Why do people "hate" football (soccer)?

[Munro_Mick]

I don't have a problem with low socring in soccer per se, just that it's more likely leads in circumstances where a result is required to a penalty shoot-out. Now on their own a penalty shootout has drama and tension in abundance, but so would playing paper, rock and scissors to determine the winner but in the end it just leaves me cold. I don't know how to make it more fair, perhaps a goal count back or in the case of nill all just keep playing until a goal is scored. But it would be better if there was a different tie-breker to a penalty shootout.

the low scoring means that a single 'fluke' score might decide a game, or, as you indicate, the penalty shoot out can come down to a single flukey save.
The negatively geared rule book ensures this. That I don't like.
The negativity of the rules allows a team to park a bus in front of the goals and just defend, defend, defend. It's easy to do when the rules make it so.

It's a bit like baseball vs cricket. Baseball can come down to the luck of who scores a home run, the side with bases loaded or the side not. Cricket - for it's shortcomings - still requires a more sustained assault.

 

[liam_13]

I get a greater laugh reading the soccer comments on this site rather than the traditional soccer sites because this is predominately a foodyball site

Keep up the entertainment boys

The world game is growing in Bogan land

People who bag your country, calling it 'bogan land' can't do much for the sport...seeings as why would you want to support a sport associated with elitists?

edit: Not associated, but there are a number of fans who have erections because Australia is bogan land, and because they are able to point that out constantly, makes them smart and not bogan = elitist.

 

[cfc to aufc]

Mate the country is beautiful it is just many of its inhabitants

 

[TheOz]

Most AFL fans don't get into soccer because they just don't care. They're perfectly happy just to follow their footy.

But those people who do try and get into it need to stop comparing it to AFL. They are very different sports.

The offside rule is a great example. When you're from an AFL background (like I started from) it seems to make no sense at all. Once you appreciate how soccer works you realise the game would be unwatchable without it.

For what it's worth, I think AFL and soccer complement each other beautifully. One is played in winter, one in summer (in Oz, at least). One is truly local, one is truly international. One is primarily an athletic game, the other is primarily technical. One is filled with scoring, the other is filled with tension.

There are so many great things about each sport. I reckon everyone should try and embrace them both.

I wish this were the case, that people wouldn't care and would leave us who follow soccer to follow our sport, rather than chiming in everytime a soccer story develops about how "Un-Australian/soft/boring" etc. etc. it is. Aussie Rules journalist hacks like Sheahan, Robinson etc. and the Herald Sun brigade are only too willing to publish the viewpoints of these AFL "experts" on why Aussie Rules is so much better than soccer during major soccer tournaments (the World Cup specifically) rather than just "not caring". They send undercover "reporters" to A-League games to fabricate stories about "crowd violence" and they're all too willing to conflate every single, minor "incident" that may have or have not occurred at a soccer game to the entire sport, not only smearing the sport itself but everyone who happens to follow it.

Regardless of that, brilliant post.

 

[HawkMongrel]

I wish this were the case, that people wouldn't care and would leave us who follow soccer to follow our sport, rather than chiming in everytime a soccer story develops about how "Un-Australian/soft/boring" etc. etc. it is. Aussie Rules journalist hacks like Sheahan, Robinson etc. and the Herald Sun brigade are only too willing to publish the viewpoints of these AFL "experts" on why Aussie Rules is so much better than soccer during major soccer tournaments (the World Cup specifically) rather than just "not caring". They send undercover "reporters" to A-League games to fabricate stories about "crowd violence" and they're all too willing to conflate every single, minor "incident" that may have or have not occurred at a soccer game to the entire sport, not only smearing the sport itself but everyone who happens to follow it.

Regardless of that, brilliant post.

Are you referring to our good friend (c**t) Sean Scumbag Sowerby?

Agree with you on the point about not caring rather than hating. It's the whole reason why I posted the question at the start of this thread.

I understand that people don't care about things in life. But when they don't care about it, they just leave it alone and get on with their lives.

Football (soccer) is different in this country. People don't want to leave it alone.....they want it crushed and take pleasure in seeing it fall apart when it has in the past. They actually cheer the failure on.

Nobody seems to cheer Basketball's failures on, they just don't care for it. The hatred just isn't there.


