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November 2004
Snooker players are the smartest sportspeople in the UK . That's according to a poll commissioned by Thomson Directories to discover the Nation's Interpretation of Smart*, which sees snooker players coming out on top, narrowly beating golfers by 4%.
Thomson Directories' smart ‘kit'
The nation's favourite sports were ranked based on concentration, teamwork, tactics, precision and intelligence. Snooker players scored highly in all categories to take the top spot with a quarter of the votes, while golfers struggled to score on tactics and intelligence. Women were less convinced about golf's claims to be ‘smart', as a significantly higher proportion of men voted golf the tops.
And although national favourite, football, scored well on tactics and teamwork, overall footballers were considered to be the least smart with only 8% of the vote.
Amongst the higher socio-economic classes, rugby was considered to be a smarter sport than football, but golfers were, in turn, voted smarter than rugby players.
Rob Love, Thomson Directories' Marketing Research Manager who commissioned this independent survey had this to say: “The survey appears to show that the slower and more considered the sport, the smarter the players are perceived to be. Fast-paced sports, such as football and rugby, have lost out to the calmer pace of golf and snooker.”
He continues: “Thomson believes that careful thought and planning can make everyone smarter, which is why we have meticulously planned our directory to help users work ‘Leaner Faster Smarter'.”
For further information please contact our press office.
*1,000 people were interviewed over the telephone as part of BMRB International's Omnibus
Respondents were given a list of sports people and asked which one they thought was the smartest. Results were as follows:
| Snooker players |
24% |
| Golfers |
20% |
| Tennis players |
13% |
| Rugby players |
12% |
| Footballers |
8% |
| Runners |
7% |
| Don't know |
9% |
| None of these |
7% |
Respondents were then read out a number of reasons why their chosen sports people are smart. Reasons for snooker players being smart were as follows:
| They need to concentrate to play it well |
97% |
| They need to employ good tactics to play it well |
96% |
| They need to be precise to play it well |
97% |
| They need intelligence to play it well |
86% |
| They cannot rely on team mates to play it well |
62% |
| They need to understand their team mates to play it well |
36% |
| Don't know |
0% |
| None of these |
0% |
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