Maurice Picarda
Actually, might as well flounce.
Those vicious drunken inter-village games with 200 men from Lower Stoatgoblin versus 250 men from Thrimble.
The best form of 'football' (other than 'soccer')
- Thread starter upsidedownwalrus
- Start date
Silva
This went well.
American football. Makes a bit more sense than "NFL" because I also watch the odd college football game, which uses pretty much the same rule book.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
its what the actual football field is called isnt it?
thats what a gridiron is from where i come from.
Yeah 'a gridiron'. The field.
Not a game: a field.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
You could call it 'american football'. That's what we call it, as opposed to 'Canadian football'. We also talk of NFL football vs CFL football.
rubbershoes
not the only raver in the village
I voted other for Winchester football
nets along the pitch...ropes a yard in from that.... scrums but you cant heel - pushing only
no back passing ...ball must stay below shoulder height and the best rule of all, you have to kick it as hard as you can
get in
nets along the pitch...ropes a yard in from that.... scrums but you cant heel - pushing only
no back passing ...ball must stay below shoulder height and the best rule of all, you have to kick it as hard as you can
get in
alsoknownas
some bloke
'Gridiron' is to American football as 'Soccer' is to football (in the UK).
Silva
This went well.
Yeah, I got used to the term after following results on CNNText (long before than having regular internet access and NASN). I guess it's to make sure everyone is pissed in equal quantity
Stroppyoldgit
New Member
A close second
I voted for rugby league, as anyone with a scintilla of discernment would.
But Gaelic is a bloody close second in my view. I wish I'd discovered that when I could still play. I'd love to have had a go and try to learn its skills.
Aussie rules? The origin of Aussie rules is that someone watched Gaelic football and thought "That's a good game. How can we bugger it up?" Just doesn't work with an oval ball and is a right mess by comparison.
As for the kick-an-clap, rucking-an-mauling rugger chaps, do give it a rest. I played both (due to geography, not inclination). The RU I payed is hardly recognisable as the same game as now. Sure, it's got better as they've progressively nicked our rules, ideas and techniques. The chances of a decent, open game of RU is now greater than it used to be, and even happens occasionally. Most of it is still shite, however, at any level.
If you want to see the difference between RL and RU, watch a game at any level in horizontal rain, driving wind, and a quagmire. In other words, in conditions which militate against open, running rugby. There'll be none of that frippery in RU! Boot - lineout - boot - scrambling on the floor - boot - another lineout - more scrambling on the floor - PEEP! Penalty for farting - 3 points for nowt....YAWN. Yet in the same conditions RL players may have to be a bit more conservative in passing the wet ball and mind the wind, but they'll still spin it and produce a decent game against the odds.
Old toff in tweed jacket interviewed after watching the first game of RL played at Harlequins. Never seen RL before, asked what he thought of it. Not much apparently "There was a lot of running around and passing", he said.
Exactly! That's rugby! What he was used to was off-duty coppers brawling in the mud.
I voted for rugby league, as anyone with a scintilla of discernment would.
But Gaelic is a bloody close second in my view. I wish I'd discovered that when I could still play. I'd love to have had a go and try to learn its skills.
Aussie rules? The origin of Aussie rules is that someone watched Gaelic football and thought "That's a good game. How can we bugger it up?" Just doesn't work with an oval ball and is a right mess by comparison.
As for the kick-an-clap, rucking-an-mauling rugger chaps, do give it a rest. I played both (due to geography, not inclination). The RU I payed is hardly recognisable as the same game as now. Sure, it's got better as they've progressively nicked our rules, ideas and techniques. The chances of a decent, open game of RU is now greater than it used to be, and even happens occasionally. Most of it is still shite, however, at any level.
If you want to see the difference between RL and RU, watch a game at any level in horizontal rain, driving wind, and a quagmire. In other words, in conditions which militate against open, running rugby. There'll be none of that frippery in RU! Boot - lineout - boot - scrambling on the floor - boot - another lineout - more scrambling on the floor - PEEP! Penalty for farting - 3 points for nowt....YAWN. Yet in the same conditions RL players may have to be a bit more conservative in passing the wet ball and mind the wind, but they'll still spin it and produce a decent game against the odds.
