However an SLR with a long lens attached is ideal. Your lens should be 200mm or more. A zoom lens works great. If your camera has a motor drive, this is one of those situations where it will come in handy. Having to advance film by hand can cost you a shot though with practice you will be able to shoot pretty quickly.
Motor drives are available for most manual camera models.
That other automatic feature everyone loves, the auto focus lens, can do more harm than good when attempting to shoot sports action, especially group sports involving several moving bodies at once such as football or soccer. Only the newest auto focus lenses can come close to handling these types of sports shots. There are so many elements moving in and out of the focal plane that the lens keeps trying to compensate and refocus only to have to do it again a second later. The typical auto focus lens sort of gets confused because it is not sure what it should be focusing on. You do not need to be the fastest wrist in the west, you just need to know a few tricks.