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A question is whether the global dominance of games codified by English speakers is solely the result of the Anglosphere getting a jump on railroads earlier, or whether there were deeper cultural differences that have led to the global domination by English-speakers’ games.
In support of the former proposition, note that auto racing is a major sport today, but one that developed after railways. The first race may have been run in England in 1867 and was won by the vehicle of an owner with the technologically intimidating name of Isaac Watt Boulton.
But, auto racing didn’t really get going until after the invention of the gasoline powered automobile engine in the 1880s, and much of the organizational development was on the Continent, especially in France.
On the other hand, it seems as if there big enough cities on the Continent, such as Paris, that sports could have evolved there before they did in the English-speaking world, if only the locals had had the will and capability to invent widely-agreed upon rules. But they mostly didn’t.
Nineteenth Century European observers frequently noted, with praise or scorn, the English mania for well-organized sports. In some countries, such as Argentina, the Jockey Club was the headquarters of the Anglophile tendency in local culture and politics.
This doesn’t mean that the English invented sports. For example, the famous Palio horserace in the town square of beautiful Siena, Italy has been run since 1633.
On the other hand, the Palio has few rules; jockeys are encouraged to bribe other jockeys to lose, while spoilsport unbribed jockeys can be legally whipped off their mounts. While we can complain about, say, Brazilian soccer star Neymar taking a dive and pretending to have been fouled, there still does indeed seem to be something of the English public school about most modern sports compared to the sport of the wily Sienese.
Games such as soccer, rugby, American football, and Australian rules football started out in England as mob football, a pretty much ruleless contest played in a town’s high street with all the lads from one end of town vying against against all the lads from the other end of town, such as the the Up’ards and the Down’ards of Ashbourne, to move the ball to distant goals, sometimes miles apart. These games were kind of a cross between a modern rugby scrum and a mass migration.
Eventually, more modern ball games evolved at public (i.e., private) schools, such as Eton. I can’t tell whether they only evolved there or whether the old boys of Eton and the like were just more likely to write down references to their games than were, say, farm boys.
Because it was impractical to travel by horse-drawn coach to play other schools, games were intramural and each school evolved its own rules to fit its playing field. Beginning in the 1840s, rich kids’ schools started to ride the railway to play each other, typically using one team’s rules for the first half of the game and the other team’s rules for the second half. Eventually in the 1870s, conventions standardized rules, which led to the major break between Rugby’s running with the ball tradition and the kicking-only rule of the Association of Charterhouse, Winchester, and Cambridge (“association” in Victorian slang became “soccer”).
Similar developments were taking place in other English-speaking lands, such as America and Australia.
A few of these idiosyncratic local games are still played, such as the famous Eton wall game. This is rather like rugby except you have to crash into a long wall all the time. It sounds quite knuckleheaded.
Not many Etonians actually play the Eton wall game. More play the Eton field game. There is also Harrow football:
The leather ball is shaped like a giant pork pie, about 18 inches in diameter and 12 inches (300 mm) deep. It tends to soak up mud and water and become extremely heavy.
And then there is Winchester College football, an extremely complicated predecessor to soccer, which, judging from the Wikipedia entry, might exist or might just be an elaborate hoax:
Winchester College football, also known as Winkies, WinCoFo or simply “Our Game”, is a code of football played at Winchester College. It is akin to the Eton Field and Wall Games and Harrow Football in that it enjoys a large following from Wykehamists and old Wykehamists but is not played outside the community directly connected to Winchester College. The Winkies season is during Common Time (January–March). …
Jun XXIIs ( also known as II v XXII) used to be another end-of-term game, although somewhat less competitive as the score was by tradition seventeen and three quarters all. It was played between the junnest (that is, lowest in order on their scholarship roll) twenty-two Collegemen who were not otherwise engaged and two top-year Collegemen, usually including the captain of College VI. It was refereed by the Aulae Prae, who would award free busts to all and sundry, giving any reason he chose. The jun men would hot in single file. The Bogle Prae (the most Sen Collegeman to keep a bicycle in College) would cycle up and down Ropes, and the crowd would periodically throw buckets of water over the players. During the mid-1980s, prior to the innovation of the buckets of water, the crowd would throw carrots onto the canvas, which were picked out of the mud and consumed by the referee of the time, College Tutor John Hunter Durran. Afterwards, a Hot was held in Logie, the stream which runs between the College buildings and the Warden’s Garden
Winkies, with its baffling profusion of rules, seems to reflect an English urge to create rules not only for their public utilitarian goals, but simply for the sake of creating rules.
iSteve commenter Hippopotamusdrome notes:
Continentals come up with games like fox tossing that never really caught on.
Fox tossing (German: Fuchsprellen )
Wildcats were particularly troublesome; as one writer remarked, they “do not give a pleasing kind of sport, for if they cannot bury their claws and teeth in the faces or legs of the tossers, they cling to the tossing-slings for dear life, and it is next to impossible to give one of these animals a skillful toss”.
Steve, why not just emigrate to Britain? You know you want to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JseMC7WZDYA
This is similar to how you can tell the geographic origin of a language family by looking at the number of regional dialects.
Jun XXIIs, which is the particularly bizarre game, seems unlikely to ever have been considered actual sport.
From what I read, it was a novelty game engaged in as a bit of a laugh by those in the less than ten percent of the school that resided in the scholar’s house – a place famed for eccentricity.
Interestingly, I was once told, that there were pages and pages of rules for Winchester Football and that the referee would not call a foul unless someone on the fouled against team called it and named the rule.
I believe this leads to players being particularly respected for their ability to prod the referee. A key compliment may be that you “have good rules”, that is, you understand them, and ensure they’re enforced.
As, reputedly, the most academically selective of all British schools, one can easily imagine how this sport fits the culture of the place.
What about the ancient olympic games? Wouldn’t that have driven the invention of standardized rules?
I actually saw the process first hand at school. A bunch of white kids (boys of course) began to bounce a tennis ball around. By some magic alchemy rules were evolved and by the end of the school year some unique forms of handball had been created with agreed upon rules and all the kids were playing it. They still play it to this very day.
Your description of Winchester Football reminds me of this:
This American family escaped from the hellhole of Baltimore to live in Britain:
So, what you’re really saying is that sportsball is just a minor variation of this:
The urge to create and play violent games, with a set of clear rule is universal among boys, isn’t it? In my early 1980’s elementary school days, the game played by all the cool kids was Suicide. We used to play it with a tennis ball, behind the school gym during recess, where teachers couldn’t see us.
The rules were simple. Someone threw the tennis ball against the wall. If it was caught on the fly, the catcher was entitled to throw the ball at the thrower until the thrower ran to the wall and touched it. If someone touched the ball, but didn’t succeed in catching it, he had to run and touch the wall. Whoever picked up the ball after that was allowed to throw it at the attempted catcher. If the thrower hit the runner, he was entitled to restart the game and throw the ball against the wall. If he missed the runner, the runner was entitled to restart the game.
Not a lot of strategy. More a game of honor and courage. Whoever made the initial throw off the wall had an obligation to make it reasonably catchable or else he was a coward. There were no rules whatsoever when it came to catching the ball. Pushing, punching, etc. were all OK. The worst was having your legs cut out under you when you jumped to catch the ball. If the ball came near you and you didn’t do all you could to catch it, that was also considered cowardice.
I can’t remember how what was considered a foul, but my recollection is that everyone knew when a foul had been committed. The penalty was being forced to stand facing the wall, bent over, to protect your head but fully expose your rear. Whoever was fouled got to throw the ball at you from close range.
The pre-Ritalin days, when it was automatically assumed boys would play with boys and girls with girls were so much fun…
Sure ADHD is probably a worse problem today because kids don't get enough exercise, but this romantic idea that schools were tolerant of disruptive boys is a myth. Boys in the past were expected to behave like young adults and were disciplined until they did so. Thats why lots of boys were keen to leave school at 15 in the 50s and 60s. The Keynesian-era workplace was often a cushier place than the classroom.Replies: @JohnnyWalker123
At my son's UK boys school, a boy who broke wind had to immediately shout the magic word "safety!".
If any other boy shouted "doorknob!" before he uttered the magic word, the transgressor had to race to the nearest door and grab the handle - and until he got there, every other boy could land a blow on him.
Most of the passing in the current game of soccer is for naught. Because the recipient of the ball has no realistic chance to score, it’s just empty dribbling. This makes the game dull and boring, so much so that in the rare event of a player actually taking a shot on goal the entire crowd rises to its feet, the shooting side with a throaty roar and the defending with a collective intake of breath.
To make the game more exciting i.e. higher scoring, it must become more like basketball. To begin with, dispense with the goalie. As in basketball’s three second violation, no defensive player may park in front of the goal. No player, offensive or defensive, may play inside a circle say 30 feet in diameter in front of the goal.
Next, the goal itself should be made smaller. Reduce it in size to such dimensions that it is still possible for a good shooter to score from within a reasonable distance on the offensive side of the field, but no larger; some experimentation will be required. This means that every well directed pass could result in a potential score.
Finally, get rid of the offside rule. Any player may receive the ball anywhere, anytime. Supporters of the current rule say this, “but it’s unsporting for a fellow to get the ball behind a defender”. Really? Why? It works in basketball. In American football.
We’ll counter that with, “it balances out because a person downfield awaiting an outlet pass is one less defender” and, just as in basketball, it is a losing strategy to park a player downfield in a potential easy goal position. But the new rule would make fast breaks possible and that means that running the full length of the field is not the fruitless endeavor it is under today’s offside rule.
Perhaps these new rules (or some variation of them) could be experimentally implemented in American high schools or colleges where they could be incubated and refined until the game is perfected. Then on to the pros.
Hedge Fund Billionaire Singer To Hold On To AC Milan
http://conservativeangle.com/hedge-fund-billionaire-singer-to-hold-on-to-ac-milan/
Last weekend we reported that as part of the failure of a Chinese investor's inability to make a €32 million debt owed to Paul Singer's Elliott Management, the legendary investor and hedge fund billionaire was set to take control over the legendary Italian soccer club, AC Milan, whose debt infusion in the 2016 purchase of the Italian club by Li Yonghong, primed him for equity ownership in case of a default.....