Old toff in tweed jacket interviewed after watching the first game of RL played at Harlequins. Never seen RL before, asked what he thought of it. Not much apparently "There was a lot of running around and passing", he said.
Exactly! That's rugby! What he was used to was off-duty coppers brawling in the mud.
Dhimmi
Half Man Half HobNob
Oh, this is futile!
No it isn't.
Now I like both forms of Rugby but I voted Aussie rules because, before they softened it up, it was bloody mad combining incredible off the ball play, encouraged fearlessness, and provided an excellent use for cricket grounds out of season. I've never seen enough of it to ever have my appetite sated.
david dissadent
New Member
I love playing union but it hurts like fuck. Any prop will tell you. Dont give a shit if people dont like watching it its just awesome to play. Mud, blood and beer.
Stroppyoldgit
New Member
I played hooker in both codes, and occasionally prop in Union. Sod mud, blood and especially beer. What about passing? What about ball skills? Picking the right runner, timing it well enough to stretch the guy and give him a half break, releasing a rampaging gorilla with a short one, reversing the move to catch the defenders on the turn and put someone through. That's fun -if (when) you get it right. Not the sort of fun I could ever have playing union, even though my lack of pace was less exposed and didn't really matter in that code, and I was a decent burrower and scrapper for possession in the loose (as the rules then allowed).
FFS, in a union game I hardly ever even got to knock on, pass behind the guy running for a gap or caught in possession when I should have got rid. Unless you were lucky enough to be under a kick-off or drop-out which went too deep, a front-row forward hardly ever got those ball-in-hand, what-can-I-do-here, sort of opportunities to exploit (or bugger up, as the case may be). Rare enough now from what I see and virtually non-existent when I played.
Nah, mud blood & beer just about sums up RU. People with hands and brains can have much more fun in league.
But it still hurts like fuck! Thanks for reminding me. That aspect can easily be forgotten with the passage of...err...a year or two.
Stroppyoldgit
New Member
Not true either. Originally, there was just football played under a wide variety of local rules. I'm talking about organised football, played on marked-out fields, with referees or umpires etc., not more ancient inter-village free-for-alls. There were some local codes which allowed running with the ball and some which didn't, but all codes allowed handling.
Posh schools took up football only later, with the advent of "muscular christianity" and all that crap. Like villages and regions, they each developed their own varied rules, but Rugby school was the only one which allowed running with the ball. They later claimed to have initiated this when they perceived "their" game as in danger of being taken over by working class oiks. But they lied. The working class oiks' great-grandads had been doing the same in many places long before any sort of football was played at posh schools at all. Rugby school may have changed its rules at some stage, but they didn't invent the "running" code of football, as they claim.
The tale about William Webb Ellis is utter bollocks which can't stand up to 5 seconds' historical analysis. It was invented many years after it allegedly happened, after William Webb Ellis had died (he never mentioned it himself) by an old man who claimed to have been at the school at the time but wasn't, to serve the political purpose of asserting class interests and "ownership" of the game. Pure propaganda, and an illustration of Goebels' dictum about repeating a lie often enough.
When specific football clubs were first formed there was still a variety of rules around, in the same two broad groups which were now being codified. It was common for clubs to play under the "association" rules one week and the "rugby" rules the next week. Fixtures between clubs were often arranged before it had been agreed which set of rules would be used.
There were two varieties of the "association" rules -those which allowed "hacking" and those which didn't, and this was a matter of huge contention. The posher players and clubs usually favoured "hacking" and denounced the introduction of shin pads as protection. Only cads and cowards would resort to such sneaky tricks, not gentlemen from good schools and scions of the empire blah, blah, blah.
It was at the stage of clubs playing different codes on alternate weeks that a number of splits happened. For example, Manchester United originated as a breakaway from Salford Football Club (now rugby league) by guys who wanted to play under association rules every week.
What few football people realise is that it took quite some time for the FA to ban handling the ball and establish special rules for the goalkeeper only. All the early FA cup finals, for example, were played under the old handling rules. The ball could be caught and struck with the hand, but not thrown, and you couldn't run with it. Much like Gaelic football, in fact, which preserves the hand-pass (punched out of the hand, not thrown) as does it's ill-begotted progeny, Aussie rules.
