How difficult is it to become a soccer fan in America? And when you are one do you get ridiculed by your peers? I mean I get called because I like watchin American football. So whats it like in America to be a soccer fan. How many arguments do you get into a week; When people start callin soccer?
It is very easy being a soccer fan in the States. Maybe, the hardest part is being close enough to a team to catch a good game. But, some of my Brit friends are amazed at how much soccer is played in the States. In just the last ten years there has been an explosion of soccer, especially pro soccer in the US. I think in the last WC you are just starting to see the results. Ridicule? It doesn't work that way, here. In England, and most football nations, football is the only team sport. Oh, sure you have Rugby and Cricket, but you know they are not the same. In the States we have the Big 4 and a bunch of other pro sports. As an example, NASCAR stock car racing is not considered a top sport, but it has a massive following, huge TV, and big big bucks behind it. So, being into soccer, is just another sports choice. Sure there is a dyed-in-the-wool old guard that likes to slam soccer, but they are actually just worried that it will get real big, and they will have to learn all about it, which will only make their lives more complicated. Except for a bunch of wankers who think that what's on ESPN makes a sport official, nobody really cares. The only arguments I know going on are the ones over where the MLS should expand to, when they get back on track by the next WC. That, and whether or not Cobi is a complete jackass or the best damn soccer player this country has ever produced. Soccer came from your country. It is Cockney Slang for the Football AsSOCiation. Please, try and explain it to us, if you would.
Well, it used to be a lot different. I remember when I'd get all excited about watching college boys kicking it around on a severly crowned astroturf field once a year. We're in heaven now compared to those dark ages. And no one, with the exception of a few hostile hold out among the press, gives footy fans crap anymore. It's still not always easy and being a soccer fan can still be thankless, but we've come a long way. It amazes me to even reflect on it all. That's about being a fan. Needless to say, with greater TV access, the internet, a league and a national team with a much higher profile, becoming a fan is no longer that tough.
Nobody can explain cockney slang. The closet I can come to expalin it is that 2 words that with the last word ryhmin with the thing its meant to be decribing which of coarse soccer doesn't do. I I do know soccer is played quite alot in the US just not watched.
And if you are still wondering why we call it soccer (though the term "football" is often used but in a strictly soccer context), don't ask us, even though we know why. Why not get the answer from a source with more authority? I'd suggest that English publication "World Soccer". I'm sure that they'll have an answer for you.
OK. The term was introduced by the English, of course. And it stuck here AND in most of the English speaking world. Canada, Aussie, Kiwi, South Africa, et al, call it soccer, as well. How did the English come up with it? Well, remember that rugby rules had taken off and seperated from the football mainstream. The rugby crowd, mostly school boys who had been taught the fashionable prep school slang, would refer to rugby as "rugger". Well, someone among the hands off crowd came up with "soccer" as a response. Remember that soccer is known, still known, as "association football." The soc from soccer come from the word association. And you know what? I'm eager and glad to serve you but this is one topic that makes most American soccer fans quite weary.
I agree with everything you said. However Football was the origanl form of football and when other games were invented it was customary to give them a different name i.e. rugby So that football would still be football. But I don't really want to get into an argument about all this. We all know that soccer rules.
Too right, mate. It does rule, it does. And it's catching on over here in a pretty big way. All the best.
You mean having to explain to English people that the word "soccer" is of English origin? So when Americans (or Irish or Australians or South Africans) call the sport "soccer," they are actually drawing on an established British lexicon? You're saying this is wearying? Well, it is. But at least now we won't have to do it again for another week or so.
No offense intended, C-nator! But this topic comes up regularly. You've caught on, obviously, and probably did so before you've even signed up for these boards. But the fact remains, before September is over, someone, most likely from England, will lament the fact that the sport is most commonly called "soccer" in other parts of the English speaking world.
Keep it on the ground. Play it wide. He has no beef with you and we're glad to have you on these boards. It's just that the soccer-football "discussion" is interminable, it seems. And, as I had suggested, most Yanks are pretty tired of it. So what will it be tonight? Curry, chippy or what?
The term soccer came from the English public schools and Universities in the 19th century, not Cockney Slang. The fashion at the time was to abbreviate all terms, so Rugby Football became Rugger, and Association Football became Soccer.
. . . and it's the same great sport, whether you call it football, footie, futbol, fussball, calcio, or soccer.
