No comparison

[1964white]

The one to whom you refer even makes that look hard work Tbf. It's more like a building collapsing than ballet.

[white.riot]

BB = Blaster Bates.

[1964white]

BB = Blaster Bates.

Laughter with a bang

[Kyle_5351]

Football is made to be a non-contact sport these days - any contact at all and the ref immediately blows the whistle. Its all too easy for the players to cheat.

Unfortunately you are right. I have had to chance my style of play a lot over the last 3-5 years. The referees now look for intent. If they deem you are intending to hurt someone or put yourself in a position that could potentially put someone's safety at risk, you are penalised.

I am all for rubbing out two footed tackles, scissor tackles etc, but I don't agree with being penalised when I haven't even touched the opposing player, because I slid into a tackle from a few metres away.

Changing the way I play also includes not being "outplayed" by the likes of Suarez. It really makes me asshamed of the sport when I play against opposition who are diving, falling over with minimal contact and being frankly a bunch of pussies.

However, to the main topic. I do think money makes all the difference. This in turn leads players to a lack of respect for each other. Rolling around on the ground, when nothing has happened, faking injuries. What happened to the times when I would get clattered, be in immense pain, but stuffed if I would show the opposing player any sign I was in pain? It all came down to respect. We could beat the s**t out of each other on the field, but still shake hands and have a coke (I'm only 23, so I was maybe 15) at the end of the match.

It makes me sad. It really does.

[Twiggster]

Creeping in everywhere mate. Only last week, '64 was shown a straight red in his bowls match, for knocking his opponents' balls away from the jack.

[1964white]

Creeping in everywhere mate. Only last week, '64 was shown a straight red in his bowls match, for knocking his opponents' balls away from the jack.

What

Slander

Indoor season starts next week

[The Subhuman]

Contact v non contact sport is a poor comparison. Even McEnrroe didn't kick his opponents all over the court.

ahh but it's 4 hours of constant physical exercise, not 90 minutes of what 25 touches. strolling back toward defence, taking breathers. A HALF TIME BREAK!!...there are players who play the 90 minutes at tempo ..but not many

[white.riot]

ahh but it's 4 hours of constant physical exercise, not 90 minutes of what 25 touches. strolling back toward defence, taking breathers. A HALF TIME BREAK!!...there are players who play the 90 minutes at tempo ..but not many

This is dangerous territory for a time out boy I would suggest. Try running 7 miles (the average for a Prem footballer) with some bloke hacking away at your ankles . Tennis players sit down a lot, make themselves a Pimms between games and generally ping pong their way into the hearts of the middle cwasses. New balls actually means just that in RL

[1964white]

This is dangerous territory for a time out boy I would suggest. Try running 7 miles (the average for a Prem footballer) with some bloke hacking away at your ankles . Tennis players sit down a lot, make themselves a Pimms between games and generally ping pong there way into the hearts of the middle cwasses. New balls actually means just that in RL

:hahaha: :hahaha:

[white.riot]

:hahaha: :hahaha:

Even the ref runs 12 miles on average and he does that with the whole of the Kop on his back. I suggest that refs are the fittest sportsmen .

[Armleywhite]

Even the ref runs 12 miles on average and he does that with the whole of the Kop on his back. I suggest that refs are the fittest sportsmen .

Anglers must be fairly fit. Take you for example. Standing around all day just reeling em in. You must have forearms like popeye.

[white.riot]

Anglers must be fairly fit. Take you for example. Standing around all day just reeling em in. You must have forearms like popeye.

Extreme fishing

[1964white]

Anglers must be fairly fit. Take you for example. Standing around all day just reeling em in. You must have forearms like popeye.

:fish1: :fish2: :fish1:

[Vausey]

I agree with much of the original post, but I would be interested, however, to see what would happen if the stakes were raised so to speak.

Money has ruined football. Players, managers and chairmen are all so desperate to win because winning a game is the difference between staying in the Premier League and earning £60m extra a year, or between a Europa/Champions League spot... It's this money which has made the game so competitive to the point where those concerned are cheating to win. I don't just mean cheating as in match-fixing like in Italy but diving, feigning injury to get your opponent sent off, crowding/intimidating the ref etc... are all examples of cheating and are all utilised in one way or another to improve a teams chance of winning.