This, of course, is the same Paul Singer who once seized an Argentinian frigate, the ARA Libertad, in 2012 as part of his long-running debt dispute with the recently insolvent Latin American nation (which then went on to troll bond investors by selling 100 year bonds just a few years later).....
A counterpoint would be lacrosse, developed by a very different culture but converged to similar ends.
Actually, soccer was invented in China. The English brought it back to Europe and made it popular. Ironically, ping pong was invented by the English.
Games similar to soccer have probably been invented and reinvented thousands of times across the world and down through the centuries/millennia.
One thing I like about baseball is how it can be played with a wide variety of rules, yet still clearly be baseball. When I was a kid, neighborhood baseball was played by a whole set of nonstandard rules that were mostly intended to accommodate the lack of players. For example, it doesn’t make any sense to allow stolen bases when there are only three fielders.
The “Massachusetts Game” was a rival form of baseball played by high-level amateurs in the mid-1800s. Eventually it lost out to the “New York Game” which is the ancestor of modern baseball.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Massachusetts_Game#Ball_clubs_playing_the_Massachusetts_Game
Hideously white old boy,it’s just not on, besides , somebodies gotta live in California to give us the monkeyshine report.
On WASPism and its discontents:
We’ve had Obama’s take on Winston Churchill, we’ve had seven decades of Churchill worship from the “toby mug patriots”, as my father called them and now we have the definitive take on Churchill’s legacy, this time from Bronze Age Pervert:
I thought ball sports and maybe all sports was invented by the Mayans.
Off topic: Why can’t white women just shut up. The female equivalent of James Damore found.
‘Permit Betty’ loses her job after video of her asking a vendor if she has the right to sell on the street goes viral – but people in the area DEFEND her actions
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5955863/Permit-Betty-loses-job-asks-vendor-sellers-permit.html
I don’t recall my Albion’s Seed all that well, but one detail caught my attention when I read it years ago. It seems that rules-based ballgames were invented and propagated not by WASPs as a whole but a specific subgroup, the kind that emigrated to New England. It seems the Virginian intellectuals (like Jefferson) had contempt for those kinds of sports and preferred aristocratic pastimes like hunting.
I don’t know enough about regional variations within England/Britain to understand if East Anglia was specifically the place were modern sports had its genesis.
Since WWII, American culture has been ascendant in most of the world so most people don’t have a memory of who was culturally ascendant before that. For the most part, the answer was the Brits (and to a lesser extent the French). The French seem to have been more influential on the feminine side – fashions in women’s clothing and food, perfume, cosmetics, etc. The English had more influence on men’s fashion and sports. Aside from schools, other influencers were the British military (especially the Navy) and the royal family. If Prince Albert was seen wearing a certain style, pretty soon gentlemen from Milan to San Francisco were wearing the same thing. Both seem to have faded – no one really cares about French cuisine anymore, for example.
Note that it's FIFA, not IAAF.Replies: @Jack D, @Jan
O/T, but kinda sorta related.
Angelique Kerber, the new Wimbeldon champion was born in Bremen, to a German father. Bremen is a federal state of Germany but is surrounded by Lower Saxony. So she’s very close to being a Saxon.
Her mother is Polish and she lives in Poland in order to be near tennis training facilities owned by family members.
Could not find anything about religious observance. Likely she decorates a Tannenbaum and shops a Christmas festival, hopefully the moslems have not terrorized and shut down all of them. At her level of tennis, Sundays would be dominated by either tournaments or travel. With a German father there might be a Protestant connection but the Polish mother likely has a Roman Catholic connection, a toss-up. She mostly identifies as German.
White – check. Saxon – well, technically Bremen but close enough – check. Religion unknown, other than the tenni$ god. I’m trying to paint her as even a small degree of WASP. Perhaps sometime she’s been a guest at Maidstone?
Anyway, she defeated Ms. Williams, so we don’t have to hear or read the related diversity crap.
And Margaret Court’s record of the most Grand Slam wins remains intact.
Thank you Angelique!
Why are sports invented by elite Englishmen ubiquitous in the world today? That the English/British and their descendants ruled a big chunk of the world and traded with the rest of it no doubt played a big role. English values and customs were seem as something to emulate. (This is why American-invented sports, though quite similar to their English counterparts, are popular only in the US and in countries where the US has had a military presence.)
The English elite also had a lot of time on their hands, unlike the elite of other countries. Their estates were secure and hereditary, and they had no need to be warriors or fear their peasant classes from coming at them with pitchforks after, say, the Great Revolution. They were idle rich, but still strove to do something useful with their lives (maybe owing to their Protestant religion?)
Without elite evangelism, it’s likely that English folk sports would have gone the way of other peoples’ folk sports: played only locally, or gone extinct.
Real Tennis (Court Tennis in the USA) is probably the worlds oldest codified sport. Current rules were probably codified in late 15th century Renaissance Italy, although some say the game originated in medieval France. It is complicated and the rules are the same today as they were when English king Henry VIII played in the 1500s.
Decimated by the French Revolution, today the game is only played on about 100 courts in England, WASP east coast USA and a handful of courts in France and Australia.
A court costs about a million dollars to build so the demand is limited.
I play and love the tradition and keeping such an ancient and historic sport alive!
What about Pok-ta-Pok, the Mesoamerican ball game played in a formal ball court before large audiences, popular since at least 1400 BC?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jKvQjgC9sIY
It was also played with bats or allowed the use of other body parts for hitting the ball.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JCzhtTjzWvU
The ball weighed about five pounds and was made of rubber. The earliest archeological evidence of the use of natural latex from the Hevea tree comes from the Olmec culture, in which rubber was first used for making balls for the Mesoamerican ballgame. Rubber was later used by the Maya and Aztec cultures.
Granted, these cultures didn’t leave the Western Hemisphere, but the game spread throughout the Americas.
Another interesting question is why are the English so bad at sports that were invented by their ancestors?
I was going to suggest lacrosse as a sport developed by a different culture, as it was created by the Iroquois. But then Wikipedia says:
That fits in with your “Anglophone people liking rules” thesis. On the other hand, it took the Canadians 30 years to actually codify the rules (and 4 years after the Club was founded), suggesting that the codification happened out of necessity rather than inclination. Likely because local clubs with different rules started to play each other, lending credence to the railway theory.
I can remember when “smear the queer” referred to a rugby like game rather than to a potential hate crime.
I am both an English partisan and quite ignorant of sports, so take this with the necessary grains of salt. But it strikes me that it’s the southern European and South American teams that tend to be the biggest cheats. South American teams in particular are fucking outrageous cheaters, which has always struck me odd, because they’re some of the best teams in the world. I remember watching the Brazilians run rings around us in 2006 – totally outclassed us, and yet they still felt the need to dive at every opportunity.
Another, more famous example would be that of the Argentine Diego Maradona, arguably the greatest footballer of all time. In the quarter-finals of the ’86 cup, he scored two goals: one, arguably the greatest goal of all time; the other, arguably the most blatant and unbelievable bit of cheating of all time.
Why would someone with so much talent, playing a weaker foe, still dishonour himself by cheating? And Maradona is not unusual in this: it’s par for the course for South American players.
Of course, the England team is little better these days, but since diving is so rampant and unpunished, they can hardly be blamed. I wonder if other international sports that don’t appeal as much to South America or southern Europe – say, rugby – are plagued by as much cheating?
Anyway, I think this might be an interesting line of inquiry to pursue in light of the current immigration debate. What does it say about these peoples, that they cheat at football, and even when they don’t need to?
And another thing:
Never heard of Winkies before, but it’s pretty obviously a joke. Sounds like Mornington Crescent (google it).
If I may, it seems like America is much more prone to creating rules for no reason than England. I think this has something to do with America being founded with the writing of a legal document: it’s encouraged a certain legalism in the population. Comedian Des Bishop had a routine that touched on this, but I can’t find it online. It was about the difference between playing a casual game of soccer among friends in America and in Ireland, where he’d moved to. In a nutshell, he followed the rules much more strictly than they did. Hilarity ensued.
What does this say about the countries hosting these leagues?Replies: @Tyrion 2, @Anon
Maybe the closest thing would be the great All Black Flanker Richie McCaw being accused of not "coming through the gate" at the breakdown but rarely being penalized.
High tackles are against the laws, but tend to be penalized consistently.Replies: @Alec Leamas (hard at work)
A related question is why did the development of new team sports stop so long ago. Why are we all playing and watching games thought up 2 centuries back, but nothing from the 1900s or 2000s?
Because WASPs used to run much of the world?
Other groups had their games. Even the Aztecs had multiple games (which had rules too), but they’re gone: http://www.aztec-history.com/ancient-aztec-games.html
Nothing to brag about. Still it takes some chutzpah to lay claim to something as common as kick ball when you had peasants in Eastern Europe who never saw a apex white(WASP) play kick ball with a inflated pigs or sheeps bladder.
Soccer would be more interesting if they had a penalty box like in Hockey, thus players who get a yellow card are forced to the sidelines….or better yet to keep them from resting force them to run a lap round the soccer field before they can re-enter the game…would this increase scoring , as teams would often have a player advantage ? Also force any player who plays possum to go to the sidelines for 5 minutes….if they are really hurt the coach can replace the player, if they are faking-it they must sit-out for 5 minutes.The main reason I do not like soccer is the constant flopping.
World Cup.
https://twitter.com/JHickman/status/1018524593076793344
Serbian just won Wimbeldon. Novak Djokovic.
https://twitter.com/JHickman/status/1018524593076793344Replies: @JohnnyWalker123, @D. K.
France leads, 3-1.
Kylian Mbappé scores.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_nF12yiY3QReplies: @JohnnyWalker123
4-1. France ahead.
Kylian Mbappé scores.
That was Huey Newton’s strategy during his Panthers’ armed march through the Capitol in Sacramento. He had memorized all the relevant statutes, and the cops were stymied.
