Inca ball games? Buskashi perhaps? Oh, yes - a cosy feeling you invented it all, including the Olympics games, possibly made in London. :-)
Yes, Brits codified some games, but not all. Not basketball, for God's sake. Just watch a government sponsored historical add on Canadian public TV and you will see a middle aged man, who was so tired of recovering balls from fruit baskets, that he decided to cut their bottoms off.
What else? Yachting perhaps? No, that's the Dutch past time...
Bridge card game? Oh, no that's "biritch", or a Russian Whist, from Constantinopole...
Chess perhaps? No, feck, it has been already claimed by Indians, Persians and Greeks...
Mountain climbing? With all due respect to Irving and Mallory, the man named Everest was not English, he was Australian.
So forgive me for playing this little joke with your national ego. But seriously I am quite impressed when sightseeing various hydro designs in Ontario, dating back to 1830s. Mostly designed by Scots, implemented with backbreaking diligence of Irish...
In meantime Poles were fighting their insurrections against Russians. With few exceptions - Ogiński's Canal (1765-1783) and Kanał Augustowski was built actually much earlier (1825-1830). So nothing to be ashamed of.
the man named Everest was not English, he was Australian.
That was wrong, Everest was an English surveyor, I was thinking of Hillary, but that was the New Zealander. Two bugs in one sentence. Shame on me, too much wine tonight...