04/25/24
May 25, 2003
Corinthian spirit, anyone?: It's not how you win, it's how you play the game!
posted by Fat Buddha to general at 05:26 PM - 5 comments
I most certainly did not attend a public school. My school was not much bothered with organised sports really, and the ethos of the gym teachers was to bully and whack as many nippers as they could. I find this whole thing interesting, we Brits, well, some of us, adopt a very superior attitude, but I do not necessarily think we have much to be proud of. I remember people talking smugly of "professional" fouls way back when I was little, and there have always been storys of clubs narrowing pitches or waterlogging them to disrupt an opponents style. It's interesting that there are several quotes in that article stating that there is more diving in English football than hitherto because we now have so many foreigners, the most persistent and irritaing offenders though , are Jeffers, Cole and Keown, all English, and all, as it happens, Arsenal players. Personally I would rather play any game the right way; at least then if you lose you do so with dignity. I am a bit of a fool I think, I really do just enjoy participating, the outcome is immaterial so long as the contest has been good.
posted by Fat Buddha at 07:34 PM on May 25, 2003
I think the english are just hypocrites actually - players like scholes, beckham or ashley cole (or heskey or owen or almost any other england player) can dive all they like without being classed as a cheat, and yet we still whinge about foreigners ruining our game, or ruining european matches with their diving cheating ways(witness our condemnation of porto last week).
posted by dng at 03:33 PM on May 26, 2003
Who's this "we", Kimosabe?
posted by Fat Buddha at 03:51 PM on May 26, 2003
The article gives a whole new meaning to the expression "It's not cricket", doesn't it?
posted by worldcup2002 at 11:38 PM on May 26, 2003
Lengthy but interesting article FB. Did you attend a public school? I did but of course in the States that means the opposite. Still, I think the concept of playing by the rules was fairly well interned in me growing up, much to my detriment and misfortune.