What is REAL Football?

[Dutchgrown]

Hey everyone, maybe you all can help out here. Was just watching TV with Gypsy and this game called Rugby came on (Scotland vs France). Gypsy says THAT is a real MAN's game....is he kidding me here???? The rules are quite different and Gypsy says they have no need to wear helmets and padding like American 'sissy' players because these players are tougher. Then he goes on to say that technically 'Soccer' is more of a football game than American football as well........cause in Soccer they make contact with the ball more with their feet.

Although I have attempted to point out to him that those fellows playing Rugby 'in shorts no less' are hardly representative of what 'I' would categorize as a rough and tough, lean machine (like we have in the states)...he persists in saying that Rugby is played by tougher guys. *I'm laughing inside as I invision one of those Rugby fellers coming up on the likes of a 'Refrigerator Perry' kind of American football player*

So what's you guys take on all this? Please vote :wink:


dg

 

[Dr. D]

Real Football

Real Football

mmmn i dont like any of them so id have to say none of the above, non of them constitute real football, the REAL football is the Deathball game played by the Mayans, if im rite the winning team were sacrificed to the Gods and it was an honour to be sacrificed, i think they shud do this with the so called football and rugby today, thered be no need for divisions then cuz every game one of the teams wud be sacrificed and those prancy boys runnin round the field with a ball wudnt need to be payed ridiculous amounts of money ..peace

 

[Dutchgrown]

Hey Dr. D.....think you can vote now :wink: I added a 'none of the above' choice.


dg

 

[Dr. D]

thanks Dutchgrown :smile:

 

[mrwags]

Yes Dutch he is correct Rugby is freakin brutal. Imagine a bunch of mean nasty guys in a large pile biting scratching hitting hell maybe even biting for that matter all for a little ball. I don't know for sure if I would wanna call the American players sissys or not most are 6 foot 5 plus weigh atleast 300 pounds and not only can they rip you in half but can run a 4-5 second forty yard dash. Thats kinds like a semi truck that can out run a corvette then crush it like a bug. But even the american players have stated that the Rugby guys are some mean ass sob's. But either way Dutch all three sports contain some great athletes. I would haft to say football players in the Us are bigger but rugby guys are meaner by far as a whole.


Mr.Wags

 

[Babbabud]

baseball has been very very good to me

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

....Football?........Football?.......tell me.....why do they call this game in America Football.....when perhaps only 0.001% of any game..... has to do with a foot striking a ball?

*it would be more appropriate if they called it 'Helmet Ball'......or 'Tight Spandex Pants Ball'.......

 

[truecannabliss]

at Gypsy

 

[Guest]

sorry Dutch, I think I'm with Gypsy on this one...
However, college football here can be fairly intense...

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

......I wonder what would happen if a W.W.F. wrestler got in the ring wearing a helmet and a bunch of padding?

 

[Guest]

rugby = sissys in shorts that just run around & play keep away = LOL -

Football - a contact sport / Jack Tatum - lived for blood

(I am just haveing fun)

 

[Einsteinguy]

Actually American Football is a derivation of the forerunners of Association Football and Rugby Football. Therefore, it has every right to call itself Football. Allow me to explain why. I would like to enlighten you regarding the history and continuing development of the games of Football around the world. Football in many forms has been around for over two thousand years.

The earliest form of Football was, the Tsu'Chu, used for exercise in the second and third centuries BC in China. 500 or so years later in Japan the football game of Kemari began and is still played today.

The ancient Greeks played a form of football known as Harpaston, and the Romans played a similar game, Harpastum. In medieval times, a form of football known as Calcio flourished in Italy. Natives of Polynesia are known to have played a variety of the game with a football made of bamboo fibers, and the Inuit played a form of football with a leather ball filled with moss.

Notice that Association Football and Rugby Football are not yet formed. They will not come into existence for another several hundred years.

Shrovetide Football, as it was called, belonged in the "mob football" category. Here the number of players was unlimited and the rules were vague. For example, according to an ancient handbook from Workington in England, any means could be employed to get the ball to its target with the exception of murder and manslaughter. Shrovetide football is still played today on Shrove Tuesday in some areas, such as, Ashbourne in Derbyshire. However, it is no longer so riotous as it used to be, nor are such extensive casualties suffered as was probably the case centuries ago.

