Have you grown out of soccerball and fallen in love with rugby?

[Bullitt]

This is a tad old now, but sums it up.

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[Ripper]

<div class='quotemain'>Rio Ferdinand i think it was (the captain of England incidentally) was carrying on like a four year old during and after the game apparently because Man U lost. This kind of behaviour is pathetic. These people don't deserve any respect and tarnish their image and their game.
[/b]

He is on £120,000 a week wages. That's about US$250,000 a week. :ranting:

The supporters are on an average wage of £21,000 a year. :wall: [/b][/quote]

Who let the Commie in.

 

[Gay-Guy]

This is a tad old now, but sums it up.

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Love that video. 95% of the spectators in rugby know that the toughest guys in the stadium are the ones on the field no the ones in the stands..

 

[redunderthebed]

I think it was all over for me football wise when Dad took me to a Harlow FC game when I was five. A minute later we were walking off with Dad incensed at how bad the language was from the players, let alone the fans.[/b]

I think your old man needs to harden the f**k up tbh.

I went the opposite way....raised as a rugby fan, always had a game on the side however, basketball, cricket, league etc.

Football was a banned sport in our household as a kid but I used to catch what I could on what little would be on television but it only really flourished into more then a curiousity nearing ten years ago now...but then it got crushed once again when I went to an Italian school were me, as a Australian/Kiwi was subject to all kinds of racist remarks from the Italians who used to love thier football and go to the local Perth Glory games every weekend. This forever scarred the local team for me, of who that demographic that gave me so much grief in my formative years is still a huge part. So after I left that hellhole I now hang around from alot of mates who are from Leeds and thier love of the game naturally re-ignited it in me. The that draws me the most to it is the vibrancy of alot of the off the pitch stuff, transfers are my bread and butter, love the intrigue of players being able to come from anywhere, and of course the game itself I somehow am able to appreciate even the most boring of games so it just seems to click with me...probably all the years of watching a full day of test matches or a full day of V8 racing.

I support Liverpool, always have, they don't seem to be super douchebags like certain other un-named teams and I am absolutely dreading the nervousness and the such from the game tonight. [/b]

Interesting story there BLR and im glad you havent let individuals that have nothing to do with football discourage you.......i wouldnt worry about those w**kers mate your local team needs your support far far more than a team half-way accross the world.




I like both rugby and football i think i like football a bit more because i have a local team to follow whereas in Rugby Union i do not because ARU are too paranoid about losing its territory <strike>North shore sydney</strike> and keeping the old boys happy to expand into areas where there isnt a history of rugby union.

I used to be a casual fan of football and follow Manchester United and watch SBS before they where raped by fox and all there rights taken away because they have sweet FA money.But i wasnt fanatical until i discovered the greatness of Adelaide United i was on holiday in Adelaide and Adelaide United was playing Sydney FC so i thought i would go along having followed them casually throughout the inaugural season it was a great game 4 goals big crowd lots of noise and i was hooked.I started going to games travelling to games interstate etc etc.

I still follow overseas football and love it but i guess football has become more up close and personal for me now that football isnt just a satellite feed from the UK etc, that now Australia has a excellent league and a team from my state that *everyone* regardless of ethnicity can follow and support.

Sorry if im rambling ill finish now.........

 

[cristihendrix]

I've grown out of the soccerball and the basketball an fell in love with rugby a long time ago.

In Romania, football (soccer) is the king of sports. The sport news on TV are 98% about football. "Sports fan" actually translates in football fanatic. The problem is that the quality of the game is very low, even though some Romanian players are very appreciated (Mutu, Hagi, Chivu), the fans are even more violent than the Hooligans, and so on.

I've been attracted by the team spirit, fairplay and the ellegance of the rugby. I fell in love with the players' respect for the referee (which is inexistent in Romanian football), the dinamics of the game, the ammount of strategic awareness that players and coaches must have in rugby.

So yes, my planet Earth is no longer round.

PS: Brian O'Driscoll, the best.

 

[Steve-o]

So yes, my planet Earth is no longer round
[/b]

I like that

Btw cristihendrix, did the media follow Romania's RWC 2007 campaign? I was impressed by them, they starting to look professional

 

[peppers07]

I think 7 a side soccer is way better than 11 a side to play and watch. Way more high scoring fast paced and exciting. More open and players get way more space so the most skillfull players will have a much biger impact on the game

 

[sanzar]