Oh, and those people that have posted in this thread so far saying they hate the sport because its supporters insist on calling it football rather than soccer.......wooooow! If that's not the most pathetic thing I've ever heard..............and you would have us believe we live in a free country where we can speak as we like.....HA! "Say what you want, unless we disagree with you, then you're wrong, you're different to us and we'll hate you for it"

Smacks of that sort of mentality really.

 

[Hoops]

I wish this were the case, that people wouldn't care and would leave us who follow soccer to follow our sport, rather than chiming in everytime a soccer story develops about how "Un-Australian/soft/boring" etc. etc. it is. Aussie Rules journalist hacks like Sheahan, Robinson etc. and the Herald Sun brigade are only too willing to publish the viewpoints of these AFL "experts" on why Aussie Rules is so much better than soccer during major soccer tournaments (the World Cup specifically) rather than just "not caring". They send undercover "reporters" to A-League games to fabricate stories about "crowd violence" and they're all too willing to conflate every single, minor "incident" that may have or have not occurred at a soccer game to the entire sport, not only smearing the sport itself but everyone who happens to follow it.

Regardless of that, brilliant post.

Perhaps the negativity geared towards soccer is due to, the supporter base constantly telling us it's going to take over, you follow a bogan sport, soccer fans are much more passionate, you know the "It's not soccer it's football, the real football" types

 

[TheOz]

Perhaps the negativity geared towards soccer is due to, the supporter base constantly telling us it's going to take over, you follow a bogan sport, soccer fans are much more passionate, you know the "It's not soccer it's football, the real football" types

No, the hatred towards soccer stems back a century prior to any small minority of diehards proclaiming it to be "real" or whatever other overblown hyperbole anti-soccer guerilla warriors like to spout as their latest excuse for hating the game. I am also unaware of a concerted, united effort by any collective of "soccer fans" to "take over" anything, or to even claim that the game is going to "take over", again another overblown claim perhaps made by an individual or two used as an excuse by the soccer haters to tarnish the entire sport (this seems to be a recurring theme).

The retorts of "bogan sport" are relatively new in the scheme of things and are merely used to respond back to the many decades of the Aussie Rules establishment laying into the game as being "wogball", "Un-Australian" and what ever other racial embellishments you want to throw in there.

The reason that the game is hated is not for apparent proclamations of domination made by its supporters, nor because it is "boring" (ie: curling is boring in my opinion, yet I don't hate it and go out of my way to ridicule it straight to the face of curling supporters), it is hated purely because it is used as the medium for racists and bigots to lay into migrants, the offspring of migrants, foreigners and anyone not culturally "Australian", without explicitly stating such prejudices straight into the faces of the victims. It is used as a vehicle by nationalists to instill an us against them mentality, where all of the cultural institutions in place, specifically "Australian" sports such as Aussie Rules come under threat from this foreign invasion, a metaphor used in place of the explicit mentioning of foreign people flooding Australia and diluting the purity of the white, Australian population.

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of the history of Association Football in Australia, specifically the history of the game in Victoria knows that the siege on Association Football is not a new phenomenon, it doesn't stem from so called "arrogance" or any other mealy mouthed excuse used by the Aussie Rules protagonists, it is a phenomenon almost as old as the nation itself.

 

[Hoops]

No, the hatred towards soccer stems back a century prior to any small minority of diehards proclaiming it to be "real" or whatever other overblown hyperbole anti-soccer guerilla warriors like to spout as their latest excuse for hating the game. I am also unaware of a concerted, united effort by any collective of "soccer fans" to "take over" anything, or to even claim that the game is going to "take over", again another overblown claim perhaps made by an individual or two used as an excuse by the soccer haters to tarnish the entire sport (this seems to be a recurring theme).

The retorts of "bogan sport" are relatively new in the scheme of things and are merely used to respond back to the many decades of the Aussie Rules establishment laying into the game as being "wogball", "Un-Australian" and what ever other racial embellishments you want to throw in there.