Kylian Mbappé scores.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_nF12yiY3QReplies: @JohnnyWalker123
Croatia scores. 4-2, France ahead.
--some guy from St Louis, America's best soccer city 70 years ago.Replies: @Cagey Beast, @JohnnyWalker123
… diplomacy, postage, military terminology, etc…
Note that it’s FIFA, not IAAF.
Post WWII, (more as a result of the Americans than the Brits), English largely replaced French (and in scientific circles German) as THE universal language. There are some vestiges but the French are fighting a losing battle. At CDG Airport, the French air traffic controllers speak English to the French Air France pilots because English is the language of international aviation.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Cagey Beast, @Clyde, @Corn, @snorlax, @sb
For the first half of the 20th Century the Home Nations were not bothered about playing foreigners and did not enter the World Cup until after World War 2.
And because the Home Nations have an effective veto, via the IFAB, they will retain their separate identities in the international football arena.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
It ain’t over till it’s over.
–some guy from St Louis, America’s best soccer city 70 years ago.
https://twitter.com/FIFAWorldCup/status/1018539151556149248
Kylian Mbappé . Remember that name.
https://twitter.com/9GAGFootball/status/1018539733776035841Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @JohnnyWalker123
That’s a puzzling statement. I sure as hell care about French cuisine and so do lots of other people. The foodie culture is one of the last bastions of relatively unpolluted and unapologetic Europhilia. It may be worthwhile to play that up a bit more.
--some guy from St Louis, America's best soccer city 70 years ago.Replies: @Cagey Beast, @JohnnyWalker123
The African All-Stars beat Croatia. Globalism works!
Africa wins the World Cup.
Interesting that Croatia seemed to dominate the second half, but France slipped goals through the cracks. How common is that in sports?
...(and finished 3rd and 4th).Replies: @Brutusale
True dat. Some fools are going around saying, "France won the World Cup!" But if those same African players had immigrated to Germany rather than France, then those fools would be saying, "Germany won the World Cup!"
What is common to both teams would be the Africanness of the Africans. That's the essential quality. Which European team they play for is incidental. Speaking French or German or wearing red, white and blue or yellow, red and black doesn't change their essential nature. Liberals have it exactly backwards. Nationality can be just a social construct but race cannot.
People should be saying "A French team loaded with African players won the World Cup."Replies: @Truth
--some guy from St Louis, America's best soccer city 70 years ago.Replies: @Cagey Beast, @JohnnyWalker123
Oh, it’s over.
Kylian Mbappé . Remember that name.
https://twitter.com/9GAGFootball/status/1018539733776035841
Beam, nappy ilk.
Banal pimp key.
Blame pay, Pink[o].
Nappy make lib.
Napalm by képi:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/K%C3%A9pi_gendarmerie_pontificale.jpg/220px-K%C3%A9pi_gendarmerie_pontificale.jpg
His full name, Kylian Mbappe Lottin, works better:
Pip-ball titan monkey.
A patently limp boink.Replies: @JohnnyWalker123
Interesting that Croatia seemed to dominate the second half, but France slipped goals through the cracks. How common is that in sports?Replies: @JohnnyWalker123, @JohnnyWalker123, @Truth, @Carbon blob, @LondonBob, @ThreeCranes
https://twitter.com/TrollFootball/status/1018540162878451712
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/07/06/what-france-and-belgiums-world-cup-success-says-about-european-immigration/?utm_term=.dff8ebf97eecReplies: @Truth
Superior talent at usury ensures you have the time, as well as the inclination, to write down complicated rules. Also, choosing sports where one of the contestants doesn’t die helps make them popular.
Interesting that Croatia seemed to dominate the second half, but France slipped goals through the cracks. How common is that in sports?Replies: @JohnnyWalker123, @JohnnyWalker123, @Truth, @Carbon blob, @LondonBob, @ThreeCranes
France didn’t play a particularly amazing game, but they had flashes of very explosive play.
This “WASP” business– is the rule-making the result of Protestantism, or is it vice versa?
When the southern Europeans don’t like the rules, they break them. When the northern Europeans don’t like the rules, they change them. Hence, Protestantism.
That’s more effective in the short run, but deadlier in the long run. The old rules were there for a reason.
The former (breaking rules you find confining, etc.) means you still accept that the tules are rules and have a place, but people being people, you break a rule here and there and accept the penalty when caught.
Changing rules you do not like means that you have embraced a revolutionary ethos that you persuade yourself is the definition of anti-revolution, because to you, your and yours equal Right and Good. You cannot be in revolution against yourself, so all your use of force to change any and all rules is defined by you as the rejection of revolution.
In the latter, you make yourself moral arbiter and, on some level, god.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @syonredux
Interesting that Croatia seemed to dominate the second half, but France slipped goals through the cracks. How common is that in sports?Replies: @JohnnyWalker123, @JohnnyWalker123, @Truth, @Carbon blob, @LondonBob, @ThreeCranes
Yup Reggie, it’s a terrible day for WASP sports. Africa won the world cup…
…(and finished 3rd and 4th).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2018/07/10/cristiano-ronaldo-takes-a-wage-cut-and-leaves-real-madrid-for-juventus/#4c81c8e29a6d
$340 million over 4 years doesn't suck.Replies: @Truth
OT (I mean really off topic)
I posted here a few months ago about my desire to be a robot. Why here?
Where else?
If you get old you get arthritis and robots (as far as I know) don’t get arthritis. So becoming a robot has a lot of advantages. But now I would like to become a dinosaur.
Michael Crichton popularized the notion of resurrecting dinosaurs although many others including myself had long fantasized about the prospect. It seems now that the idea of manipulating original dino DNA is just not possible. Pity, but now Jack Horner gives TED talks about recreating dinosaurs from chickens or emus.
Horner needs to expand his imagination. He or others will surely make a dinosaur from a living bird line in the near future. It doesn’t even seem very hard. The more interesting challenge is how to become a dinosaur yourself.
There are many advantages to being a dinosaur. The two most obvious are lungs and bones. Dinosaurs (at least the saurischian branch) had lungs that allowed much better oxygen utilization than those of mammals. That’s why humans have difficulty on Everest while birds can fly high above the Himalayas or fly from pole to pole. Birds just have a better breathing mechanism.
I want bird (dinosaur) lungs. And I also want the hollow bones that are part of the same breathing package. With stronger lighter hollow bones I might be eight feet tall. Sounds good to me.
Who knows in the short run it might kick off a whole summer movie series the way ‘Jurassic Park’ did.
https://resources.cleanitsupply.com/MEDIUM/USSCO/230458.JPG
What the WASPS did was appropriate games created by the despised lower classes, clean them up and make them fit for the snobby inbreds at Eton.
Nothing to brag about. Still it takes some chutzpah to lay claim to something as common as kick ball when you had peasants in Eastern Europe who never saw a apex white(WASP) play kick ball with a inflated pigs or sheeps bladder.
Or maybe more accurately:
1st: Sierra Leone
2nd: Croatia
3rd: The Congo
4th: Nigeria
1st: Sierra Leone
2nd: Croatia
3rd: The Congo
4th: Nigeria"
Exactly.
And these fans are twittering as though France won the World Cup! Eventually they'll be cheering for all black teams. The World Cup will become the African Cup--just like the NBA. When there's nothing European left will the fans still be cheering?
Talk about being cucked.Replies: @Anonymous
The Brits even invented CalvinBall, how about that.
https://twitter.com/FIFAWorldCup/status/1018539151556149248
Kylian Mbappé . Remember that name.
https://twitter.com/9GAGFootball/status/1018539733776035841Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @JohnnyWalker123
Not very anagrammable.
Beam, nappy ilk.
Banal pimp key.
Blame pay, Pink[o].
Nappy make lib.
Napalm by képi:
His full name, Kylian Mbappe Lottin, works better:
Pip-ball titan monkey.
A patently limp boink.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHozn0YXAeE
MMMBop
MMMbappe
Nothing could be more West African than that.
From what I read, it was a novelty game engaged in as a bit of a laugh by those in the less than ten percent of the school that resided in the scholar's house - a place famed for eccentricity.
Interestingly, I was once told, that there were pages and pages of rules for Winchester Football and that the referee would not call a foul unless someone on the fouled against team called it and named the rule.
I believe this leads to players being particularly respected for their ability to prod the referee. A key compliment may be that you "have good rules", that is, you understand them, and ensure they're enforced.
As, reputedly, the most academically selective of all British schools, one can easily imagine how this sport fits the culture of the place.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @SemperLuctor
Check with Twinkie, but I’m sure that’s the Korean name for one of the Popes.
I posted here a few months ago about my desire to be a robot. Why here?
Where else?
If you get old you get arthritis and robots (as far as I know) don't get arthritis. So becoming a robot has a lot of advantages. But now I would like to become a dinosaur.
Michael Crichton popularized the notion of resurrecting dinosaurs although many others including myself had long fantasized about the prospect. It seems now that the idea of manipulating original dino DNA is just not possible. Pity, but now Jack Horner gives TED talks about recreating dinosaurs from chickens or emus.
Horner needs to expand his imagination. He or others will surely make a dinosaur from a living bird line in the near future. It doesn't even seem very hard. The more interesting challenge is how to become a dinosaur yourself.
There are many advantages to being a dinosaur. The two most obvious are lungs and bones. Dinosaurs (at least the saurischian branch) had lungs that allowed much better oxygen utilization than those of mammals. That's why humans have difficulty on Everest while birds can fly high above the Himalayas or fly from pole to pole. Birds just have a better breathing mechanism.
I want bird (dinosaur) lungs. And I also want the hollow bones that are part of the same breathing package. With stronger lighter hollow bones I might be eight feet tall. Sounds good to me.