It's been like that for so long now that it's become acceptable (and even encouraged) at grass roots level. It's almost ingrained in the mind-set of everyone involved with football these days. I've witnessed Sunday league players screaming at the ref for making one bad decision and thinking to myself "what made the stakes so high that these guys absolutely have to win?". The reality of it is that this nasty edge is so abundant at the top level it's essentially brainwashed players at a lower level into thinking they, too, must win at all costs. It's a very sad state of affairs.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if Rugby League dominated the world of sport for 20 years. If players were earning £50,000 a week instead of per year, and the difference between winning and losing was several thousand pounds-worth of bonus money. If they were watched by millions all over the world and the pressure on them to achieve results was so ludicrously more intense than anything they'd experienced before. If the media positively encouraged them to engage in mind games with other teams...

I'm certain we'd start to see the same problems in RL. It's not that nicer or less competitive people play rugby - anyone who plays the sport at amateur level will no doubt testify to having come across some less than savoury characters, it's quite simply the differing environment in which the two sports take place... an environment which, in the case of football, is dominated and somewhat ruined by money.

[revie-era]

Vausey
You raise an interesting point regarding raising the stakes in Rugby League
Do any of our Australian members know how much an Aussie RL player earns over there where the game is massive.
Canterbury's James Graham was apparently moved to cannibalism in the recent NRL Grand Final to get a result

[dezzy]

Leauge players hardly earn as little as 50 grand a year do they?? The top Irish players earn 400,000 a year, with the lower squad players for Munster earning 30,000 wouldnt of thought there was that much of a gap, even though Union is the dominent sport

[becchio bear]

Leauge players hardly earn as little as 50 grand a year do they?? The top Irish players earn 400,000 a year, with the lower squad players for Munster earning 30,000 wouldnt of thought there was that much of a gap, even though Union is the dominent sport

I heard Ali Lauititi was on £250,000 a year when he was at the Rhinos.

[Vausey]

I'll confess to not knowing precisely how much Rugby League players earn. Rob Burrow lives pretty close to me and he doesn't exactly live in a mansion yet he's been one of the Rhino's key men for years now so I can't imagine they get paid an awful lot.

I may be wrong, but the money/high profile theory seems the only one which explains football players behaviour.

There's two lads that play for Castleford Tigers who are in trouble for having a fight in my local nightclub a few months ago. This is two Super League players who have possibly assaulted somebody, yet I doubt the news made it further than the YEP (and I bet these players still call the referee "sir" on a matchday).

What I'm trying to say is that I don't think there's a problem with football players. You'll get nice and nasty people in all cross-sections of life. The problem is with the game itself which has been ruined by money and has subsequently lost all sense of a fair competition.

[YorkshireSquare]

There is a salary cap, rules are...

• All teams in Super League XVII will operate under a ‘real time’ salary cap system that calculates a club’s salary cap position at the start of and throughout the season.
• The combined earnings of the Top 25 players must not exceed £1.65 million.
• Clubs are only allowed to sign a player if they have room under the cap.
• Clubs can spend a maximum of £50,000 on players outside the Top 25 earners who have made at least one first grade appearance for the club during the year.
• Costs for players outside of the Top 25 earners, who do not make a first team appearance, will be unregulated.
• Any player who has played for the same Club for at least 10 consecutive seasons will have half their salary excluded from the Salary Cap for his eleventh and subsequent seasons. This is measured from the season in which the player was registered as a professional player with the club and is subject to a maximum of £50,000 for any one club.

So if you have 25 top players who have all played under 10 years and all get paid the same it would be £66,000 a year. Obviosuly there is a spead in that 25, some of them will be on relatively low wages and some on higher wages. Also some times like Leeds Rhinos divide any competition winnings and split it between the players, this then falls outside the salary cap but not all teams do this.

[Gino 1959]

the lower squad players for Munster earning 30,000

A man could buy a cart and a few pigs with that in Munster and be feted like a king