Interesting topic. Soccer was actually the first team sport I played as a kid, and I did enjoy it at the time, but it was a very ethnically lopsided team with about 90% of the kids being Greek and I got a fair bit of stick being one of only 2 white kids (though not as bad as BLR by the sounds, cause some of them were alright). I then went and played league, and my team was probably more ethnically diverse and pretty working class, but the players and families were so much friendlier and more welcoming and there was just a sense of comradery that I never felt playing soccer. Eventually I became a Union man and I've never really looked back. For me Rugby has everything and is suited to all types of people, whereas other sports like soccer (and increasingly Rugby League) are suited to really only one type of physique and size.
To be honest though, I never really minded soccer for a long time and would watch the odd international with Australia (though I could never identify with any of the European clubs on any level or respect the attitudes of the players enough to start following any European team or League), but over the last ten years or so I've really begun to really dislike it because of a number of the reasons already stated, but also because soccer fans I've encountered in Sydney (and Aus in general) started to get really arrogant over the last 5 or 6 years. Always crapping on about how they support the 'world game' because it's "beautiful and rewards skill and technique instead of violence like rugby". Sure soccer requires skill, but get f#cked... I mean European soccer is the biggest in the world, but it's also a hotbed of corruption and deprivation... it's not beautiful and the players dive at the drop of a hat and you can't respect that. Especially when one considers the controversies the players are involved in as well (ones that make the Bulldogs in the NRL seem like upstanding citizens) and that soccer fans are the most violent and unruly of any sport. Then of course came the move to try ban the use of the word soccer in Aus by criticising people who used it. Sorry, but not a clever way to endear yourselves to the public.
The sport itself on pure merit alone I think can be brilliant, but it's still a massively flawed and negative game in my opinion and too many games are played in the vein of the last RWC final (ie teams trying not to lose rather than to win). And seriously, why can't soccer get with the times technologically? Why can't they bring in a video match official to keep an eye on divers? They could keep the refs ear and red card them immediately. They could even do what the NRL does and have a post match review committee to check fowl play and also to give severe bans to any player caught clearly diving who was not pinned during the game).

 

[sanzar]

<div class='quotemain'> I think it was all over for me football wise when Dad took me to a Harlow FC game when I was five. A minute later we were walking off with Dad incensed at how bad the language was from the players, let alone the fans.[/b]

I think your old man needs to harden the f**k up tbh.
[/b][/quote]
Oh the irony... telling someone to harden the f*** up while talking about soccer and it not being about the players.
Seriously though, I wouldn't be too harsh on his old man. You're talking English soccer here, where some fans will gladly stab you in the neck if they find out you support a rival team.

 

[Vambo]

Used to follow football... mainly Burnley FC and also had a soft spot for Man Utd. I wouldn't say I 'grew' out of it but I just felt that the game was no longer a representation of what I wanted to see on the field... the diving (not just the foriegners eh Gerrard?) really started to wind me up.

I can still vividly remember travelling to Ninian Park home of Cardiff to watch Burnley play and near the end of the game a large number of Cardiff fans left the game early and then started throwing housebricks over the wall at the Burnley fans. It all ended with the entire Burnley end spilling onto the pitch and then being kept in the ground for ages whilst the police 'allegedly' cleared the streets of the Cardiff fans. Upon being let out of the ground we were greeted with pockets of Cardiff fans intent on trouble and most of the cars and coaches vandalised.
That was the last time I went to an away match and I don't think I went to all that many home matches from that point on neither. I can't actually remember the last time I watched a game of football either in the flesh or on the tv.

 

[sanzar]

I can still vividly remember travelling to Ninian Park home of Cardiff to watch Burnley play and near the end of the game a large number of Cardiff fans left the game early and then started throwing housebricks over the wall at the Burnley fans. It all ended with the entire Burnley end spilling onto the pitch and then being kept in the ground for ages whilst the police 'allegedly' cleared the streets of the Cardiff fans. Upon being let out of the ground we were greeted with pockets of Cardiff fans intent on trouble and most of the cars and coaches vandalised.
That was the last time I went to an away match and I don't think I went to all that many home matches from that point on neither. I can't actually remember the last time I watched a game of football either in the flesh or on the tv. [/b]

Sums up the fans of soccer to a tee really...
I've never really been able to work that out to be honest. How Rugby, NFL, AFL etc are all wildly popular and physical games, yet never inspire the level of madness and violence in the fans that soccer does. I remember talking to a German friend of mine who I took to watch the State of Origin in Syndey and he told me he felt far more satisfying watching the violence and aggression play out on the field than watching the obsessive control against violence on the soccer pitch (that as we know leads to a gross abuse of the system through diving). Add to that it is often so hard to score in soccer and the game can become an exercise in stress building for the fan that seems to end in violence... I remember another friend of mine describing soccer as being like having sex but never being allowed to cum. No wonder the fans are such rabid lunatics .

