The mother of modern sport
RH
division in Europe with nearly 10 million fans last season,
after the Premiership [12.88 million], Bundesliga [11.57 million]
and La Liga [10.92]. We are ahead of Seria A.” Lord Mahwinny,
Chairman of the Football League – Daily Telegraph 28 7 2005.
The English have a most tremendous sporting culture. By that I do
not mean that England is always winning everything at the national
level – although they do far better than is generally realised -
but rather that the interest in sport is exceptionally deep and wide.
As the quote from Mahwinny shows, not only is the top division of
English football (the Premiership) the most watched in Europe, the
second division (the Coca Cola Championship) attracts more
spectators than all but two of the top divisions in Europe,
beating even the top division of that supposed bastion of football
Italy.
The colossal support for football in England is all the
more extraordinary because the country has so many other sports
seriously competing for spectators, arguably more than any
other country because England competes at a serious level in almost
all the major international sports - gymnastics and alpine
sports are the exceptions. This all round sporting participation
resulted in England in the early 1990s coming within touching
distance of becoming world champions in football, rugby and
cricket. In 1990 England lost in the semi-finals on penalties to
Germany in the football World Cup; in 1991 they lost the final of
the Rugby World Cup and in 1992 they lost in the final the
Cricket World Cup. No other country, not even Australia, could
have shown as strongly in all three sports.
Read more at
http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/the-mother-of-modern-sport/
Dirk Bruere at NeoPax
Bread and circus.
--
Dirk
http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show
HardySpicer
Huh - wait to you see the Aussies - they are sports daft. In NZ they
are rugby daft.
Hardy
Robert Peffers
"RH" <anywh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:51e74971-5b46-4dc0...@p11g2000vbn.googlegroups.com...
Read more at
http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/the-mother-of-modern-sport/
More bloody rubbish. The very first recorded and documented football club
was in Edinburgh and played in the Meadows. The first football regulations
and laws of the game were drawn up in Scotland and those rules were adopted
by the English Football Association as Football Association Rules. Not only
that but a look at the English football setup will show a great number of
clubs with Rampant Lions on their insignia. This was due to the direct
influance of, "The Scottish Professors", called in to teach the English how
to play the Scottish style passing game. So, just in case you wondered, the
modern game began in Edinburgh. It may interest that the, so called, "Auld
Firm", team of Celtic FC was started by an RC lay brother who was being
tutored by an Edinburgh RC lay brother. The original idea was to call the
new team, "Glasgow Hibernian", but ended up as, "Celtic FC". Also of
interest is that Hibernian also were behind the founding of football teams
in Dundee and other places.
So stop your wibbiling on and stop deluding yourself.