The reason that the game is hated is not for apparent proclamations of domination made by its supporters, nor because it is "boring" (ie: curling is boring in my opinion, yet I don't hate it and go out of my way to ridicule it straight to the face of curling supporters), it is hated purely because it is used as the medium for racists and bigots to lay into migrants, the offspring of migrants, foreigners and anyone not culturally "Australian", without explicitly stating such prejudices straight into the faces of the victims. It is used as a vehicle by nationalists to instill an us against them mentality, where all of the cultural institutions in place, specifically "Australian" sports such as Aussie Rules come under threat from this foreign invasion, a metaphor used in place of the explicit mentioning of foreign people flooding Australia and diluting the purity of the white, Australian population.

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of the history of Association Football in Australia, specifically the history of the game in Victoria knows that the siege on Association Football is not a new phenomenon, it doesn't stem from so called "arrogance" or any other mealy mouthed excuse used by the Aussie Rules protagonists, it is a phenomenon almost as old as the nation itself.

To say that the hatred of soccer stems back a century would be very unlikely as up to the 1950's 98% of Australia was of British/Irish heritage, so soccer would of been viewed as just another British game like Cricket or Rugby. The world view for Australians at the time would of been as limited as the information age at the time.

Sure when Southern Europeans started migrating here, Wog Ball was used as a thinly veiled way of attacking those migrants, but so was "Wog food" but most of us have moved on and "wog food" is very much part of an Australians diet as is soccer.

If you were unaware of the soccer warriors proclaiming that Aussie rules was doomed as the sleeping giant has awoken, then you must of been out of the country when Australia qualified and played in the '06 WC (the hysteria had died down for '10 WC)and when Australia entered and ran it's bid for the '22 WC.

I think the whole premise of this thread, "Why do people hate soccer" has no basis in modern day Australia. The whole argument comes down to soccer warriors with chips on their shoulders from times gone by, and Aussie Rules supporters defending their choice against negativity with their own negativity thrown in which has overtime created a tit for tat cycle.

 

[gazzas army]

No, the hatred towards soccer stems back a century prior to any small minority of diehards proclaiming it to be "real" or whatever other overblown hyperbole anti-soccer guerilla warriors like to spout as their latest excuse for hating the game. I am also unaware of a concerted, united effort by any collective of "soccer fans" to "take over" anything, or to even claim that the game is going to "take over", again another overblown claim perhaps made by an individual or two used as an excuse by the soccer haters to tarnish the entire sport (this seems to be a recurring theme).

The retorts of "bogan sport" are relatively new in the scheme of things and are merely used to respond back to the many decades of the Aussie Rules establishment laying into the game as being "wogball", "Un-Australian" and what ever other racial embellishments you want to throw in there.

The reason that the game is hated is not for apparent proclamations of domination made by its supporters, nor because it is "boring" (ie: curling is boring in my opinion, yet I don't hate it and go out of my way to ridicule it straight to the face of curling supporters), it is hated purely because it is used as the medium for racists and bigots to lay into migrants, the offspring of migrants, foreigners and anyone not culturally "Australian", without explicitly stating such prejudices straight into the faces of the victims. It is used as a vehicle by nationalists to instill an us against them mentality, where all of the cultural institutions in place, specifically "Australian" sports such as Aussie Rules come under threat from this foreign invasion, a metaphor used in place of the explicit mentioning of foreign people flooding Australia and diluting the purity of the white, Australian population.

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of the history of Association Football in Australia, specifically the history of the game in Victoria knows that the siege on Association Football is not a new phenomenon, it doesn't stem from so called "arrogance" or any other mealy mouthed excuse used by the Aussie Rules protagonists, it is a phenomenon almost as old as the nation itself.

NAAAAAAH............................pretty sure its hated cause its boring!

 

[TheOz]

NAAAAAAH............................pretty sure its hated cause its boring!

Do you hate everything that you find "boring", or do you merely ignore them like any normal person would?

 

[TheOz]

To say that the hatred of soccer stems back a century would be very unlikely as up to the 1950's 98% of Australia was of British/Irish heritage, so soccer would of been viewed as just another British game like Cricket or Rugby. The world view for Australians at the time would of been as limited as the information age at the time.

Sure when Southern Europeans started migrating here, Wog Ball was used as a thinly veiled way of attacking those migrants, but so was "Wog food" but most of us have moved on and "wog food" is very much part of an Australians diet as is soccer.