 

[paretrooper]

played rugby as a kid then my mate said come play football i played for about two
weeks. becouse i did not like the idea of not being able to pick up the ball and running
with it.

the best quote i heard is "football is a gentlemens game played by houligans
rugby is a houligans game played by gentlemen"

 

[redunderthebed]

<div class='quotemain'> <div class='quotemain'> I think it was all over for me football wise when Dad took me to a Harlow FC game when I was five. A minute later we were walking off with Dad incensed at how bad the language was from the players, let alone the fans.[/b]

I think your old man needs to harden the f**k up tbh.
[/b][/quote]
Oh the irony... telling someone to harden the f*** up while talking about soccer and it not being about the players.
Seriously though, I wouldn't be too harsh on his old man. You're talking English soccer here, where some fans will gladly stab you in the neck if they find out you support a rival team. [/b][/quote]

Is there any statements coming from you about football that arent based on **** stereotypes?.

I'm starting to wonder.....

<div class='quotemain'>
I can still vividly remember travelling to Ninian Park home of Cardiff to watch Burnley play and near the end of the game a large number of Cardiff fans left the game early and then started throwing housebricks over the wall at the Burnley fans. It all ended with the entire Burnley end spilling onto the pitch and then being kept in the ground for ages whilst the police 'allegedly' cleared the streets of the Cardiff fans. Upon being let out of the ground we were greeted with pockets of Cardiff fans intent on trouble and most of the cars and coaches vandalised.
That was the last time I went to an away match and I don't think I went to all that many home matches from that point on neither. I can't actually remember the last time I watched a game of football either in the flesh or on the tv. [/b]

Sums up the fans of soccer to a tee really...
[/b][/quote]

Here we go again more stereotypes. <_<

 

[Gay-Guy]

I remember another friend of mine describing soccer as being like having sex but never being allowed to cum. [/b]

Yep and funny how rugby is the perfect sporting example of sexual excitement for a fan. As the team gets closer to the try line the excitement slowly builds and builds...and gets more excited...and then almost uncontrollable excitement...then finally the climax of a try. With soccer if you blink or look the other way a goal could be scored. In soccer there is no build up to a climax..just anxiety attacks of misses and then a sudden stab of a sudden goal.

 

[redunderthebed]

<div class='quotemain'> I remember another friend of mine describing soccer as being like having sex but never being allowed to cum. [/b]

In soccer there is no build up to a climax..just anxiety attacks of misses and then a sudden stab of a sudden goal.

[/b][/quote]

Nah as a football fan its a moment of sheer joy and happiness.

Best feeling in sport without a doubt.

 

[Hamster]

I first started playing rugby for 3 years then soccer for 3 years then back to rugby for 3 years and counting.

I still enjoy Football/soccer, I go for Liverpool and the Queensland Roar, things I hate the most is the fact its a two sided race every season, same ol Man U/Arsenal/Chelsea winning the prem lol, and the fact they get paid ridicously, they get more in a week then the average person gets in a year. Sport, but especially football is a commodity, its money first, sentiment second, common sence third and loyalty lastly. Rugbys a great sport, I just think its a shame some people cant get there head around that, either they're just snaps or **** kickers.

I generally like any sport, but I think Soccer can be a tad overated and the term 'world' game is stupid, like saying AFL is crap cos its only played in one country, but its not I dont mind the game myself and a lot of people that were born overseas or had non aussie parents have made it to the AFL and love the game. Gay guy summed it up, but I'll add AFL is like rugby because you can show a shitload of courage and putting your body on the line in that sport.

 

[Steve-o]

Unfortunately rugby is heading down the same road slowly but surely. Record contracts are being set every year, players are quiting international rugby to focus on overseas club commitments. They're even starting to 'dive' up there in the NH

 

[redunderthebed]

Unfortunately rugby is heading down the same road slowly but surely. Record contracts are being set every year, players are quiting international rugby to focus on overseas club commitments. They're even starting to 'dive' up there in the NH [/b]

Rubbish rugby hasnt got the money the fanbase or the global reach to even come close to the level of commercialism that football has got to.

That is a good thing i must admit football has being prostituted by people who dont give f**k about football and just see it as an "investment" and clubs as a vehicle to exploit peoples loyalty to make money.

 

[BLR]

That is a good thing i must admit football has being prostituted by people who dont give f**k about football and just see it as an "investment" and clubs as a vehicle to exploit peoples loyalty to make money.
[/b]

Surely not!

Chelsea is a team built on a long history of triumphs with a owner of great passion for the club!

 

[Steve-o]

I didn't say it was there already, i said slowly but surely.
Dan Carter has been signed for a record amount, a record amount of international SH players are in the NH and have put club commitments as 1st priority.
So, what you disagreeing with?