Snobbery
Pure and simple
Sorry Binners but that is bollocks. I agree with you on most things (especially baked goods) but not this. No snobbery on my behalf. Christ, I grew up on a Yorkshire council estate with a labourer for a father and a miner for a stepdad. No middle class snobbery here. I just don’t like watching any sports, will play any, and find football in particular to have a large percentage (in my experience) of weird fans. Grown men crying, acting like children when a team loses, talking about games as if they’re taking part, making assumptions based on others not following it etc.
It’s even bad at a kids level. Walked and rode by local games and the behaviour of some of the parents is pathetic to say the least. Not like that at the kids basketball and cricket games I’ve been to.
Snobbery
Pure and simple
Shite.
Pure and simple.
Rather than trying to pick my question apart could you have a stab at answering it, what other sport sees DV rates to go up afterwards?
I did. When I've gone to the trouble of answering perhaps you'd have a stab at reading it?
I didn't try to pick your question apart; I thought it was a reasonable and balanced review of the actual data behind the trope. You might not have said in actual words, but to me the question was a pretty clear insinuation of it.
your point would have merit if I’d claimed football was the exclusive cause.
It's not the cause, exclusive or otherwise. There's a correlation.
Sorry Binners but that is bollocks
I’m not accusing all critics of it, but have a read back over this thread. There’s plenty of it on display, particularly by those who site rugby as a comparison
The undercurrent is clear. Look at those frightful people with their replica shirts, their tattoos and their fizzy lager, watching their big tellies and smoking. Can they not buy themselves some nice stonewashed denim and drink a nice craft IPA?
I suppose I’m just as guilty of reverse snobbery, because when I think of Rugby I think of this, but the implied superiority really irritates me. That’s tribalism for you 😉
https://Twitter.com/conor1971/status/1753442058398761411?s=46&t=1lK7Dw1b6RqGJyvufO-trQ
That picture is frightening ? are you sure it isn’t a chelsea boot convention?
I wouldn't bother anymore Binners the thread title itself is incendiary, imagine if PistonHeads had a thread ‘Mountain Biking – a bit pants really, isn't it’ that would wind a few people here up and I have enough mates who certainly think cyclists are a nuisance and it’s a child’s hobby. You cannot make someone like a passion.
Binners - your caricature of rugby as middle class is pretty regionalised. Putting league to one side* (as it's obviously bollox there), try living in Wales. I did my primary school years in Wales in the late 70s and early 80s. Union was (and I think still is) the life blood of communities, as classless as pretty much any sport I could imagine, both to watch and play. I accept that's not the case throughout the UK but it's disingenuous to portray it as exclusively red trousered.
*I'd say league fans are pretty much the prototype for all sports to aspire to, as as how to behave, support and banter.
Anyway, nearly time for the F1, live on Channel 4.
@convert - my hatred of Rugby (and believe me, i HATE rugby!) is deep-seated and personal and ironically I blame the Welsh. When I was at school our PE teacher was a Welsh, rugby-obsessed psycopath - think the Brian Glover charachter in Kes if he'd have been from Merthyr Tydfil - who had us playing Rugby every week, regardless of the weather.
One week some knuckle-dragging neanderthal tackled me and before I'd had opportunity to desperately get rid of the egg, his full body weight landed on my leg, I heard it snap even before I felt it.
In hospital, as I surveyed the x-ray of the splintered wreckage of my knee, the surgeon said 'well that’s your rugby career over'. It was the happiest day of my life 🙂
Just to make sure I'm answering the question fully
Since you think alcohol is a major factor
Not me, that's what the reports say
I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding examples from rugby, cricket and bowls where alcohol consumption in the grounds is allowed.
No, I can't find reports or studies where none exist. But I'd reflect that looking at actual attendances, football with about 1m spectators has an order of magnitude more spectators as rugby on an average fixture weekend, hard to tell for cricket as there are far more days with cricket on but I found data that total attendance in England in 2022 was 2.3m so football covers that in about 2 weeks, and there's about 45 weeks in the football season, so about 20x the rate (also note that's cricket's total including internationals, the football data is for an average league weekend)
I can't find data for bowls but suspect it's not that high 😉
And then there are far more TV watchers, at home with mates, at the pub, in fan parks, etc.
Like I say i can't find the data but given football is orders of magnitude more popular than the others, likely that on a like for like basis then incidents of DV will also be orders of magnitude higher and worth doing a study on.
And yes, I'll admit that as the 'working class' national sport, and our national obsession with getting mullered, that I suspect toxic drunkenness is worse at football than at other sports even on a per capita basis. But the issue isn't football per se (again, if it was you'd expect teetotal fans to be beating the partners every time their team loses) - it's alcohol.
"Anyway, nearly time for the F1, live on Channel 4."
oh good, off out on the bike then.
Not so sure footy is just working class as the next King of Britannia is a big fan
As is the new PM. He’s a lifelong Gooner.
So at least now Engerland are through we’ll be spared the toe-curling sight of Boris in a box fresh Engerland kit, or Dave trying to remember if he supported Villa or West Ham (same colour shirts, so an easy mistake to make) or Rishi pretending to support Southampton but didn’t know who’d qualified for the Euros
You have to tiptoe around some senior people at my work if their team plays badly and certain colours are pretty much banned from the office. That’s not normal behaviour.
No it's totally normalised behaviour. Which is part of the problem. You go into work and someone says to you "keep out of Steve's way today, Liverpool lost last night so he's like a bear with a sore head," the expected response is "OK, thanks for the heads-up" rather than "WTF, is he 12?"
Men sometimes do this, not necessarily because they want it to lead to a deep conversation about tactics or team allegiances, but because they are just trying to make conversation. It’s assumed to be a safe opening gambit as a topic, like the weather.