If you were unaware of the soccer warriors proclaiming that Aussie rules was doomed as the sleeping giant has awoken, then you must of been out of the country when Australia qualified and played in the '06 WC (the hysteria had died down for '10 WC)and when Australia entered and ran it's bid for the '22 WC.

I think the whole premise of this thread, "Why do people hate soccer" has no basis in modern day Australia. The whole argument comes down to soccer warriors with chips on their shoulders from times gone by, and Aussie Rules supporters defending their choice against negativity with their own negativity thrown in which has overtime created a tit for tat cycle.

You are correct that soccerphobia hit its heights in the 50s however calls to remove the "foreign invasion" by the Australian Rules established were made as early as the 1920s. Grounds in Tasmania were vandalised and strewn with broken glass prior to a touring English team playing against a select Australian team even prior to that for example.

 

[HawkMongrel]

No, the hatred towards soccer stems back a century prior to any small minority of diehards proclaiming it to be "real" or whatever other overblown hyperbole anti-soccer guerilla warriors like to spout as their latest excuse for hating the game. I am also unaware of a concerted, united effort by any collective of "soccer fans" to "take over" anything, or to even claim that the game is going to "take over", again another overblown claim perhaps made by an individual or two used as an excuse by the soccer haters to tarnish the entire sport (this seems to be a recurring theme).

The retorts of "bogan sport" are relatively new in the scheme of things and are merely used to respond back to the many decades of the Aussie Rules establishment laying into the game as being "wogball", "Un-Australian" and what ever other racial embellishments you want to throw in there.

The reason that the game is hated is not for apparent proclamations of domination made by its supporters, nor because it is "boring" (ie: curling is boring in my opinion, yet I don't hate it and go out of my way to ridicule it straight to the face of curling supporters), it is hated purely because it is used as the medium for racists and bigots to lay into migrants, the offspring of migrants, foreigners and anyone not culturally "Australian", without explicitly stating such prejudices straight into the faces of the victims. It is used as a vehicle by nationalists to instill an us against them mentality, where all of the cultural institutions in place, specifically "Australian" sports such as Aussie Rules come under threat from this foreign invasion, a metaphor used in place of the explicit mentioning of foreign people flooding Australia and diluting the purity of the white, Australian population.

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of the history of Association Football in Australia, specifically the history of the game in Victoria knows that the siege on Association Football is not a new phenomenon, it doesn't stem from so called "arrogance" or any other mealy mouthed excuse used by the Aussie Rules protagonists, it is a phenomenon almost as old as the nation itself.

Abso-f**king-lutely.

For the people that don't believe this sort of thing, read the next few examples:

Argus Thursday 12 April 1928



FOOTBALL CONTROL.
ASSOCIATION DEBATE.
FEAR OF "SOCCER" COMPETITION.

Affiliation With League Favoured.

Fears for the future of the Australian game of football in the face of ever-growing competition from other codes were expressed by delegates at the special meeting of the Victorian Football Association last night to discuss the conference with the League. There appeared to have been a decided swing towards affiliation with the League since the previous meeting, when voting on the matter had been equal, and last night many delegates expressed themselves in favour of ambition, while there was not one delegate, who was definitely against it. There was some difference of opinion as to the manner in which the League should be approached at the conference, but, whether actuated by fear of losing their players to the League clubs or from other reasons, all agreed that affiliation should be the first matter brought forward by the Association at the conference after first giving the League the opportunity to bring forward any ideas.

Delegates were outspoken on the necessity for the bodies in control of the Australian game presenting a united front to the onslaughts from other codes. It was suggested that, if the Association should be forced out of existence, its grounds would be secured by "soccer" clubs, whose existence would imperil the very existence of the Australian code. "Australian football is going down hill," said Mr Trainor (Northcote) and it will not be very long before we find that other football has made very rapid strides, and that it will compete very strongly with us within the next few years. Soccer and Rugby will soon be contending seriously with the Australian code for supremacy. The opposing codes are seeking our grounds now. We will ask for reasonable basis of negotiations from the League when we seek affilliation, and I take it that the League is sincere in its designs." We must act for the best interests of Australian football as a whole.

. . . Mr. Reedy (Prahran) said that a united front was necessary to prevent the Soccer clubs from gaining further ground.

