It was a family activity and everyone in the family had a bike. "Football (soccer in the U.S.A.) was introduced to Europe in the early 1800s. The first Football Association (FA) Cup was played in 1871." This was when many football clubs were set up like Aston Villa and Everton which were set up by churches to "attract new members." "For certain traditional sports and pastimes-for example fishing, fox-hunting, and deer-hunting-the Victorian era meant relative continuity for the participants." Large crowds would assemble to watch horses race long before the nineteenth century, but in the nineteenth century they became more popular. .
"During the first half of the nineteenth century, public schools became converts to "muscular Christianity," inspired by organized team play in rowing, cricket, and two forms of football (rugby and soccer), as well as competitions in track and field and a variety of racquet games. Such games became increasingly common outside schools and universities during the mid-Victorian years, an era of athletic consolidation, bureaucratization, and regulation. Thus began the British Open golf championship (1860), the Marquess of Queensberry rules for boxing (1867), the Football Association Cup (1871), the County Cricket Championship (1873), and the first World Tennis Championship at Wimbledon for men (1877) and women (1884). By 1900, on most Saturday afternoons, more than a million largely working-class boosters filled football stadiums where professional urban teams competed. In the meantime, the redoubtable W. G. Grace (1848-1915) had become renowned as the ablest and most imposing cricket player ever. "W.G." became as much a household name as had "W.E.G.," William Ewart Gladstone, the four-time Liberal Prime Minister.".
Another big thing people did for entertainment was listening to music on things such as musical boxes or go see it performed live.