10 miles of its own ground?
Celtic
Celtic's Lisbon Lions beat Inter Milan 2–1 in the Estádio Nacional, and having already won the league and both Scottish cups they remain the only club to complete a European quadruple.
Q 11Which club, founded in 1857, is recognised by FIFA as the oldest still playing football anywhere in the world?
Sheffield FC
Sheffield FC received the FIFA Order of Merit in 2004, an honour shared only with Real Madrid, and its derby against neighbours Hallam, first played in 1860, is still contested.
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 Hughie Ferguson scored the only goal on St George's Day, and the club won the Welsh Cup the same season, the only club ever to hold two countries' national cups at once.
Q 13Who came off the bench to score England's 110th-minute winner against Germany in the Euro 2022 final at Wembley?
Q 21Which 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.
Q 22What tiebreaker gave England the 2019 Cricket World Cup final after the match and the super over were both tied?
Boundary count
England's boundary count was 26 to New Zealand's 17, helped when a throw in the final over deflected off a diving batter's bat and ran away for four overthrows.
Q 23Which rugby trophy between England and Scotland was made from melted-down rupees by a disbanding Indian club?
Calcutta Cup
Chloe Kelly
Chloe Kelly whipped off her shirt to celebrate and collected a yellow card, echoing Brandi Chastain's 1999 World Cup celebration; Chastain later swapped shirts with her at Wembley.
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 competition's final has opened with the hymn 'Abide with Me' since 1927, sung 15 minutes before kick-off?
FA Cup
The FA Cup's first formal use of the hymn came in 1927, though the link may go back to the 1923 final when the crowd spilled onto the pitch; Lyte wrote it in 1847 as he was dying of tuberculosis.
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 stadium's 149,415 crowd for Scotland v England in 1937 remains Europe's record for an international match?
Hampden Park
Hampden Park was the largest stadium in the world from its 1903 opening until the Maracanã overtook it in 1950, and at least 20,000 more fans got in without tickets that day.
Q 18Which ground, built for the 1999 Rugby World Cup, staged FA Cup finals from 2001 to 2006 while Wembley was rebuilt?
Millennium Stadium
The Millennium Stadium's retractable roof was only the second in Europe, and it also took three rugby league Challenge Cup finals, from 2003 to 2005, that normally belong to Wembley.
Q 19Which 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 20Whose 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 still needed 73 with one wicket standing when the last man came in, and his 135 not out is now ranked among the greatest Test innings ever played.
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 24Whose drop goal with 28 seconds of extra time left won England the 2003 Rugby World Cup final 20–17 against Australia?
Jonny Wilkinson
Jonny Wilkinson struck it with his right foot, and the entire England playing and senior coaching team were appointed to the Order of the British Empire in the 2004 New Year Honours.
Q 25Which rugby ground is nicknamed 'the Cabbage Patch', after the market garden the RFU bought for £5,500 in 1907?
Twickenham
Twickenham's 10.25 acres grew cabbages among other vegetables before RFU committee man William Williams and treasurer William Cail bought the plot for £5,500 12s 6d.
Q 26What informal 'prize' goes to the Six Nations' bottom team, borrowed from a Cambridge booby prize for maths exams?
Wooden Spoon
The Wooden Spoon went to the Cambridge student with the lowest third-class mark in the Mathematical Tripos; the last real one, awarded in 1909, has a handle shaped like an oar.
Q 27Who 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, and in 2002 British fans voted it No. 20 of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments.
Q 28In which town's George Hotel did 21 northern clubs break from the RFU in 1895 over 'broken time' payments?
Huddersfield
Huddersfield's George Hotel saw a 20–1 vote to form the Northern Rugby Football Union; 'broken time' meant up to six shillings for wages lost when players missed work for matches.
Q 29Which Briton won the women's singles at Wimbledon's centenary championships in 1977, the Queen's Silver Jubilee year?
Virginia Wade
Virginia Wade's final was the first the Queen had attended since 1962, and no British woman won another singles major until 2021.
Q 30Which 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.