“I still think a lot of this is prejudiced nonsense. My boys play football in an ordainary Joe's league. Any dirty play or diving is roundly condemned, no parents yell abuse at the referee or their kids, we roundly applaud any bits of skill from whichever side. At the end of the game the kids shake hands and clap each other off he field.
To say only rugby teaches good sportsmanship is extremely ill informed.”
Well I am glad that happens, maybe your lads can come down my local park and teach the kids playing football there a few lessons in sportsmanship. I help coach the minis section in my club on a Sunday morning, we share the park with a few footie sides and it is sad to see some of the youngsters there emulating their premiership heroes by falling all over the place and haranguing the ref after each call, this is not helped by some parents on the side screaming at both players and coaches alike. Anecdotal I know, but that is just what I have seen myself. Most rugby clubs get parents to sign a good conduct form which lists a raft of dos and don’t focussing on encouraging good behaviour not only in their kids but the parents on sidelines as well. If either party cant abide by this they are asked to leave.
“And of course there are a few smaller top rugby players, as there are footballers but for a smaller kid, football is definitely going to give them more chance to do well. My son has been asked to train with the local rugby team a couple of times. He has never played rugby in his life. They are only interested because he is a particularly big and sturdy seven year old.”
At the elite level of any sport you are going to get perfect physical specimens for each position, are you going to get a 5ft premiership goalkeeper, a 60kg champion shot putter, a 90kg race grand national jockey?. Take it as a compliment that someone sees potential in your son. Is this any different to say a rowing club or basketball team trying to encourage the tall kid to get involved in their respective sports? The further you step away from the professional arena the more accommodating any sports becomes towards different shapes and sizes, twas always the case. Some people are born with physical advantages, some are not, you kind of learn that early in life.
“I've been to plenty of rugby matches and plenty of football matches. I would say the distribution of idiots is pretty even between the supporters.”
So have I (follow Watford for my sins), and I agree there are muppets in both sports, difference being is that the muppets on opposing sides in rugby don’t need to physically kept apart or an amarda of policemen to keep an eye on them.
“The only difference is that football supporters are treated absolutely appallingly by the authorities, presumed guilty before anything even starts.”
Did the 70s and 80s just pass you by? Sadly, although football clubs have done loads to clamp down on hooligans many sides still have its hard core of potentially violent twats who can’t be trusted to not to kick off. This means the majority have to put up with a huge police presence, CCTV, high fences and overzealous security, and being held back in the ground while the away fans are escorted to the station/buses. Blame the hooligans of yesteryear for the treatment of footie fans now not the authorities.
“It is no coincidence that this does not happed to supporters of rugby, the game favoured by the privileged (at least in England).”
Rugby fans are not treated like animals as there is very little histroy of violent crowd behaviour, feck all to do with 'class'. Anyway, you cant have been to many recent rugby games then as you will see a whole cross section of society in the crowd. Both rugby and football will always have their champagne hospitality box mob but in the ‘job blogs’ seats it is a real mix. 30 years ago you may have had a point, however the days of rugby fans being all Barbour jackets and Range Rover types only are long gone. My team, off the top off my head, has one scaffolder, one site manager, one bricklayer, two civil servants, an unemployed guy, a couple of students, an NHS pharmacist, a teacher and in fairness one city trader who earned stupid money, none of them former Bullington Club members though.
“And really, role models? There are plenty of shaggers and druggies in rugby. Will Carling, Lawrence Dalaglio, Gavin Henson anyone. Of course there are idiots in football. But anyone who thinks rugby is some perfect, noble sport needs to broaden their horizons a bit.”
And absolutely nobody has claimed this. Rugby more recently has had its fair share of less then edifying off the field scandals, I would contend though that such incidents are more common in football then in rugby though. My previous post was contesting your rather absurd statement that the England football team are professional and well behaved compared to rugby, which is quite clearly a bollocks thing to claim.