Who knows in the short run it might kick off a whole summer movie series the way 'Jurassic Park' did.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Truth, @Corn, @anonymous
Sure they do. But their treatment is more effective than ours:
In the vein of this feuilleton is Joseph O’Neill’s Netherlands. A Brit/Dutch expatriate oil futures analyst in NYC just before 9/11 living with wife and child in the Chelsea Hotel takes to playing in the Caribbean black/Indian cricket league in NYC, Jersey and as far as Philly. His new friend a Jamaican has dreams of converting decommissioned Floyd Bennett Naval Air Station out Flatbush Ave. into a cricket stadium. The Jamaican partnered with a Russian shunned by the others in the baths is also into less savory enterprises. Back in London the narrator reunited with wife and child who left him after 9/11 is phoned by NYC homicide. It seems his friend’s corpse was fished out of the Gowanus Canal.
5 stars
Note that it's FIFA, not IAAF.Replies: @Jack D, @Jan
France was the continental power (long before Germany was even a unified nation) and so their language and institutions tended to dominate continental organizations. England was off on its island and with its empire so the English (and their language) had limited sway on the continent. FIFA was (at first) a continental organization that did NOT include the UK. FIFA was founded in 1904 to oversee international competition among the national associations of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Post WWII, (more as a result of the Americans than the Brits), English largely replaced French (and in scientific circles German) as THE universal language. There are some vestiges but the French are fighting a losing battle. At CDG Airport, the French air traffic controllers speak English to the French Air France pilots because English is the language of international aviation.
German used to be the language of science. Supposedly once upon a time many North American and British universities required Sc.D and D.Eng candidates write all or part of their thesis in German. This died out after the first or second world war.
It should be noted that Britain still largely decides the rules of soccer . Pre FIFA the Brits formed a rules committee of the 4 British nations which FIFA followed but now there is a larger committee with half FIFA representation and half British representation .
Mind you the US has a very strong say in the international rules of basketball and baseball
I posted here a few months ago about my desire to be a robot. Why here?
Where else?
If you get old you get arthritis and robots (as far as I know) don't get arthritis. So becoming a robot has a lot of advantages. But now I would like to become a dinosaur.
Michael Crichton popularized the notion of resurrecting dinosaurs although many others including myself had long fantasized about the prospect. It seems now that the idea of manipulating original dino DNA is just not possible. Pity, but now Jack Horner gives TED talks about recreating dinosaurs from chickens or emus.
Horner needs to expand his imagination. He or others will surely make a dinosaur from a living bird line in the near future. It doesn't even seem very hard. The more interesting challenge is how to become a dinosaur yourself.
There are many advantages to being a dinosaur. The two most obvious are lungs and bones. Dinosaurs (at least the saurischian branch) had lungs that allowed much better oxygen utilization than those of mammals. That's why humans have difficulty on Everest while birds can fly high above the Himalayas or fly from pole to pole. Birds just have a better breathing mechanism.
I want bird (dinosaur) lungs. And I also want the hollow bones that are part of the same breathing package. With stronger lighter hollow bones I might be eight feet tall. Sounds good to me.
Who knows in the short run it might kick off a whole summer movie series the way 'Jurassic Park' did.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Truth, @Corn, @anonymous
I’ve been reading your posts for 5 or 6 years now, Sport; mission accomplished.
Richard Spencer Retweeted :
Read the Race Relations Act, and you’ll know why.
https://youtu.be/J9mOLrw_-mA
Start at 6:09
Post WWII, (more as a result of the Americans than the Brits), English largely replaced French (and in scientific circles German) as THE universal language. There are some vestiges but the French are fighting a losing battle. At CDG Airport, the French air traffic controllers speak English to the French Air France pilots because English is the language of international aviation.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Cagey Beast, @Clyde, @Corn, @snorlax, @sb
And its rocker, but that’s another story.
A Quebec pilot put it best: he’d no sooner speak French in the cockpit than he’d speak English in the bedroom.
Post WWII, (more as a result of the Americans than the Brits), English largely replaced French (and in scientific circles German) as THE universal language. There are some vestiges but the French are fighting a losing battle. At CDG Airport, the French air traffic controllers speak English to the French Air France pilots because English is the language of international aviation.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Cagey Beast, @Clyde, @Corn, @snorlax, @sb
Wow, sounds like you’re on the winning side. In a way, it’s kind of like France is submitting to you, personally. That must feel amazing!
An American example is Old Division Football:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_division_football
The country with the fewest burnt cars tomorrow morning, next week and next year will be the real winner of this World Cup final. My money is on Croatia.
Beam, nappy ilk.
Banal pimp key.
Blame pay, Pink[o].
Nappy make lib.
Napalm by képi:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/K%C3%A9pi_gendarmerie_pontificale.jpg/220px-K%C3%A9pi_gendarmerie_pontificale.jpg
His full name, Kylian Mbappe Lottin, works better:
Pip-ball titan monkey.
A patently limp boink.Replies: @JohnnyWalker123
Remember Hanson?
MMMBop
MMMbappe
Post WWII, (more as a result of the Americans than the Brits), English largely replaced French (and in scientific circles German) as THE universal language. There are some vestiges but the French are fighting a losing battle. At CDG Airport, the French air traffic controllers speak English to the French Air France pilots because English is the language of international aviation.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Cagey Beast, @Clyde, @Corn, @snorlax, @sb
German was the second language in Scandinavian countries before WW2. A Dane told me this years ago.
https://twitter.com/FIFAWorldCup/status/1018539151556149248
Kylian Mbappé . Remember that name.
https://twitter.com/9GAGFootball/status/1018539733776035841Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @JohnnyWalker123
When the southern Europeans don't like the rules, they break them. When the northern Europeans don't like the rules, they change them. Hence, Protestantism.
That's more effective in the short run, but deadlier in the long run. The old rules were there for a reason.Replies: @John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan, @syonredux, @Jake
Yes, it really is entertaining to watch certain alternative conservatives try to portray “WASP” as though it’s a compliment.
As far as I’m concerned, there is a certain poetry to the fact that WASP England – the home of the self-described “Baptized Jew” Disraeli – is now home to disgraced Russian “oligarchs” like the late Boris Berezovsky. And, of course, the media and economic processes that got them into Crimea in 1853 continue today.
Paris is another example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jockey-Club_de_Paris
American football is or was a far superior spectator sport to both soccer and rugby. It’s just that the innovation of facemasks (reduced tackling form, increased concussions) and two-platoon football, while making the sport faster on a per-play basis, made it more dangerous and probably unsustainable in the long run. Thus the wages of selling out for more media attention and money.
The best sport in the world today, though not at all the most marketable or popular, is wrestling. Russia, Iran, and (oddly enough for our weakness) America are some of the best countries. African countries are nonexistent in it.
"American football is or was a far superior spectator sport to both soccer and rugby."
Dear Lord in Heaven, I disagree. American football is fine live at the high school level, but once the games are televised, it becomes intolerable.
OTOH, rugby is much superior as a spectator sport both live and there simply is no comparison when watching a televised match.
Note that it's FIFA, not IAAF.Replies: @Jack D, @Jan
The laws of football are set by the International Football Association Board. Its membership comprises the football associations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (The Home Nations) and FIFA for the rest of the world.
For the first half of the 20th Century the Home Nations were not bothered about playing foreigners and did not enter the World Cup until after World War 2.
And because the Home Nations have an effective veto, via the IFAB, they will retain their separate identities in the international football arena.
From José Ortega y Gasset’s “Man The Technician”, on the English gentleman and his sports:
“Man The Technician”, 1941 (?) https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.503133/2015.503133.toward-a_djvu.txt
or
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.503133
When the southern Europeans don't like the rules, they break them. When the northern Europeans don't like the rules, they change them. Hence, Protestantism.
That's more effective in the short run, but deadlier in the long run. The old rules were there for a reason.Replies: @John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan, @syonredux, @Jake
Dunno. I’m awfully fond of some of the new rules…..Freedom of speech is a good one…..
According to one history, it took 108 years for the same concept to reach London's courts.Replies: @syonredux
Interesting that Croatia seemed to dominate the second half, but France slipped goals through the cracks. How common is that in sports?Replies: @JohnnyWalker123, @JohnnyWalker123, @Truth, @Carbon blob, @LondonBob, @ThreeCranes
France’s second half goals were a little lucky, but the Croatian defenders did a poor job closing down Pogba and Mbappe on their shots and probably screened the goalkeeper at least a little bit.
https://twitter.com/AudaciousEpigon/status/1018355215223926784
https://twitter.com/FrDesouche/status/1018549663446831104
Basically, English Public (private) schools were during the 19th century boarding schools for the sons of officers in the Army or Navy, and the pupils often took up commissions themselves.
The codification of games, rather like the games themselves, smacks distinctly of the military, with team ‘captains’ camaraderie etc.
Psychologists hypothesise that a great deal of the instinctive ‘play’ of prepubescent boys is really actually deeply engrained atavistic recapitulation of the many many battles their warrior ancient ancestors fought in those dark unknown times. Play, it is thought, is an instinctive rehearsal of the battles yet to be fought. Curiously, this instinct largely vanishes with the onset of puberty.
Victorian Englishmen in their anal-retentive characteristic way enforced ‘rules’ on the natural instincts of boys – no doubt to stop them tearing the school apart.
In this juncture it is interesting to consider the life story and exploits of one Major William Raikes Hodson a quintessential English Victorian warrior, in single handedly taking on – and beating a mob of a thousand armed Indians, during the mutiny, and summarily executing the Mughal princes.
For what it’s worth, Cricket is probably the oldest ‘codified’ game.
I posted here a few months ago about my desire to be a robot. Why here?
Where else?
If you get old you get arthritis and robots (as far as I know) don't get arthritis. So becoming a robot has a lot of advantages. But now I would like to become a dinosaur.
Michael Crichton popularized the notion of resurrecting dinosaurs although many others including myself had long fantasized about the prospect. It seems now that the idea of manipulating original dino DNA is just not possible. Pity, but now Jack Horner gives TED talks about recreating dinosaurs from chickens or emus.
Horner needs to expand his imagination. He or others will surely make a dinosaur from a living bird line in the near future. It doesn't even seem very hard. The more interesting challenge is how to become a dinosaur yourself.
There are many advantages to being a dinosaur. The two most obvious are lungs and bones. Dinosaurs (at least the saurischian branch) had lungs that allowed much better oxygen utilization than those of mammals. That's why humans have difficulty on Everest while birds can fly high above the Himalayas or fly from pole to pole. Birds just have a better breathing mechanism.