The Canberra Times Wednesday 29 July 1953

DICTATORSHIP
IN SPORT

SAYS GALVIN
MELBOURNE, Tuesday.
The Victorian Football League's refusal to allow the touring Chinese Soccer team to use the Melbourne Cricket Ground next month was. an attempt to set up a dictatoiship in sport, the Acting-Premier (Mr. Galvin) said to-night.
The V. F. L .was adopting a "Dog in the manger attitude," he said.
Although the Melbourne Cricket Club has agreed to allow the team to play on the M. C. G. on August 22 and 29- when Melbourne football team is playing away - the V. F. L. has refused. No reason has been, given.
Mr. Galvin said he did not think the National game of football had anything to fear from Soccer. People who wanted to see Soccer should not be prevented from doing so. "Personally, my view is that the more people see of Soccer, the more they will like our National game," Mr. Galvin added. (Mr Galvin ia a keen Australian Rules follower, and has been an executive of the Bendigo Football League for many years).

Argus Saturday 10 September 1927 >

Influence of Soccer.
Mr D. Crone (Carlton) said that he viewed with alarm the great amonut of soccer football that was being taught in schools, and he thought that it was time the League took action to prevent the teaching of other codes in schools where the Australian game should be played. The League had spent large sums of money on school football, and he urged that a deputation wait upon officials of the Education department on the matter.
Mr I .H. McBrien (South Melbourne) in support, said that he learned only recently that technical school children were taught soccer by teachers subsidised by the soccer authorities. The result was the formation of a very fine association and it was a danger to which great consideration should be given.
Mr. R.W. Cole (St. Kilda) thought that the League would show a sign of weakness by taking action as suggested. Only those boys who were not good enough to be included in the team that played the Australian game turned to soccer.
Mr Hunt said that there was no doubt that soccer was being played by an increasing number of schoolboys and every step possible should be taken to combat it. The trouble arose from the number of English teachers who had been appointed to Victorian schools

Argus Saturday 18 July 1925

No thing is more certain than that the League will presently have to fight the "Soccer" people, who have a great game, and for whom British immigration is an added strength. There is room for both codes in a community like Victoria, but is the League well advised in starting an internecine contest pending the other inevitable one with "Soccer". I repeat "Short-sighted!"

All of these articles can be looked up on trove.nla.gov.au

And there are so many, many more.

 

[Munro_Mick]

No, the hatred towards soccer stems back a century prior to any small minority of diehards proclaiming it to be "real" or whatever other overblown hyperbole anti-soccer guerilla warriors like to spout as their latest excuse for hating the game.

funny you say that, back a century etc.

I've been having a look through the old newspapers and looking around July 1880 where the NSW Football Association was being established in NSW and the animosity from a couple of scribes towards the 'Victorian Rules' game up in Sydney.
Compared to Melbourne where there was barely a ripple to people calling for establishment of clubs to play either the English Association rules or the Rugby rules.

and so, the mention of Mike Sheahan is odd, as, since his last article some years back now about soccer being just so 'ho, hum' - which he was encouraged to do in the opinion section and NOT the sports section - and since has declared he wouldn't venture that path again - - and yet you've put his name forward????

Compare to the constant anti-AFL barrage from the likes of Roy Masters (NRL), Michael Cockerill (for about 2 years around the WC bid), Craig Foster, Michael Lynch.

Anyway, this tends us back to the first point. The media hatred and animosity tends to be a Sydney centered thing. In Melbourne, there's been stuff all said about the formation of MVFC, Melb Hearts, Storm, Rebels, and the dedicated rectangular stadium. Compare that to the anti-AFL and anti-Vic/Melb crap from Sydney over GWS, Skoda stadium and Blacktown oval etc etc.

and, at the end of it all, even after about 130 years of people telling us that the English games are superior, the people of Aust Footy regions remain unconvinced, or just don't care. Do we hate soccer. No. But, when something like the WC bid came around, it brought out the true colours of many - - all those soccerheads who declared the hosting of the WC would push the AFL aside and put soccer where (by some weird reasoning) it 'deserved'(??) to be.

