Wimbledon Sports

Wimbledon known as the home of tennis but this was not the first sport to bring Wimbledon national fame, so the city have other sports some of which available for man or woman such as football, rifle shooting, horse racing, motorcycle speedway among others.

In 1977 Wimbledon Football Club starts as a non-League team. Reaching the highest national professional league in 1986j and winning the FA cup against Liverpool in 1988, it climbed quickly through the ranks of the football league structure.

However, its small ground and close proximity of other established teams such as Chelsea and Fulham meant that club never developed its fan base to maintain as a top flight team. So the team was relegated from the top division of English football in 2000, after 14 years and it was the start of a rapid decline.

Finally when the problems had been resolved, Wimbledon FC supporters founded their own replacement club, the semi-professional AFC Wimbledon, who in their second and third seasons of existence, earned successive promotions of the Ishtmian League, the Combined Counties League Premier Challenge Cup in 2004 and the Surrey Senior Cup in 2005 to complete consecutive league and cup doubles.

The newly formed National Rifle Association held its first competition on Wimbledon Common in 1860. At the beginning of 1870, the association and the annual competition grew rapidly. In 1878 the competition were lasting two weeks and attracted nearly 2,500 competitors, who housed in temporary camps set up across the common. However the power and range of rifles had advanced to the extent that shooting was no longer considered safe in an increasingly populated area. After that the National Rifle Association decided moved to Bisley in Surrey. The last meeting was held in 1889.

The All England Croquet Club had begun to hold its annual championships in 1870 at the bottom of the hill on land between the railway line and Worple Road, the All-England Croquet Club had begun to hold its annual championships. But the popularity of croquet was waning as the new sport of lawn tennis began to spread and after initially setting aside just one of its lawns for tennis, the club decided to hold its first Lawn Tennis Championship in July 1877. By 1922, the popularity of tennis had grown to the extent that the club's small ground could no longer cope with the numbers of spectators and the renamed All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club moved to new grounds close to Wimbledon Park.

The Rev. Daniel Lysons published the Environs of London; however, he gives no further details and does not say how successful the horse racing was or how long it lasted.

For many years Wimbledon Stadium has been to Greyhound racing as well as Stock car racing a Speedway. In 1928, speedway began at Wimbledon Stadium in 1928 and the local team “The Dons” was successful over the decades. In the last season (2005), the team finished second in the National Conference League. However, following the collapse of lease renewal talks between speedway promoters and the Greyhound Racing Association (the owners of the stadium), the team wound up due to the high increase in rent required by the GRA. Greyhound Racing and Stock car continue taking place.

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