I want bird (dinosaur) lungs. And I also want the hollow bones that are part of the same breathing package. With stronger lighter hollow bones I might be eight feet tall. Sounds good to me.
Who knows in the short run it might kick off a whole summer movie series the way 'Jurassic Park' did.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Truth, @Corn, @anonymous
Your post reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. Ever read it? If I recall correctly during and after the terraforming of Mars colonists or children born to colonists have small amounts of crocodile DNA mixed in with their DNA because supposedly crocs can handle higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere (in the book terraforming Mars has thinner air and more CO2).
https://twitter.com/JHickman/status/1018524593076793344Replies: @JohnnyWalker123, @D. K.
One Croatian managed to win The Big One, this afternoon (BST): 6-2 / 6-2 / 7-6 (7-3).
Post WWII, (more as a result of the Americans than the Brits), English largely replaced French (and in scientific circles German) as THE universal language. There are some vestiges but the French are fighting a losing battle. At CDG Airport, the French air traffic controllers speak English to the French Air France pilots because English is the language of international aviation.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Cagey Beast, @Clyde, @Corn, @snorlax, @sb
Back in my school days I was told that English is the language of commerce, French is the language of diplomacy, although as you said the latter is probably fading if not faded already.
German used to be the language of science. Supposedly once upon a time many North American and British universities required Sc.D and D.Eng candidates write all or part of their thesis in German. This died out after the first or second world war.
Isn’t tennis French? And about seven hundred years old.
Could be wrong, but I have the impression that that’s mostly served to mainstream Communism and pornography (not that I’d want to get rid of it *now*, mind you, given the Left’s relentless drive to silence anyone who disagrees with them).
Oughtn’t a discussion of WASP inventiveness in European sports begin and end with Golf?
His ancestors emigrated to America already, they could have gone to Argentina.
From what I read, it was a novelty game engaged in as a bit of a laugh by those in the less than ten percent of the school that resided in the scholar's house - a place famed for eccentricity.
Interestingly, I was once told, that there were pages and pages of rules for Winchester Football and that the referee would not call a foul unless someone on the fouled against team called it and named the rule.
I believe this leads to players being particularly respected for their ability to prod the referee. A key compliment may be that you "have good rules", that is, you understand them, and ensure they're enforced.
As, reputedly, the most academically selective of all British schools, one can easily imagine how this sport fits the culture of the place.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @SemperLuctor
I was a Collegeman at Winchester, and can attest to the usefulness of knowing the rules. There were only 70 men in College, vs more than 500 Commoners, and these latter were mostly bigger and more athletic. Thus, College vs OTH (Old Tutors’ Houses) /Commoners games were a balance of knowledge of the rules vs athleticism. Not all referees made one call the rule before awarding a foul, but many did, and that gave Collegemen a better chance; the other problem with College teams was a that they barely trained and they played as individuals, and not as a team. Really, WinCoFo was a good metaphor for war; being fit was less important than teamwork, and being clever (id est, knowing the rules) was also less important than teamwork. College teams that played as a team were unbeatable.
Were a football loving billionaire very committed to us winning the World Cup, he might buy a club and the entire England first team and play them together week in week out against other clubs.
Once the season was over they would rebadge to England as a group and easily outplay the other countries' teams of individuals.
Interesting that Croatia seemed to dominate the second half, but France slipped goals through the cracks. How common is that in sports?Replies: @JohnnyWalker123, @JohnnyWalker123, @Truth, @Carbon blob, @LondonBob, @ThreeCranes
British commentators full of praise for the Croatian team’s energy, played 120 mins in their last three games. They don’t follow up that thought with how such an old team manages it.
Well, there’s always New Zealand
Start at 6:09
This reminds me of Arabs reminding all and sundry that they invented algebra…pathetic!
Shame Croatia lost, I was rather rooting for them ):
Yes I think the English like rules and complexity, to make things ‘interesting’
Take Cave Diving – a sport that requires extreme self-control and a high level of planning and calculation.
Read how the English cave divers who rescued the Thai football team had a very different philosophy compared to the Thai rescue crews:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5954605/British-diver-heroes-reveal-fears-Thai-cave-rescue-getting-lost-underwater-boys-bravery.html
Canada is the only Empire nation where soccer couldnt be played all year long. Lacrosse and later baseball filled the summer void. Hence it could take take root.
Same goes for cricket. Almost Non existent here until Carib and South Asian immigration.
A feature of Canada is that , before total American dominance , Scots not so much English, were historically pretty prominent -who prefer curling to cricket .
Soccer really spread internationally via Britain's commercial Empire not her political one .
I'd say that in Anglo societies people accepted the Mother Country's creed that games were character forming -muscular Christianity and all that- but it was also psychologically ( as they say ) important to have games of their own to show their seperate identity . You know what kids can be like .
OT long term follow up
Some of you might remember that a few months ago anonymous Russian hackers subverting American society at 4chan claimed to be Nicaraguans reporting a major civil unrest event, which got no attention in the mainstream media at the time. The same Daniel Ortega who once thumbed his mustache at Reagan allowed his literal witch wife to steal public money, to set up extravagant public projects (notably insanely expensive LED-decorated streetlight-trees, which became a favorite target of protesters), and cut into social services funds that had been especially promised as safe. The protests were easily as big as anything similar that was reported in the MSM, such as Mexican protests over Calderon stealing the election from AMLO in the early 2000s, or the much less violent protests in Armenia which happened about at the same time as the Nicaraguan unrest. To meet the protesters Ortega loosed the local equivalent of Antifa, which is beyond proven as the “liberal” globalist order’s favorite anti-populist tool. Several protesters were killed outright regardless of status: teachers, students, officers of the government (deemed disloyal), journalists, and news photographers with press credentials and cameras in hand, were brutally beaten or shot in the face. Photos and shakey video was posted of such scenes as terrified college students hiding under tables. MSM was quiet.
Well, in the latest issue of the Rothschild’s Economist, the one with a cover story about how rural retards aren’t real Americans (“[American elections] no longer convert the popular will into control of government,” as opposed to say the George W Bush administration), they are deigning to mention something 4chan readers knew about months ago. In the past it was confidently estimated that people who got their news from alternative media were days and weeks ahead of people relying on the MSM. In the aftermath of the Trumpening the screws are tightening and artificial distances are being created. It is apparently already policy to attempt to choke alternative news by refusing to confirm what it reports, which after all could always be wrong.
https://www.economist.com/news/americas/21745770-could-nicaragua-go-way-venezuela-daniel-ortega-causing-bloodbath-nicaragua
Aboriginal societies tend not to have physical sports as we know it. They use their bodies all day for food-getting (such as hunting and gathering) and it tires them out. If you’ve ever chased gazelles through the brush for three days, you know what I’m talking about. If they use their bodies for recreation, they dance. Dancing is their sport.
Only more advanced societies with leisurely jobs encourage sports because it keeps people in better physical and mental condition. Sit in a chair all day and you’ll find it’s bad for you both physically and mentally.
Ridiculous prep school games were sent up in Fantastic Mr. Fox:
Africans are the modern super race. Not any thinking and all fast twitch muscles.
It truly is the African Century and that victory sealed Europe’s fate. Mass immigration from Africa is now unstoppable culturally. For a few soccer wins and the eternal war on nerdy White guys. What’s less nerdy than a 65 iq African?
Or at least yup absent a sudden acquisition of testicular fortitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFeii1BNJoI
Marine Le Pen : “when I look at Les Bleus, I don’t recognize France or myself.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/07/06/what-france-and-belgiums-world-cup-success-says-about-european-immigration/?utm_term=.dff8ebf97eec
Polo has developed in unusual ways from its original version among the Pashtun of Afghanistan who used dead goats or just the head in struggles on horseback to the rather more languid version played in rarified circles in the developed world.
But the best evolution in the ongoing story is surely the “pit bull polo” described by Joseph Wambaugh in his “Hollywood Station” in which the officers in an LAPD patrol car cruise through the ‘hood and each successful strike of a homey’s free-range car chasing pooch with a wooden baton gains the striker a point.
When you’re done Eton, the Wall Game behind Winkie’s can be Harrowing.
Interesting that Croatia seemed to dominate the second half, but France slipped goals through the cracks. How common is that in sports?Replies: @JohnnyWalker123, @JohnnyWalker123, @Truth, @Carbon blob, @LondonBob, @ThreeCranes
“Africa wins the World Cup.”
True dat. Some fools are going around saying, “France won the World Cup!” But if those same African players had immigrated to Germany rather than France, then those fools would be saying, “Germany won the World Cup!”
What is common to both teams would be the Africanness of the Africans. That’s the essential quality. Which European team they play for is incidental. Speaking French or German or wearing red, white and blue or yellow, red and black doesn’t change their essential nature. Liberals have it exactly backwards. Nationality can be just a social construct but race cannot.
People should be saying “A French team loaded with African players won the World Cup.”
It truly is the African Century and that victory sealed Europe's fate. Mass immigration from Africa is now unstoppable culturally. For a few soccer wins and the eternal war on nerdy White guys. What's less nerdy than a 65 iq African?Replies: @Bill B.
Yup.
Or at least yup absent a sudden acquisition of testicular fortitude.
Djokovic is Serbian. Seems most of the Balkans was supporting Croatia.
When the southern Europeans don't like the rules, they break them. When the northern Europeans don't like the rules, they change them. Hence, Protestantism.
That's more effective in the short run, but deadlier in the long run. The old rules were there for a reason.Replies: @John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan, @syonredux, @Jake
Interesting way to make a very important point. Your assessment is, I think, spot on.
The former (breaking rules you find confining, etc.) means you still accept that the tules are rules and have a place, but people being people, you break a rule here and there and accept the penalty when caught.
Changing rules you do not like means that you have embraced a revolutionary ethos that you persuade yourself is the definition of anti-revolution, because to you, your and yours equal Right and Good. You cannot be in revolution against yourself, so all your use of force to change any and all rules is defined by you as the rejection of revolution.