That was a timely reminder about the amount of envy there is in the Australian market place. And that's a key point - the AFL followers in the main don't care because there's nothing to envy. Most AFL followers get their fix of international flag waving with the wallabies/socceroos/cricket team/olympics etc, so, we love our national league and envy nothing domestically.

 

[finders]

I get a greater laugh reading the soccer comments on this site rather than the traditional soccer sites because this is predominately a foodyball site

Keep up the entertainment boys

The world game is growing in Bogan land

Yeah I see the Victory crowd dropped in half (18,000) at last weeks game without the 33 year ,old well past it, injury prone, former super star Kewell!

 

[mojito]

Yeah I see the Victory crowd dropped in half (18,000) at last weeks game without the 33 year ,old well past it, injury prone, former super star Kewell!

Kewell had nothing to do with that. They went from playing the reigning premiers to a stuttering machine in Perth. A drop in those circumstances is not unexpected.

And besides a drop in the crowd from 24k to 18k is a drop of 6k...which is nowhere near a drop in half.

 

[HawkMongrel]

Kewell had nothing to do with that. They went from playing the reigning premiers to a stuttering machine in Perth. A drop in those circumstances is not unexpected.

And besides a drop in the crowd from 24k to 18k is a drop of 6k...which is nowhere near a drop in half.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good argument.

 

[Puddy]

while there are Football journalists that bag soccer, there are also Soccer journalists that bag Football, it goes both ways. Will it get to the point where if Soccer Australia wants to play with the big boys, they will schedule a winter season?

 

[HawkMongrel]

while there are Football journalists that bag soccer, there are also Soccer journalists that bag Football, it goes both ways. Will it get to the point where if Soccer Australia wants to play with the big boys, they will schedule a winter season?

Who are Soccer Australia? They went out of business a long time ago.

As for a Winter Season, that will never happen.

a) Association football runs through our summer months globally
b) The FFA would not put the sport into a position that directly competes with the other winter sports. Would be stupid.

 

[Munro_Mick]

The FFA would not put the sport into a position that directly competes with the other winter sports. Would be stupid.

Well,

not now that the 2022 WC bid is dead in the water.

 

[Munro_Mick]

Abso-f**king-lutely.

For the people that don't believe this sort of thing, read the next few examples:

All of these articles can be looked up on trove.nla.gov.au

And there are so many, many more.

You actually ought to have gone back a little further. The scene for code wars in Australia was set well before then - which made the administrators of Australian Football far less likely to provide a hand of peace to other codes.

btw - what's wrong with the 1928 reference you published? It looks like an acknowledgement that too much in-fighting within a code might be counter productive. There was nothing underhanded about that one.

In fact - I'm not sure what we're supposed to glean from those articles other than that perhaps the VFL was being mean spirited in 1953 re the Chinese team.

 

[liam_13]

No, the hatred towards soccer stems back a century prior to any small minority of diehards proclaiming it to be "real" or whatever other overblown hyperbole anti-soccer guerilla warriors like to spout as their latest excuse for hating the game. I am also unaware of a concerted, united effort by any collective of "soccer fans" to "take over" anything, or to even claim that the game is going to "take over", again another overblown claim perhaps made by an individual or two used as an excuse by the soccer haters to tarnish the entire sport (this seems to be a recurring theme). So when a soccer follower or 2 makes an overblown claim, it shouldn't mean all soccer followers are grouped in with those individuals. And I'm unaware of a concerted, united effort by soccer 'haters' to banish the game from Australia. Maybe an individual or 2 has made an overblown claim, but they shouldn't all be in the same basket?

it is hated purely because it is used as the medium for racists and bigots to lay into migrants, the offspring of migrants, foreigners and anyone not culturally "Australian", without explicitly stating such prejudices straight into the faces of the victims. It is used as a vehicle by nationalists to instill an us against them mentality, where all of the cultural institutions in place, specifically "Australian" sports such as Aussie Rules come under threat from this foreign invasion, a metaphor used in place of the explicit mentioning of foreign people flooding Australia and diluting the purity of the white, Australian population. So the sport is not hated, merely the majority of people who follow the sport?

it doesn't stem from so called "arrogance" or any other mealy mouthed excuse used by the Aussie Rules protagonists, it is a phenomenon almost as old as the nation itself.

