Football is ritualised warfare
(*Note for all you rebellious colonials on the other side of the Big Pond ? references to 'football' in the following newspaper article refer of course to what you call 'soccer'. (David) Beckham, as well as being hysterically popular among Japanese schoolgirls, is Captain of the England football squad):-
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4435732,00.html" target="_blank">What football fans can learn from geese</a>
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4435732,00.html" target="_blank">What football fans can learn from geese</a>
Comments
- T.I.
au contrair:
warfare is ritualized football
(game)
Warfare and football are all different facets of Mother Earth's "Kill the Idiots" campaign. The idea is, those who like to fight are idiots. They fight a lot and as soon as the yslow down they die.
Those who stay home and quietly tend their crops have more kids. And make guns to shoto the idi9ots.
colonials ????????????? tut tut tut....
Football/soccer seems have a ritualized warfare air to it, surely. Hockey, on the other hand is warfare, plain and simple!
<strong>Hockey is honest, that's all. Truly a sport for men in the sense that men have this innate ability to deal with their emotions with great finality. You're angry, you beat each other up, you're done. Shake hands and take off your skates. It's actually nice to be able have moments of catharsis like that. I think it saves the world from unnecessary brooding and plotting.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Errr Buonrotto, I think
<a href="http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~andria/country/canada/" target="_blank">these gals</a> (and thousands others) would argue your men's "innate abilities"...
Anyway...this whole subject reminds me of the great George Carlin "Baseball vs. Football":
Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out.
Also: in football,basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball and in baseball the ball prevents you from scoring.
In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager. And only in baseball does the manager or coach wear the same clothing the players do. If you'd ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders uniform,you'd know the reason for this custom.
Now, I've mentioned football. Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.
I enjoy comparing baseball and football:
Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.
Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.
Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.
In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.
Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up?
In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.
In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.
Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.
Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog...
In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play.
Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
Football has the two minute warning.
Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings.
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.
In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.
And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:
In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home! <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
<strong>
In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmmmm...George must never have been to a Red Sox/Yankees game at Fenway before.
<strong>The stupid thing is that it appears to be more than that. Only a game, I always say.
- T.I.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You mean football's not a matter of life and death, it's much more serious than that?
:cool: