Just to Educate
For future reference.
This is NOT a football.
This is most certainly NOT a football.
This, well, you’re having a laugh right?
No sir, I think you’ll find that THIS is a football. A Rugby Football to be precise.
Now, press the play button below then click on the proper football above (which will nicely fullscreen for you) and meditate for the next four and a half minutes.
[audio:https://www.peter-ould.net/wp-content/uploads/World-In-Union-Remix.mp3|titles=World In Union Remix]For those who like their music a bit more chilled out, I found the original video.
Kiri Te Kanawa – World In Union on MUZU.TV
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Amen for the American bits, but I distinctly recall a REAL World Cup prediction competition on this blog, no? ;-)
Cricket is glorious (and played by bishops at Lambeth!) of course, but as middle/upper class pursuits go, rugby ain't exactly John Lewis ;-)
I have to respond to this provocation :-)
The English Football Association was founded in 1863. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Football_Associa…
The English Rugby Football Union was founded in 1871. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_Football_Union
Splitters!
I can't seem to find reliable comparative estimates of the numbers playing football (or soccer) and rugby. But then I don't really need to, do I?
From a fascinating Wikipedia article on football (of both sorts) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football. '"Scientific" (or passing) football is first recorded in 1839 from Lancashire and in the modern game in Rugby football from 1862'.
Having been brought up very near to Rugby I'm aware of the origins of different types of football in the C19 English public schools, which is where the rules of both types of football were originally codified. But it is clear that football/soccer was the first sport to be formally established and organised.
I watched the last Rugby World Cup final in 2007 in South Africa on a massive flat screen set up in our church, one of only three England supporters (we had two English students out on a mission trip at the time, poor buggers!). I was surrounded by about 250 South African men all roaring on the Springboks in the way that only a South African rugby crowd can! Confirmed contrarian that I am, I made a point of sitting right in the middle in full England regalia! Quite an experience!
Most of my antipathy towards Rugby comes from its still highly racialised environment in South Africa, where white South Africans, especially the olders ones, still see Rugby as a 'white' sport and Football as a 'black' sport. Rugby therefore has higher status in white circles, despite the fact that when the World Cup (there is only one World Cup really, isn't there?) was held in South Africa last year it was quite obviously a whole order of magnitude bigger than the Rugby version.
South African rugby is also the least racially transformed sport in the country. It remains marred by a fair sprinkling of unreconstructed racists that persist on flying the apartheid South African flag at matches and are sometimes involved in ugly racial incidents.
And Rugby in South Africa is quite rough! Southern hemisphere pitches are almost always dry, especially in the winter season in which Rugby is played. The pitches are therefore rock hard – and so fast to run on and tough to fall on. At my kids school there is an ambulance team on hand for all inter-school matches and they are often needed. It is not that uncommon for Rugby in South Africa to result in serious injury, with the main risk being spinal damage. There are quite a few para- and quadri-plegic ex-Rugby players here!
My church is organising an outreach event after it's service tomorrow with a big flat screen to bring friends to watch the South Africa v Wales match and have a braai (barbecue in the UK). Me, I'm glad I'm well out of the way working in Zimbabwe at the moment!
Peter, I think you'll find that this, in fact, is a football. ;-)
That is a heretic ball attempting to distract you from the one true ball. Heresy is the most dangerous when it is 95% truth don't you know.
I am delighted to see the extent and trenchant nature of your orthodoxy demonstrated in this post. Orthodox football is the only true way, where conversion follows trial…
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