After Anthony’s fascinating review of American sports, I thought it only fair that I return the favor.
I’ll admit, as an American, I don’t really understand British sports. In the US, we’ve separated athletics and performing arts into two separate industries. We have championship matches like the Super Bowl or NBA Championship Series to commemorate the best in one field and the Oscars to honor the best in the other.
Curiously, Britain seems to have merged these two industries, creating a sort of competitive phenomenon that is neither fully athletic nor fully acting, but sort of humorous mix between the two. I’ll admit, it is quite entertaining to watch in small doses from time to time, similar to how one would stop channel surfing just long enough to enjoy a few smug chuckles from a reality TV show.
According to Wikipedia, the United Kingdom’s top 4 sports are Association Football (Soccer), Rugby, Tennis, & Cricket. Since Brits can never seem to decide what their country is called, I can’t be entirely sure if these are actually the top 4 sports, but I’m just gonna run with ’em.
Soccer
So let’s start with Soccer (Association Football). Soccer is one of the most fascinating sports known to mankind. In the US, it is admittedly lame, but in the UK, elite athletes posses magical healing powers! It’s absolutely incredible to watch. Even growing up in a Pentecostal church, I have honestly never seen anything as fantastic as these self-regenerating soccer players. At least once a match, a player will be taken off the field in a stretcher, only to come sprinting back on the field 5 minutes later! It’s hard to compare something like this with our measly US version of Football. In the US, players break ribs and keep playing, but in the UK, they simply go to the sideline and heal themselves!
And that’s not the only superpower Britain(or England)(or the UK)’s players posses. Some players (the best ones, I’m assuming) have an impenetrable force-field around them!
Isn’t that amazing?
American football players have to actually hit each other.
But not Britain’s elite soccer players!
Perhaps it’s because American guys in the above GIF are just young college students, not full grown men like the force-field toting professionals below.
Just absolutely, unequivocally, indisputably AMAZING!
If that doesn’t impress you, I don’t know what will. These incredible powers make it very difficult for opponents to score. Additionally, it seems players rely heavily on their powers instead of developing soccer-related skills. You might go a full 90 minute match without seeing a single score. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Wouldn’t the skilled players make the big leagues? The ones that can actually score? But see, that’s a silly thought, because of course, the magical force-field, regenerating players make it to the top. I suppose it’s just in America that we have to put up with watching skilled athletes all the time. But that’s just our burden to bear.
Moving on, let’s look at Rugby…
Very good sir. I will engage with your article and discuss the inaccuracies later. In the meantime, I need to watch a game of Operatic Kickball. Or Soccer, as everyone else calls it outside of my Island-With-Many-Names
Haha glad you enjoyed it.
“Unlike the brains and brawn combination that is American Football…”
I love that comment. It’s just a shame that 1 in 10 college graduates at the University of North Carolina have the reading age of a 3rd grader and that the university had to invent fake classes to ensure their athletic students could graduate 😉
Yeah the intelligence level of many college athletes is pretty pathetic. Any worse and we’re drifting into Rugby territory…
God bless America (and by America I mean the United States of America) not those two free loader countries that are lucky to be our neighbors.
A well written assessment of the former empire’s sporting abilities. Well done.
The interview is hilarious!! The guy isn’t British though; he’s Irish. I think the concept of UK/GB/Ireland is a little hard for most Americans to understand 😉
Haha I was hoping that would fly under the radar, but the point was more about Ruby than British Rugby players persay 😉
I smell a red herring. Or did you just ad hominem to the discussion? No wonder the poor boy was a so discombobulated. He is playing rugby and dealing with the lingering effects of his country having been oppressed under the genocidal rule of the Brythonic Celtic Empire. God bless the poor man.
Roger, I don’t really understand what any of that meant but I’m sure you’re right 🙂 Love ya!
Of course it was ‘ad hominem.’ We have a history of executing kings and queens in our part of the world!
OK sir, a response.
1. The players you have in GIFs falling over are almost all non-Brits. Apart from Gareth Bale, who is Welsh, a big girl who played for my team and got a bad reputation for diving because in the UK we hate it. He has since left to play for a Spanish team where he can fall over all day long.
2. You say Football values both brain and brawns. However, people can get scholarships despite being stupid, just so they can play college football. Clearly brawn is championed.
3. Cricket is not played with a rubber ball, but in fact a leather ball with a wooden core. Try hitting that with a heavy willow bat when it’s hurled at you at 100 mph, on the bounce, with spin and swing, so you can’t judge the angle. Also, it’s OK in cricket to throw the ball at the Batter. If it hits them and they are standing in the wrong place, they are out. Broken ribs mean nothing. Out is out.
4. Rugby is 80 minutes without breaks. 15 men, physically battering each other constantly. No respites or downs or intervals every 60 seconds like football. No padding. You can gouge and rake your cleats on someone if they are on the floor. It’s all fair game. Historically, it was actually a rich mans sport so until recently, many players were amateurs and were in fact in the Armed Forces, or Solicitors or other professionals.
5. No-one cares about Tennis. Unless you have a pony. Or it’s Wimbledon, in which case we care until Andy Murray loses. He surprised us last year.
No one asked for a reasonable discussion Anthony!
Oh yeah, my mistake!!!!!!!!
as a longtime rugby player, i can assure you that intelligence is needed more in rugby than in any other sport, american or otherwise.
Haha indeed, but that doesn’t make for an interesting defense against this: https://uncompromisedmen.com/2014/01/28/dont-get-american-sports-ready/
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