Many Irish people have a misconceived notion of the uniqueness of their code and don't realise how similar it is to early association football (or vice-versa). There's been a lot of politics and propaganda over that one, too! It's really only the scoring system, not the method of play, which distinguishes Gaelic football from early "soccer".
Once handling had been abolished, association football in England was still nothing like the modern game. In fact, the abolition of handling was arguably a retrograde step, leaving only individualistic kick and rush, with or without "hacking". The "passing game" (as it was called) was developed in Scotland. It was a genuine team game, more enjoyable to play and interesting to watch. Teams which adopted it could run rings those still playing the old kick and rush game. It quickly caught on and became the way the game is now played all over the world.
Not as simple or clear-cut as people often believe, is it?
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
rugby league for the win, for all of the reasons that my stroppy friend makes above 
kick and clap
and as for the association soccer boys.....
kick and clap
and as for the association soccer boys.....brixtonvilla
should be Oslovilla, really
If we can't have the Aztec version played with severed heads, I'll vote for Rugby Union. Fuck all that 4 downs, 6 tackles "Ooooh ref look I'm trying to get up but he's holding me down" bollocks.
Stroppyoldgit
New Member
OK BV, you've convinced me. I mean, all those RU debates at the beginning of every season about what we're allowed to do or not do this year and how it's different from last year. All those penalties for ...err... what exactly?
Yeah, great!
3rd or 4th game of season.....
Ref: "Can't do that any more. You should know by now."
Various players: "Yeah, but he's been on holiday."
I don't remember anyone ever asking a RL ref what he'd just given a penalty for. Denial or head-shaking, maybe, but you did always know really. Even if the ref was wrong, you knew what it was he was wrong about.
In RU, on the other hand, the ref was regularly asked what he'd just given a penalty for by guys genuinely puzzled about what they were supposed to have done wrong. That's if the ref hadn't already volunteered an explanation.
What a mess!
As for the "lying on" problem in RL, all you need is a decent ref who isn't having it.
Ask yourself this, BV, how many tackles in each code end up in a penalty before open play is resumed? Or get a stopwatch and work out the average time in each code from tackle made to next pass out. The occasional lying-on a RL ref might overlook is nowt compared to the extended tackle-to-next-pass shenanigans and delay in RU.
Doesn't sound like you've ever watched Gaelic football. There are other alternatives to the Aztec code, you know.
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
"Rugby [Union] has become like tennis," said Geraint John, the head of Canada's high performance unit. "I have talked to coaches from the top nations in recent months and they all say that they dare not attack more than 45 metres out because of the way the breakdown is being controlled. I watched Wales play South Africa last Saturday and there was a huge amount of kicking out of hand even though both sides had potentially lethal counter-attacks.
Grauniad
Like i said before, kick and clap.....
Grauniad
Like i said before, kick and clap.....
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
Hows that 'World Cup' of yours going Paulie
Great thanx, apart from the rather pathetic performances to date by England unfortunately.
Kenny Vermouth
Wankers
Aussie Rules is the worst type of football.
With the exception of handball, it is by far and way the stupidest team sport I've ever seen.
With the exception of handball, it is by far and way the stupidest team sport I've ever seen.
I hope we beat the Kiwis, even though I'll be paying more attention to the RU test in the afternoon...
Stroppyoldgit
New Member
Bit out of date there, Paulie. They don't clap any more. Just kick...and kick... and kick...and...tell you what, come back in 5 minutes. Someone is bound to have knocked on by then
Rugby League only involves a small set if hughly deveolped skills, Union is a much more skillfull game. I agree that you will League is probably better to watch as you will get a consistent game it has an intensity to it that isn't always apparant in a game of union and you can always see the ball and 9/10 can understand what a Penalty has been given for, whereas Union can be Dire or Fantastic there is no middle ground, you dont always see the ball or have any idea what a penalty was given for! I have played Union for 8 years now done a refereeing course and still dont know half the rules there are over 30 possible infringements at a lineout for instance (and im a lineout jumper so should no them lol) all in all i prefer to watch league and play union (i have played both and watched both)
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