It is certain that decisive development of football with which we are now familiar took place in England and Scotland. The game that flourished in the British Isles from the 8th to the 19th centuries had a considerable variety of local and regional versions. They were subsequently smoothed down and smartened up to form the present day sports of Association Football and Rugby Football. They were substantially different from all the previously known forms. The earlier forms were more disorganized, more violent, more spontaneous, and usually played by an indefinite number of players.

Association Football and Rugby Football only became known in the nineteenth century. Therefore, these groups and their related associations could have no influence on the game until after they were formed.

At the beginning of the 19th century several types of the game?all permitting players to kick the ball but not carry it?were being played at various English schools, including Eton, Harrow, and Rugby. The modification of the game that permits carrying the ball was first introduced at Rugby in 1823 when one schoolboy disregarded the established rules, tucked the ball under his arm, and dashed across the goal of the opponents.

Carrying the ball was another development in one of the many varieties of football.

In 1863, a number of clubs devoted to the kicking game met in London. They organized the London Football Association, and adopted a code of uniform rules; this type of game was henceforth known as Association Football, and later soccer, a word derived from association.

In 1871 a group devoted to the ball-carrying game organized the Rugby Football Union and adopted the rules then in vogue at Rugby School; that form of the game thereafter was known as Rugby Football.

It is interesting to note that these games are all postscripted by the word Football, as is the next form of football, Australian Football. It should therefore be acceptable for American Rules Football to be called American Football.

Football was first played in Australia about the middle of the 19th century, based on rugby, soccer, and Gaelic football. Australian Rules Football (as it is officially called) is a fast-paced game, played on an oval field with teams of 18 players. The ball cannot be thrown but can be caught; overhand catching, known as high marking, and long kicking are the two distinctive features of the game.

In the United States, a form of football using a blown-up bladder was played in the colony of Virginia in 1609. In 1820 students at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) participated in a soccer-like game, called Ballown, in which they advanced the ball by punching it with their fists. Intercollegiate competition began on November 6, 1869, with a game between Rutgers and Princeton. The game, however, resembled soccer more than modern-day American football.

Harvard, preferring to use its own rules, abstained from this competition. In 1874 Harvard met McGill University of Montreal, Canada, in a match played under the rugby-like rules of the Canadians. The Harvard players, impressed, altered their own rules accordingly. Harvard and Yale played a football game for the first time on November 13, 1875, using Harvard's rules.

The following year, representatives of Harvard, Yale, and Columbia answered an invitation from Princeton football representatives to attend a parley at Springfield, Massachusetts. The result of the convention included a new set of football rules and the formation of the Intercollegiate Football Association. Although the rugby-like rules of Harvard again prevailed, certain soccer rules were incorporated. The resulting combination of rugby and soccer became popular, and as time went on the rules were constantly changed until a new game evolved.

Since the London Football Association was born in 1863 and the Rugby Football Union was formed in 1871, it is doubtful that they had any influence whatsoever on American Football. However, it is very likely that the proponents of earlier European Footballers influenced American Football in the beginning. This places American Football on an even field developmentally and nearly parallel with the formation of the London Football Association, the Rugby Football Union. Consider 1876, when the Intercollegiate Football Association was begun by standardizing on the Harvard rules.


OK more than anyone wanted to know.

Einstein

 

[Guest]

baseball has been very very good to me

Chico

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

....Right.....so when the game went to the U.S.A from Europe........they decided to wear helmets/pads and spandex pants?........what for?

 

[JustSayGrow]

if u want tough check the Ultimate Fighting Championship, i do think rugby guys are pretty damn tough, but i still love american football...as far as WWF goes they need too jump in with the ring with those UFC guys and we would quickly see they are oversized steroid freaks that dont want a real fight...

 

[Guest]

gilrs love a man in uniform

 

[SlackerScrog]

Television and the $$$ , ruined 'American Football' .

'5 million $' a year and they sit out a game with a 'stubbed Toe' , ha.

1940-1950's 'American Football' , now that was a brutal sport. ( although the players are bigger today, they just don't have the 'Gutts for the game').


peace

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

.....yeah.....how come they only seem to play for a few seconds during an American footie game.....then they cut to advertise a new rice burner or Doritto's?..lol

 

[Dr. D]

at Gypsy....Bring back Deathball i say...Deathball team against an American football team.now tha wud b brutal, no American football players wud survive

 

[Dr. D]

or rugby players for that matter... no team wud be tough enough to survive a game of Deathball, hence the name Deathball