In the latter, you make yourself moral arbiter and, on some level, god.
Are you under the impression that nobody had ‘freedom of speech’ until the Anglo-Saxon Puritans, claiming that right, denied any meaningful freedom of speech to all peoples ruled from London who did not agree with the teeny minority who ruled in the names of Puritanism and Parliament?
Continentals come up with games like fox tossing that never really caught on.
I posted here a few months ago about my desire to be a robot. Why here?
Where else?
If you get old you get arthritis and robots (as far as I know) don't get arthritis. So becoming a robot has a lot of advantages. But now I would like to become a dinosaur.
Michael Crichton popularized the notion of resurrecting dinosaurs although many others including myself had long fantasized about the prospect. It seems now that the idea of manipulating original dino DNA is just not possible. Pity, but now Jack Horner gives TED talks about recreating dinosaurs from chickens or emus.
Horner needs to expand his imagination. He or others will surely make a dinosaur from a living bird line in the near future. It doesn't even seem very hard. The more interesting challenge is how to become a dinosaur yourself.
There are many advantages to being a dinosaur. The two most obvious are lungs and bones. Dinosaurs (at least the saurischian branch) had lungs that allowed much better oxygen utilization than those of mammals. That's why humans have difficulty on Everest while birds can fly high above the Himalayas or fly from pole to pole. Birds just have a better breathing mechanism.
I want bird (dinosaur) lungs. And I also want the hollow bones that are part of the same breathing package. With stronger lighter hollow bones I might be eight feet tall. Sounds good to me.
Who knows in the short run it might kick off a whole summer movie series the way 'Jurassic Park' did.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Truth, @Corn, @anonymous
Since you mention robots and movies, you should be on the lookout for a 20th anniversary re-release of The Matrix in 4K with Atmos sound. Yes, it is very good.
And this differs from Italy’s calcio how?
The former (breaking rules you find confining, etc.) means you still accept that the tules are rules and have a place, but people being people, you break a rule here and there and accept the penalty when caught.
Changing rules you do not like means that you have embraced a revolutionary ethos that you persuade yourself is the definition of anti-revolution, because to you, your and yours equal Right and Good. You cannot be in revolution against yourself, so all your use of force to change any and all rules is defined by you as the rejection of revolution.
In the latter, you make yourself moral arbiter and, on some level, god.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @syonredux
I second your elaboration.
Freedom of the press is usually attributed to the Zenger trial– a German defendant with a Scottish lawyer in a Dutch-founded city. Not very Anglo-Saxon.
According to one history, it took 108 years for the same concept to reach London’s courts.
First Amendment is the product of a bunch of WASPs…….
According to one history, it took 108 years for the same concept to reach London's courts.Replies: @syonredux
Very Protestant, though….and the whole thing occurred in an Anglo-American context….You know, seeing as New York was no longer New Amsterdam….
Rather less time for the USA, seeing as how the First Amendment (a WASP creation) was ratified on December 15, 1791….
So, yes, those nasty Anglo-Protestants did create some new rules that are of value….
The former (breaking rules you find confining, etc.) means you still accept that the tules are rules and have a place, but people being people, you break a rule here and there and accept the penalty when caught.
Changing rules you do not like means that you have embraced a revolutionary ethos that you persuade yourself is the definition of anti-revolution, because to you, your and yours equal Right and Good. You cannot be in revolution against yourself, so all your use of force to change any and all rules is defined by you as the rejection of revolution.
In the latter, you make yourself moral arbiter and, on some level, god.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @syonredux
First Amendment as a god-like act…..which makes anti-First Amendment SJWs servants of darkness….
Shame Croatia lost, I was rather rooting for them ):Replies: @syonredux
Not really true, either, seeing as how Diophantus had a lot to do with it….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/07/06/what-france-and-belgiums-world-cup-success-says-about-european-immigration/?utm_term=.dff8ebf97eecReplies: @Truth
Well Cheri,for the sake of politics, I say look at what you have in common with Les Blues; a Y chromosome to start.
http://ramsrule.com/herd/addon.php?4,module=embed_images,url=http%3A%2F%2Fcitizentv.co.ke%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F07%2FNYAIRERA-POSE.jpg
For the first half of the 20th Century the Home Nations were not bothered about playing foreigners and did not enter the World Cup until after World War 2.
And because the Home Nations have an effective veto, via the IFAB, they will retain their separate identities in the international football arena.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
So when does Cornwall get a team?
True dat. Some fools are going around saying, "France won the World Cup!" But if those same African players had immigrated to Germany rather than France, then those fools would be saying, "Germany won the World Cup!"
What is common to both teams would be the Africanness of the Africans. That's the essential quality. Which European team they play for is incidental. Speaking French or German or wearing red, white and blue or yellow, red and black doesn't change their essential nature. Liberals have it exactly backwards. Nationality can be just a social construct but race cannot.
People should be saying "A French team loaded with African players won the World Cup."Replies: @Truth
And stangely enough, if they had been selected to take the field representing Germany by the Germany organization that is responsible for such things; they’d be correct!
https://twitter.com/VPresMike_Pence/status/1018499896654155776
Post WWII, (more as a result of the Americans than the Brits), English largely replaced French (and in scientific circles German) as THE universal language. There are some vestiges but the French are fighting a losing battle. At CDG Airport, the French air traffic controllers speak English to the French Air France pilots because English is the language of international aviation.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Cagey Beast, @Clyde, @Corn, @snorlax, @sb
Airspeed is measured in knots, and altitude in feet, everywhere in the world except parts of the former Soviet Union.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/761307/English-to-become-compulsory-for-pilots.html
The "Massachusetts Game" was a rival form of baseball played by high-level amateurs in the mid-1800s. Eventually it lost out to the "New York Game" which is the ancestor of modern baseball.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Massachusetts_Game#Ball_clubs_playing_the_Massachusetts_GameReplies: @Steve Sailer
The Red Sox – Yankee rivalry is the best in baseball in recent decades, and in someways it goes back to the struggle between two sets of rules for baseball between Boston and New York that the New York rules won during the Civil War when soldiers from other states preferred the New York rules.
Watch the cooking shows on the Food Network or NPR (a surprising # of people do who never actually cook)- how many of them concern French cuisine? Even Jacques Pepin does not cook mainly French cuisine. How many new French restaurants open in the US, vs. Italian, modern American, Asian Fusion, Chinese, etc?
The whole concept of fine dining and "hospitality" is largely French, though some Italians might beg to differ. Trends come and go, and tastes change. But the French influence remains.
And incidentally, according to Andrew Zimmern, French chicken is the best.
It goes well beyond just measuring units. Air traffic control is done in English at all international airports all over the world.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/761307/English-to-become-compulsory-for-pilots.html
My mistake! “Mea culpa!”
This is just the reality. Reality doesn’t care about your feelings – it just IS.
A sad collection of rioting a.k.a. celebrations in France:
Bit of a gap between the end of the ancient Olympic Games (officially suppressed in AD 393) and the modern era…..
Olympics in Ancient Greece gave the green light for people (well, men) to compete for fun. My favorite euphemism for women’s sport: the NYT wedding announcements…although, now there are so many same sex and whatever couples. Women are not only losing Title IX privileges in HS, NCAA & Olympics, but when NYT no longer has space for heteronormative couples, and women who actually marry men, history is over! However, maybe Party City will provide a free mylar balloon.
1st: Sierra Leone
2nd: Croatia
3rd: The Congo
4th: NigeriaReplies: @ThreeCranes
“Or maybe more accurately:
1st: Sierra Leone
2nd: Croatia
3rd: The Congo
4th: Nigeria”
Exactly.
And these fans are twittering as though France won the World Cup! Eventually they’ll be cheering for all black teams. The World Cup will become the African Cup–just like the NBA. When there’s nothing European left will the fans still be cheering?
Talk about being cucked.
. . . wait a minute!
We have all been wrong – the fact is, most sports were invented in Wakanda.
Just look at the demographic that excels . . .
Empirical evidence. Stats. Can’t deny it.
i’m no soccer fan, but this is the stupidest thing i’ve read on here in a while.
all of your suggestions would make the game far, far more boring and more painful to watch (much like basketball)
The rules were simple. Someone threw the tennis ball against the wall. If it was caught on the fly, the catcher was entitled to throw the ball at the thrower until the thrower ran to the wall and touched it. If someone touched the ball, but didn’t succeed in catching it, he had to run and touch the wall. Whoever picked up the ball after that was allowed to throw it at the attempted catcher. If the thrower hit the runner, he was entitled to restart the game and throw the ball against the wall. If he missed the runner, the runner was entitled to restart the game.
Not a lot of strategy. More a game of honor and courage. Whoever made the initial throw off the wall had an obligation to make it reasonably catchable or else he was a coward. There were no rules whatsoever when it came to catching the ball. Pushing, punching, etc. were all OK. The worst was having your legs cut out under you when you jumped to catch the ball. If the ball came near you and you didn’t do all you could to catch it, that was also considered cowardice.
I can’t remember how what was considered a foul, but my recollection is that everyone knew when a foul had been committed. The penalty was being forced to stand facing the wall, bent over, to protect your head but fully expose your rear. Whoever was fouled got to throw the ball at you from close range.
The pre-Ritalin days, when it was automatically assumed boys would play with boys and girls with girls were so much fun...Replies: @unpc downunder, @YetAnotherAnon
One of the sillier ideas on the alt right is that society used to have a liberal attitude to annoying boys who were conspicuously impulsive and hyperactive. In UK Commonwealth countries at least, these kind of boys were regularly thrashed with a cane or belt.
Sure ADHD is probably a worse problem today because kids don’t get enough exercise, but this romantic idea that schools were tolerant of disruptive boys is a myth. Boys in the past were expected to behave like young adults and were disciplined until they did so. Thats why lots of boys were keen to leave school at 15 in the 50s and 60s. The Keynesian-era workplace was often a cushier place than the classroom.