Sure, and that's fair enough. But having established "I have no interest in the weather" they've got nothing else so rather than changing the subject, poking at their phone for a bit or otherwise ****ing off and leaving you alone they proceed to channel their inner John Kettley for the next 40 minutes.
I cannot think offhand of a single other topic of conversation which spawns this sort of behaviour, football is unique in this regard. Perhaps because as others have alluded to it's a Lowest Common Denominator?
I’ve not been to a basketball ball match or baseball – I suspect I’d not enjoy either of those too.
I investigated baseball on holiday in Chicago a few years ago. It was on in a "sports bar" I went to, the guy coincidentally sat next to me was well into it so I asked him to explain. My conclusion after gaining a better understanding and watching it all evening is that it's cricket with all the excitement removed.
On the upside, the lass he failed to chat up turned out to be far more entertaining than the baseball and merited a return trip. 🙂
The reason these (regular) threads trigger me,
Sorry, "regular"? This is the first one I recall seeing.
He’s a lifelong Gooner.
WTF is a gooner?
When you see footage of British Indian and ****stani cricket supporters coming together to support England in the Euros at Edgbaston yesterday, it is clear that quite a lot of good can come from soccer.
Soccer?
Sorry, “regular”? This is the first one I recall seeing.
There was one a while back, I only remember because someone who wasn't actually into football was telling how he read about it anyway so he had something to talk about and "connect" with clients and that people really should do the same as it's an international language. Or something.
Came across as a real life Roy.
Soccer?
A contraction of "Association Football," just as rugby is a contraction of "Rugby Football." Other footballs are available also.
There was one a while back,
Ah, right. So "regular" means "this happened once before." [thumbs up emoji]
Came across as a real life Roy.
Huh? Who?
It’s on the football threads. There’s always one going on here where us poor unfortunates who are afflicted with a love of the sport go to bemoan our teams awful parasitic or murderous oil baron owners/insane managerial sacking/star strikers present terrible form/inexplicable VAR decisions/the awful brand of football played by Gareth Southgates squad
Delete as applicable.
With tedious regularity, rather than leave us to our misery, some Olly or other will pop in to tell us how ‘soccer’ is rubbish whereas Rugby is a ‘real man’s’ game or a ‘gentleman’s’ game. Then they proceed to bore us with some other tedious nonsense about footballists all being pansies, whereas a rugby player could be hoofed in the nads by a cart horse and still play a full match, drenched in blood, with their cobblers literally hanging by a thread out of the bottom of their shorts
It seems we’ve now moved in from that and they’re now starting specific threads about it
Football is a shower of shite, pub skittles is where it at.
I need to post so that you all have someone to unify you all in your bemusement. 😀
I'm a 55 year old man that occasionally watches a bit of eSports. Specifically Counter Strike.
We walk among you.
With tedious regularity, rather than leave us to our misery, some Olly or other will pop in to tell us how ‘soccer’ is rubbish
Apologies, may have got the wrong end of the stick earlier. If you have to deal with that calibre of numpty on a regular basis you have every right to be grumpy about it.
I watched the footie yesterday in a room full of bespectacled middle-aged lesbians. They weren't tattooed but did drink a moderate quantity of lager, although they tidied up quite quickly afterwards. There was one replica shirt on display
I’m a 55 year old man that occasionally watches a bit of eSports. Specifically Counter Strike.
I'd have been less shocked if you'd said you were into goat porn. Some things are just better left unsaid....<wink emoji>
It’s on the football threads. There’s always one going on here
Ah, that would be why I've not seen it. That being the case, they're a tool.
It seems we’ve now moved in from that and they’re now starting specific threads about it
Progress?
You realise that in chipping in here, you're as bad as them? 🙂
I’d have been less shocked if you’d said you were into goat porn. Some things are just better left unsaid….<wink emoji>
They don't have to be mutually exclusive!:D
I too had no idea that people went in to footy specific threads to act like tools. I just avoid them through lack of interest.
Anyway, if you’d like to set your iPlayer settings to location NI, you can watch 15 Limerick men playing 15 Cork men in the All Ireland Championship semi final. The winners will go on to play 15 men from Clare in the final.
And they’re all amateurs.
It’s quite fast, mind.
And from your username I’ve always assumed you were into coprophilia………that makes you….unique.
To be fair. You're pretty unique that you knew what the word was for that (or even that there was a word for that). I had to look it up. 😉
someone who wasn’t actually into football was telling how he read about it anyway so he had something to talk about and “connect” with clients and that people really should do the same as it’s an international language.
Think I vaguely remember that too. I considered it for two second and thought nah **** that lololol.
I don’t really have much interest in cycling. I always say that I won’t bother watching the big races (Giro, TdF), but something draws me in and I end up watching a few races – like the Strade Bianchi one that’s on now.
I’m left baffled as to why this is so popular all around the world. Compared to a game of football it’s just so tedious. There are occasional moments of excitement, but for most of the 240+ minutes it’s just a snoozefest. What am I missing?
What am I missing?
Just the punctures and occasional spectator accident.
Well, I for one, prefer to watch the international submarine racing championships.
What am I missing?
Road cycling, not a lot. I like a bit of track cycling but even get bored of that after 20 minutes but I don't think watching sports is for me. Would be willing to have a go at most of them and love cycling but watching someone else do it is not for me.
Huh? Who?
IT Crowd. 'Are We Not Men?' episode.
The feeling when you are part of a crowd living for the moment is brilliant
And then along came VAR...
Stopping kidding about.
deserved more attention
Apart from in rugby the refs tell them off for it and they get roundly mocked on social media
