Football – with the men’s World Cup currently giving it unrivalled prominence – is often held up as a mass participation sport because it is so cheap to play.<\/p>\n
However, the well-versed ball and jumpers for goalposts claims may ignore the cost to families of kit, club fees and transport to matches.<\/p>\n
Tennis has faced a more complex reputation, with some considering it to have been an elitist sport.<\/p>\n
But anyone wanting to try tennis, without the costs of hiring a court or any of the equipment, can attend free sessions – often on Saturday mornings – as part of a Lawn Tennis Association scheme.<\/p>\n
Anyone can search for a park near you running the sessions, external<\/a>, although not every area of the UK is covered.<\/p>\n Beyond tennis, there are a host of leisure centres which offer free fitness class taster sessions, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cricket is another high-profile summer sport. The Chance to Shine charity runs hundreds of free street cricket sessions, external<\/a> around the country throughout the year – often within walking distance of children living in poorer areas.<\/p>\n British Blind Sport runs Have a Go days, external<\/a> for people with sight loss to try out sports ranging from rugby to rowing for free.<\/p>\n Parkrun has become a hugely popular free running and walking, external<\/a> activity across the UK.<\/p>\n There is no centralised database for free sports activities, but lots of campaigns are designed to get people moving to help their physical and mental health.<\/p>\n They include Every Body Moves, external<\/a> for people with disabilities, regional schemes such as London Sport Get Active, external<\/a>, and the This Girl Can, external<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n Sport England also invests in the Active Partnerships network, external<\/a>, which boosts free sporting and exercise activities in different areas.<\/p>\n On a local level, charity-run possibilities range from free table tennis sessions in Brighton, external<\/a> to street dance in Blackpool, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Football – with the men’s World Cup currently giving it unrivalled prominence – is often held up as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-663693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}