Speaking of the Trump Baby Balloon, it looked like something you could rent for a children’s birthday party along with a bounce house. I think it could American culture as a popular perennial like a Nixon Halloween mask.
Until Crescendo.
Sure ADHD is probably a worse problem today because kids don't get enough exercise, but this romantic idea that schools were tolerant of disruptive boys is a myth. Boys in the past were expected to behave like young adults and were disciplined until they did so. Thats why lots of boys were keen to leave school at 15 in the 50s and 60s. The Keynesian-era workplace was often a cushier place than the classroom.Replies: @JohnnyWalker123
70s era England was an amazing place to be a blue collar worker.
Same goes for cricket. Almost Non existent here until Carib and South Asian immigration.Replies: @sb
Cricket once was a serious game in Canada ( as it was in the US ) until supplanted by baseball . (Similarly rugby was supplanted by ,er, American style football )
A feature of Canada is that , before total American dominance , Scots not so much English, were historically pretty prominent -who prefer curling to cricket .
Soccer really spread internationally via Britain’s commercial Empire not her political one .
I’d say that in Anglo societies people accepted the Mother Country’s creed that games were character forming -muscular Christianity and all that- but it was also psychologically ( as they say ) important to have games of their own to show their seperate identity . You know what kids can be like .
I am led to believe that since normal competition was inter-house and the big competitions were inter category of house, that College, which happened to be the same pool of players for both, actually had a big advantage in teamwork.
Were a football loving billionaire very committed to us winning the World Cup, he might buy a club and the entire England first team and play them together week in week out against other clubs.
Once the season was over they would rebadge to England as a group and easily outplay the other countries’ teams of individuals.
Another, more famous example would be that of the Argentine Diego Maradona, arguably the greatest footballer of all time. In the quarter-finals of the '86 cup, he scored two goals: one, arguably the greatest goal of all time; the other, arguably the most blatant and unbelievable bit of cheating of all time.
Why would someone with so much talent, playing a weaker foe, still dishonour himself by cheating? And Maradona is not unusual in this: it's par for the course for South American players.
Of course, the England team is little better these days, but since diving is so rampant and unpunished, they can hardly be blamed. I wonder if other international sports that don't appeal as much to South America or southern Europe - say, rugby - are plagued by as much cheating?
Anyway, I think this might be an interesting line of inquiry to pursue in light of the current immigration debate. What does it say about these peoples, that they cheat at football, and even when they don't need to?
And another thing:Never heard of Winkies before, but it's pretty obviously a joke. Sounds like Mornington Crescent (google it).
If I may, it seems like America is much more prone to creating rules for no reason than England. I think this has something to do with America being founded with the writing of a legal document: it's encouraged a certain legalism in the population. Comedian Des Bishop had a routine that touched on this, but I can't find it online. It was about the difference between playing a casual game of soccer among friends in America and in Ireland, where he'd moved to. In a nutshell, he followed the rules much more strictly than they did. Hilarity ensued.Replies: @Numinous, @Alec Leamas
As you are self-admittedly not a soccer fan, I can say the following with some authority: my observation is that it’s not south Americans in particular who cheat on the field, but rather players who play in the highest-paid and most prominent Western European leagues. It’s in these leagues that players seem to pick up bad habits. Pretty much very south American playing in a World Cup team (especially Argentinians and Brazilians) plays for a Western European club. Cheating among Eastern Europeans and Asians, even Africans (though they get quite physical) is very low (I didn’t see the Russians cheat much at all in this World Cup, for example.)
What does this say about the countries hosting these leagues?
This is not to say that western or northern Europeans don't cheat now, or that they never did: I'm sure both things are true. The former certainly is.
No reference to Calvinball?
What does this say about the countries hosting these leagues?Replies: @Tyrion 2, @Anon
When the English Premier League was mostly only English players, in the early 90s, diving was rare and much disdained. Such cheating was introduced to here from elsewhere. I doubt you’d find a serious football fan who’d dispute it.
Diving, and play-acting in general, was pretty rare before the 90s anywhere. If you remember, the English League got banned in the '80s (because of riots), and when it resumed in the '90s, it quickly became among the most lucrative leagues. Clubs got bought by rich people who were parking their money in London (like Russian oligarchs or Arab oil sheiks.) For different reasons, other leagues like the Italian, Spanish, and German ones also got richer starting around that time.
More money means more incentive to make a mark, as well as avoid getting fouled or subbed off. Play-acting brought much higher payoffs with minimal risk (though these days, with the VAR, one has to be more careful.)Replies: @Tyrion 2
Cue the first rushes of the Jowlhound Symphony.
Until Crescendo.
I think you are getting to the answer, but like most on this forum, you are thinking about people rather than incentives
Diving, and play-acting in general, was pretty rare before the 90s anywhere. If you remember, the English League got banned in the ’80s (because of riots), and when it resumed in the ’90s, it quickly became among the most lucrative leagues. Clubs got bought by rich people who were parking their money in London (like Russian oligarchs or Arab oil sheiks.) For different reasons, other leagues like the Italian, Spanish, and German ones also got richer starting around that time.
More money means more incentive to make a mark, as well as avoid getting fouled or subbed off. Play-acting brought much higher payoffs with minimal risk (though these days, with the VAR, one has to be more careful.)
Lacrosse is a team sport played, at least until recently, mainly by the WASPish elite, but was invented by the Indians.
Agree, they should force anyone who indicates a potential injury must go to the sidelines for 5 minutes , thus the penalty for flopping would force the team to play one man short for 5 minutes…if it is a real injury they could replace the player, and the injured player cannot return to the game.
Dodgeball was invented in China. Don’t you know the classics?
What does this say about the countries hosting these leagues?Replies: @Tyrion 2, @Anon
English players didn’t used to dive. I think it was brought into the sport from southern Europe or South America. Although I used to watch Serie A in the 90’s and I don’t recall the Italians diving much.
This is not to say that western or northern Europeans don’t cheat now, or that they never did: I’m sure both things are true. The former certainly is.
The United States is an Anglo-Norman or Anglo-Celtic or Anglo-Saxon or European-Christian nation.
If you ain’t got some of that blood you don’t know shit about the United States. You can read all the books you want, you ain’t got the blood. This is why the WASP/JEW ruling class has a wheel in the ditch and a wheel on the track and the train is roaring on in. The WASP/JEW ruling class of the American Empire is going the way of the dodo.
It makes no sense to allow Jews to remain lodged in the ruling class while they are quite openly hostile to the historic American nation. The Jewish moment in the United States is over.
Treasonous rat whore WASPs such as Dick Cheney and George W Bush may be the last of the filthy WASP scum to push open borders mass immigration, multiculturalism and globalization on a national political ticket.
Once again, Trump won because he got the German Americans in the Great Lakes states and the Southern Anglo-Celts to vote for him. I call it the German Strategy.
Trump also got the Euro-mongrel Florida snowbirds from the New York City area and the snowbirds from the Great Lakes states to vote for him.
Ancestry Is Everything In American Politics
1st: Sierra Leone
2nd: Croatia
3rd: The Congo
4th: Nigeria"
Exactly.
And these fans are twittering as though France won the World Cup! Eventually they'll be cheering for all black teams. The World Cup will become the African Cup--just like the NBA. When there's nothing European left will the fans still be cheering?
Talk about being cucked.Replies: @Anonymous
Except for goalkeepers. There had been no major international star black goalkeepers. All kinds of contrived explanations are provided but it’s probably simply due to reaction time and its high correlation with IQ. Reduces the available pool dramatically and results in the obvious under-representation.
Global sports really have been invented by the British specifically, rather than “English speakers”. American sports notably have not really spread much across the world, despite massive amounts of money behind them and the enormous global power of American culture as a whole.
The Canadians invented basketball though.
The rules were simple. Someone threw the tennis ball against the wall. If it was caught on the fly, the catcher was entitled to throw the ball at the thrower until the thrower ran to the wall and touched it. If someone touched the ball, but didn’t succeed in catching it, he had to run and touch the wall. Whoever picked up the ball after that was allowed to throw it at the attempted catcher. If the thrower hit the runner, he was entitled to restart the game and throw the ball against the wall. If he missed the runner, the runner was entitled to restart the game.
Not a lot of strategy. More a game of honor and courage. Whoever made the initial throw off the wall had an obligation to make it reasonably catchable or else he was a coward. There were no rules whatsoever when it came to catching the ball. Pushing, punching, etc. were all OK. The worst was having your legs cut out under you when you jumped to catch the ball. If the ball came near you and you didn’t do all you could to catch it, that was also considered cowardice.
I can’t remember how what was considered a foul, but my recollection is that everyone knew when a foul had been committed. The penalty was being forced to stand facing the wall, bent over, to protect your head but fully expose your rear. Whoever was fouled got to throw the ball at you from close range.
The pre-Ritalin days, when it was automatically assumed boys would play with boys and girls with girls were so much fun...Replies: @unpc downunder, @YetAnotherAnon
“The urge to create and play violent games, with a set of clear rule is universal among boys, isn’t it?”
At my son’s UK boys school, a boy who broke wind had to immediately shout the magic word “safety!”.
If any other boy shouted “doorknob!” before he uttered the magic word, the transgressor had to race to the nearest door and grab the handle – and until he got there, every other boy could land a blow on him.
Another, more famous example would be that of the Argentine Diego Maradona, arguably the greatest footballer of all time. In the quarter-finals of the '86 cup, he scored two goals: one, arguably the greatest goal of all time; the other, arguably the most blatant and unbelievable bit of cheating of all time.
Why would someone with so much talent, playing a weaker foe, still dishonour himself by cheating? And Maradona is not unusual in this: it's par for the course for South American players.
Of course, the England team is little better these days, but since diving is so rampant and unpunished, they can hardly be blamed. I wonder if other international sports that don't appeal as much to South America or southern Europe - say, rugby - are plagued by as much cheating?
Anyway, I think this might be an interesting line of inquiry to pursue in light of the current immigration debate. What does it say about these peoples, that they cheat at football, and even when they don't need to?
And another thing:Never heard of Winkies before, but it's pretty obviously a joke. Sounds like Mornington Crescent (google it).