Now, you see, you learn something every day. I did not know about the Public School Rugger, Soccer thing. However, until a true linguist says otherwise, I will still think it has Cockney roots, because of the Cockney rhymes are often onomonpea and allegorical, and that like all lower classes, they invent way more language than the upper classes do. Also, you may well be interested in knowing that there is a growing trend among young, suburban American male sports fans to refer to Soccer as "real football" or just "football" and to refer to the the NFL vesion as "American Football". Finally, it is historically wrong to think of Association Football as the one and true football. The game of football, as historians understand it, in its orginal form, naturally had no set of rules. But, as best they can figure this out, it was a game played with the hands, feet, and every other body part, and involved dribbling the ball with the feet, carrying the ball, tackling, both Rugby and Football style, marks, and kicking the ball through uprights for a goal. As I understand it, the actual games closest to the ancient football are Irish Football and Aussie Rules Football, which is Irish Rules played on a Cricket pitch. The truth be told, pound for pound Aussie Rules is the most exciting and hardest played of all the football games.
This is one of those topics where it is worthwhile (again) to mention Andrei Markovitz's book Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism. It discusses the orgins of American sports, and how soccer missed the moment due largely to mismanagement and disorganization in the early part of the 20th century. I have taken a bit of stick from a few people for being a fanatic of real footy, but mostly people consider it my choice, and my interest in mainstream American sports is sufficient to ward off those who might otherwise suspect me of being gay or a communist. Btw, has anyone noticed that football is not that popular in most former British colonies? The african nations have a healthy interest, but the US, Canada, Australia, and the others have not taken nearly as much interest in footy as they have in rugby (Australia, New Zealand) or cricket (Australia, India, Pakistan). And American football and baseball evolved from rugby and cricket, respectively. Just wondering why this is.
Football was the game of the working classes, Rugby and Cricket were "Gentlemen's Games", and as most of the people with any influence in the new colonies were of the upper classes, their favourite sports would take precedent, hence the popularity of rugby and cricket.
No I never have but amazingly true. Also I have had the Argument over the origins of the word soccer and amazingly America are correct on this issue. But I think the world has a problem with you callin American football, football when you hardly use your feet. At least in rugby or aussie rule you are allowed to dribble. But I do like American football. But havin the prefix American kind of sums up the sport. Also I know its nobody on thse boards but the world can not stand how Americans call soccer continusly even though I think this is more on TV then actual Americans. Also the world feels they are being robbed of a potentiel football superpower.
I once heard it said that Rugby is a thug's game played by gentleman, and football is a gentleman's game played by thugs. The same could be said of ice hockey and basketball, methinks.
I think its called football because it evolved from Rugby. In the mid 19th century, there were two kinds of football being played at American universities: Association Football (Soccer) and Rugby. They may have enjoyed equal popularity for awhile, but the lads at Harvard preferred Rugby, and since Harvard was the 800-pound gorilla of American colleges at the time, the Association game was pushed out in favor of the "Boston game." The first intercollegiate football games in the US were almost certainly rugby matches, which by then was what people meant when they spoke of "football" in the US. The changes to the game came along shortly thereafter, but the name remained. This is my impression from what I have read, anyway.
The fact of how it became football is not the dispute. But the world see this sport what they don't understand and think they aren't usin thier feet how can they call it football. Most people don't even realsie that football is a genric word.
This is fun thread... Okay, just like you think Rugger/Soccer thing is upper class in origin, you are also saying that the correct origin of football's lesser status in the old "white" colonies, ie US, Austrailia, and Canada -- it was a lower class game. But, you would be wrong. As I mention before, Aussie Rules is a version of Irish Rules played on Cricket Pitches. In fact, the two nations play an international championship, using Irish rules. That of course would be because so many of the convicts the Crown sent to Australia were Irish, and they brought their ancient game with them. I sincerley doubt those Irish in Oz were upper crust. Next, as you may not know, Canada is the home of what we now call American or NFL football. The Canadians were the first to put the forward pass into the game of Rugby, and taught it to Americans when our Ivy League Colleges traveled to Canada to play intercollegiate games. As you may not know, the Grey Cup, the trophy of the Canadian Football League is almost as old as the FA Cup. It may be older. It was that game that the Ivy Leagues chose for their own intercollegiate rivalries, after rejecting both soccer and rugby as being too, get this, violent and disorganized. It didn't have anything to do with class. It had everything to do with the forward pass.