Not actually arguing with you, just discussing

I know it must be hard to have mud constantly slung at a game you love, especially when it is all so wrong. People who have no idea of the physicality and stuff of the EPL, then go on to say how they're all '****tas' and other discrimantory terms. But really, is it that big a deal?

For instance I play hockey. I love it, not quite as much as footy but it's easier on my feet, both of which I've had surgery on. Yet when I tell people I play it, I'm met with cries of 'lol hockey is for girls' 'surely you would be in the national team, i mean no one plays it' and 'oh that ****ing sport, ****ing ****tas game'.

These people are not just trying to stir me up, as in some cases I have just met them and so they are just being their ignorant selves. But I don't let it get to my head. I'm just like 'whatever' and that's it. No need to defend my sport, by rubbishing other sports...which after all, two wrongs don't make a right.

This is basically what I posted earlier, let the ignorant, uneducated bogans be, and revel in the fact you are more tolerant and accepting then them

 

[TheOz]

Not actually arguing with you, just discussing

I know it must be hard to have mud constantly slung at a game you love, especially when it is all so wrong. People who have no idea of the physicality and stuff of the EPL, then go on to say how they're all '****tas' and other discrimantory terms. But really, is it that big a deal?

For instance I play hockey. I love it, not quite as much as footy but it's easier on my feet, both of which I've had surgery on. Yet when I tell people I play it, I'm met with cries of 'lol hockey is for girls' 'surely you would be in the national team, i mean no one plays it' and 'oh that ****ing sport, ****ing ****tas game'.

These people are not just trying to stir me up, as in some cases I have just met them and so they are just being their ignorant selves. But I don't let it get to my head. I'm just like 'whatever' and that's it. No need to defend my sport, by rubbishing other sports...which after all, two wrongs don't make a right.

This is basically what I posted earlier, let the ignorant, uneducated bogans be, and revel in the fact you are more tolerant and accepting then them

Great post and thanks for the reply.

Don't get me wrong, I love the footy, it was the sport I grew up with and the first sport I played, however there is a world of sport outside of it worth exploring. If AFL coaches can borrow tactical ideas from soccer and American Football, then I don't see why footy fans can't accept that these sports aren't rubbish.

The worst sporting injury I ever suffered was playing hockey, a stick to the back of the lower part of my leg, snapped the achilles pretty badly, took a good 18 months of rehab and alot of physio work to even get close to being remotely mobile again, whoever calls it "soft" has no idea.

Hockey is a really great sport that mirrors soccer in many ways in terms of tactics and the general structure of the game, the scoring system is the same and the offside rule was very similar until they got rid of it in hockey in the 90s. It's a fun sport to play but difficult to master, some of the stickwork of the pros is pretty impressive.

I follow the EPL quite religously and I've been keeping a keen on eye on Spurs this season specifically Scott Parker as he is one of my favourite players. He gets kicked from pillar to post every single game, studs to the legs and thighs, kicks to the back of the feet, legs taken out from under him and he still gets up and plays on, injured or otherwise. Whilst diving and play acting is a blight on the game, a player like Scott Parker dispels the notion that the game is "soft". It obviously isn't full body contact, but to dismiss some of the contact these players receive to their legs and lower bodies, specifically being kicked and having studs dragged down legs and backs of ankles is sheer ignorance.

 

[mojito]

^ I've been impressed by Parker this season. Looks to have been a good pickup for Spurs.

 

[liam_13]

Can't say I've really heard of him, other then a little bit hear and there oh well. but totally agree with your point, it's not soft at all.

Yep hockey is great, it's fun to learn the tactics and for me, learning to do a trick shot of some kind is just as good as learning how to kick a goal from the boundary line in footy. Or learning to juggle a soccer ball. All 3 are rewarding, and are parts of great sports.

Ah, another point. Any sport is a great sport, all require at the elite level an amazing amount of skill/fitness/finesse/power etc and training. More then the average 'bogan' could ever dream off. A utopia for me would include no ignorance in sport.

 

[Puddy]

Soccer Australia doesnt want to put themselves up as direct competition to Rugby and Football but they were all too happy to put the world cup on during Rugby and Football season. If Soccer wants to go on about how they are better than everyone else A-League needs to be scheduled during the winter. Talk the talk, gotta walk the walk