If I may, it seems like America is much more prone to creating rules for no reason than England. I think this has something to do with America being founded with the writing of a legal document: it's encouraged a certain legalism in the population. Comedian Des Bishop had a routine that touched on this, but I can't find it online. It was about the difference between playing a casual game of soccer among friends in America and in Ireland, where he'd moved to. In a nutshell, he followed the rules much more strictly than they did. Hilarity ensued.Replies: @Numinous, @Alec Leamas
It’s difficult to imagine how you could cheat in Rugby, since the rules are much looser with regard to contact.
Maybe the closest thing would be the great All Black Flanker Richie McCaw being accused of not “coming through the gate” at the breakdown but rarely being penalized.
High tackles are against the laws, but tend to be penalized consistently.
Those things are kind of like the applied rule with regard to holding in Football - the actual rules aren't followed, and a more flexible kn0w-it-when-I-see-it standard is applied in the interests of flow of the game and competitiveness.
But it's not the same thing as flailing and falling down with little or no contact in order to manufacture a penalty advantage.
I played that exact Suicide game in elementary school in the mid/late 70s. But, I seem to recall it was at the opposite end of the school from the gym. On the end towards the kickball field.
Link?
Games similar to soccer have probably been invented and reinvented thousands of times across the world and down through the centuries/millennia.
JBGP wrote:
“American football is or was a far superior spectator sport to both soccer and rugby.”
Dear Lord in Heaven, I disagree. American football is fine live at the high school level, but once the games are televised, it becomes intolerable.
OTOH, rugby is much superior as a spectator sport both live and there simply is no comparison when watching a televised match.
Diving, and play-acting in general, was pretty rare before the 90s anywhere. If you remember, the English League got banned in the '80s (because of riots), and when it resumed in the '90s, it quickly became among the most lucrative leagues. Clubs got bought by rich people who were parking their money in London (like Russian oligarchs or Arab oil sheiks.) For different reasons, other leagues like the Italian, Spanish, and German ones also got richer starting around that time.
More money means more incentive to make a mark, as well as avoid getting fouled or subbed off. Play-acting brought much higher payoffs with minimal risk (though these days, with the VAR, one has to be more careful.)Replies: @Tyrion 2
Yes, there are many factors that have led to the decline of sportsmanship in English football and money is one of them.
Nonetheless, it is pretty obvious that the ever-shrinking proportion of English players is also key.
It was and remains that the foreign signings, from South America, Southern Europe and Africa, were particularly egregious.
Your attempt to solely blame “money” is just SJW tabula rasa dogma and, worse, the typical attempt to blame Western Europeans by implicit association with it.
The white people did not corrupt the poor brown perfectlings.
https://the18.com/soccer-entertainment/lists/worst-soccer-flops-dives-football-fake-injury
I don't know enough about regional variations within England/Britain to understand if East Anglia was specifically the place were modern sports had its genesis.Replies: @Corn
There is a quote pro-2A folk like to drop occasionally. Thomas Jefferson once wrote a letter to a nephew or some relation where he told him that “games played with the ball” were too violent, time wasting and not intellectually stimulating. He advised his correspondent to “make his gun his constant companion on his walks” (exercise, observe nature, and hunt).
...(and finished 3rd and 4th).Replies: @Brutusale
This guy did pretty well for himself.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2018/07/10/cristiano-ronaldo-takes-a-wage-cut-and-leaves-real-madrid-for-juventus/#4c81c8e29a6d
$340 million over 4 years doesn’t suck.
I think he's the one who did well for himself.Replies: @Tyrion 2, @Brutusale
The Canadians invented basketball though.Replies: @syonredux, @IBC
Baseball has done fairly well in certain countries (Japan, Cuba, etc)
There you go. One for the Anglo-Americans.
Maybe the closest thing would be the great All Black Flanker Richie McCaw being accused of not "coming through the gate" at the breakdown but rarely being penalized.
High tackles are against the laws, but tend to be penalized consistently.Replies: @Alec Leamas (hard at work)
On second thought, I suppose that the modern trend of scrum collapses (sometimes strategic) are a sort of “hacking” of the game’s laws. Maybe also consistently not throwing line-outs straight hoping that referees will adapt.
Those things are kind of like the applied rule with regard to holding in Football – the actual rules aren’t followed, and a more flexible kn0w-it-when-I-see-it standard is applied in the interests of flow of the game and competitiveness.
But it’s not the same thing as flailing and falling down with little or no contact in order to manufacture a penalty advantage.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2018/07/10/cristiano-ronaldo-takes-a-wage-cut-and-leaves-real-madrid-for-juventus/#4c81c8e29a6d
$340 million over 4 years doesn't suck.Replies: @Truth
$140M. of that is a transfer fee to the owner of Real Madrid, and he won’t have to run a lap.
I think he’s the one who did well for himself.
Sounds like the usual group has a “schedule” for taking over and making football more “profitable” for the bread-and-circuses, divide-and-conquer group. After all, FIFA now has a Swiss banker as president and is attempting to set up an “international league”. I suppose the next artifice will be to introduce enough “breaks” in the game for commercials – in which case football will become as boring and corrupted as the american perversion.
Hedge Fund Billionaire Singer To Hold On To AC Milan
http://conservativeangle.com/hedge-fund-billionaire-singer-to-hold-on-to-ac-milan/
Last weekend we reported that as part of the failure of a Chinese investor’s inability to make a €32 million debt owed to Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, the legendary investor and hedge fund billionaire was set to take control over the legendary Italian soccer club, AC Milan, whose debt infusion in the 2016 purchase of the Italian club by Li Yonghong, primed him for equity ownership in case of a default…..
This, of course, is the same Paul Singer who once seized an Argentinian frigate, the ARA Libertad, in 2012 as part of his long-running debt dispute with the recently insolvent Latin American nation (which then went on to troll bond investors by selling 100 year bonds just a few years later)…..
The main reason I see organized sports as having originated in mainly English speaking lands is the fact that the English speaking world was the first part of the world to have a large number of wealthy people with nothing to do. The industrial revolution and shorter working hours allowed the lower classes to have leisure time too and sports became a national pastime in Britain. It’s interesting to note that soccer has always been a secondary game in both Canada and the United States and that the game that we call “American Football” in which Canada plays a slightly different game originated independently at McGill University in Montreal and in a match in 1874 they played a game in which they alternated between the McGill rugby-based game and the Harvard Boston rules game.
And the growth of mass media and literacy would have also been a major factor in developing interest in organized sports in the English speaking world and beyond. For example, in cycling, the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia were both started by newspapers as a way to boost sales.
I don’t get you man. Why must you keep saying “wasp”? As someone from a white Anglo Saxon background, I find it to be the nastiest term.
We must be fair – the blond-haired German Jurgen Klinsmann is probably the spiritual father of Premier League diving, although plenty of swarthier chaps have since emulated him.
https://the18.com/soccer-entertainment/lists/worst-soccer-flops-dives-football-fake-injury
Cuisine, restaurant, chef, menu, cafe, hotel, saute, julienne, braise, rotisserie, crepe, bistro, a la carte, ambiance…
The whole concept of fine dining and “hospitality” is largely French, though some Italians might beg to differ. Trends come and go, and tastes change. But the French influence remains.
And incidentally, according to Andrew Zimmern, French chicken is the best.
Yes, I think that’s a big part of the answer. Also look at the early British involvement with adventure sports like skiing, mountaineering, and even canoeing. Unless you live in certain areas, you need a certain level of time and money to pursue those types of activities. But more efficient transportation and accomodation eventually made them more accessible to a broader range of people, up to a point.
And the growth of mass media and literacy would have also been a major factor in developing interest in organized sports in the English speaking world and beyond. For example, in cycling, the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia were both started by newspapers as a way to boost sales.
The Canadians invented basketball though.Replies: @syonredux, @IBC
Martial arts like Karate, Judo, and Taekwondo, have all done pretty well.
I thought it was going to be huge, like the balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. That’s what the media hype leading up to it made it sound like. It was really underwhelming.
Post WWII, (more as a result of the Americans than the Brits), English largely replaced French (and in scientific circles German) as THE universal language. There are some vestiges but the French are fighting a losing battle. At CDG Airport, the French air traffic controllers speak English to the French Air France pilots because English is the language of international aviation.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Cagey Beast, @Clyde, @Corn, @snorlax, @sb
I’d say history shows that the general case is that Britain invented or at least formalised the sport and then France came along and founded the international federation of that sport . This is true even of sports like swimming ( ran by FINA – a French acronym ) Everyone in the early days of FIFA wanted British leadership but Britain was only occasionally interested until after WWII ( such as ignoring pre War II World Cups although at that time England lost to foreign teams about as often as Team USA now loses in basketball )
It should be noted that Britain still largely decides the rules of soccer . Pre FIFA the Brits formed a rules committee of the 4 British nations which FIFA followed but now there is a larger committee with half FIFA representation and half British representation .
Mind you the US has a very strong say in the international rules of basketball and baseball
Too busy working to pay for the third world someone dumped on us, I suppose. Really though it’s not just sports, of any really important invention out there if you flip a coin chances are some Englishman had something to do with inventing it.
I think he's the one who did well for himself.Replies: @Tyrion 2, @Brutusale
Real Madrid is owned by its supporters. That money will only go back into the club. You must know very little about football to not even be minded to at least look that up.
I think he's the one who did well for himself.Replies: @Tyrion 2, @Brutusale
Real Madrid paid Man U 80 million pounds for Ronaldo 8 years ago.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/5505073/Cristiano-Ronaldo-transfer-Real-Madrid-agree-80-million-fee-with-Manchester-United.html
hahaahaa. I know this comment is late: agree with Anonymous # 2 (thing two!) that I also, thought it was a Macy’s THXG balloon-size. When I saw that it was just Party City jumbo size, well, fougetaboudid! But, you are correct that Trump balloons (for supporters and scolds) will become popular in the future – how can it not? Seriously, you need to think how you could make money off of this – Trump is really into trademarks…..soooo…..go for it!, hahaa