twee-est major professional sport (UK)

ALL OF THEM

Professional tennis in the UK is pretty twee, and my limited knowledge of field hockey suggests that it's twee as fuck, but this has gotta be the Britishes Baseball, right?

^beat me to it

No way. Tweeness is in direct propertion to poshness of participants, with cricket as the mysterious exception. Or just listen to the commentators. It's golf v rugby v tennis.

Which top commentators' notable idiosyncracies include lengthy discussion of the homemade cakes they've been sent by listeners NO DON'T TELL ME I KNOW THIS ONE

yeah rugby...watch living with lions

Gah, you've got a point there xp.

It can't possibly be darts, but then it does use the tiniest little pieces of equipment, and the fans do wave these horrible little homemade messages whenever the camera comes near.

Golf & Rugby (Union) = continuation of corporate board room bullshit by other means, Tennis = board room dudes on their day off. Business guys too busy being EVIL to be twee.

http://www.dennistaylor.co.uk/images/dennnis-taylor-image.jpg

is there really anything twee-er?

Darts: Yeah, there's nothing twee-er than downing 20 pints of Carling then dancing on yr table wearing a viking helmet and not much else.

I don't intend to ever visit a golf club, but from what I have heard of their rules there is none more twee.

Poncing around in a cardigan while people eat strawberries and cream and drink Pimms = Sinister picnic in full effect. Tennis ftw.

http://static.guim.co.uk/Guardian/lifeandstyle/gallery/2008/jun/25/fashion.tennis/RogerFerderer-9676.jpg

Darts is absolutely as far removed from twee as you can get. Well, darts crowds are anyway. Trust me, I was in one last week. (haha xpost)

continuation of boardroom what? boardrooms are not twee.

rugby is way worse than what you see on the pitch. in that living with lions documentary from 97 one of the players nearly dies on the treatment table. plus there's standard shit like forwards getting 3 syringes full of blood extracted from each ear at the end of the game etc.

i don't like a sport does not equal it's twee....

Darts: Yeah, there's nothing twee-er than downing 20 pints of Carling then dancing on yr table wearing a viking helmet and not much else.

Getting a real 'cynical teens at Hullabalooza' moment here tbh

Not impressed by any manly credentials rugby may or may not have - I listened to Bill McLaren's commentary for years. (see also: Peter Alliss)

My malformed point was that Rugby isn't twee, but I also have to point out that my class war anti-Union rants only apply to the game as it is lol "played" in England, and England players seem to be big into their corporate management tie-in book crossovers. Of course boardrooms aren't twee, they're full of ex-Rugby players being twats.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/archive/images/2002wc/history/johnhist/94/EMP_BEBETO_BABY_325513.JPG.jpg

Not British as such, but to my mind this is the zenith of twee.

not bigging up boardrooms but yeah they aren't twee. league is pretty twee compared to union tho, lets all run and run and abandon the horrible scrum and lineout.

but neither are as twee as tennis.

cricket is sort of twee and golf is too, but I dunno, golf seems more just quaint than twee.

Rugby is gay, not twee.

I take it there's no professional croquet or badminton or bowls, then, eh?

dude you wanna make croquet major, you come here and spread the word

In terms of tweeness - field hockey > grass court tennis > golf > cricket > other tennis > football > rugby >>>>>>>>> snooker >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> darts

http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/dec2008/1/5/148F985B-0F8B-049A-E64109C1B59F430C.jpg

Croquet would win this thread in a heartbeat if it was a major professional sport.

Curling's pretty twee, but it only major once a lifetime, so meh.

Fuck, yeah, bowls is a good shout though.

Rugby League is pretty twee now you mention it, probably more so than League, but not because it incorporates actual running with and passing the ball so much as because of its self-conscious family image, Union still feels pretty blokey. Also some of the twee-est cheerleading/pre-match entertainment I've ever seen has been at League games.

"probably more so than Union" i meant

I fuckin' love croquet. Such a 'civilized' yet thoroughly heartless 'sport'.

Surely we can claim boxing too? Suspect tennis is probably tweeer though.

It's funny how I think of bowls as twee but not bocce or petannque.

croquet is the nastiest, cruellest sport of all time, and each kill is delivered apologetically, with a subtle movement and a smile

Croquet designed for bright young things in flapper dresses to make cutting remarks to each other and then underline it by walloping their opponents ball off the green.

That's still kinda twee, tbh

Golf. If Ronnie Corbett plays it, it's as twee as a bee.

Boxing is usually too tragic to be really twee. Big lummoxes raised in abject poverty 'saved' by local athletic clubs/trainers and then twenty years later they can barely even slur.

yeah i was gonna say, my description doesn't prevent it from being twee, and if anything makes it more so

Bowls = game for members of the Womens Institute to play in between jam-making and casual racism. Twee as fuck.

Petannque = game for chain-smoking old French men to play in between drinks and casual letching. The darts of France.

That's still kinda twee, tbh

Kinda? Uber-twee!

wtf how is romario twee?

Actually, I just remembered I used to work with a guy who bowled competitively, and he was rough as fuck and would kill you if you accused him or his sport of being twee, so, maybe not bowls. But, y'know, it's gentle, and old women in tweed skirts play it, and that guy with the Sherlock Holmes pipe.

some xposts.

The darts of France.

Fcuk! You're right!

http://pacejmiller.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/manny-pacquiao1.jpg

A big lummox, earlier today

Romario: that fucking celebration - you wouldn't catch Bert Trautmann doing that

For me, waterpolo is the twee-est sport of all:

http://www.monroegallery.com/showcase/images/Waterpolo.jpg

michael that's a bit reductive re: boxing

bowls is slightly twee but not nearly as twee as croquet - it isn't kooky enough to be truly up there, and it's a bit too self-effacing

water polo is violent as fuck and not twee in any way

Crown Green bowls is definitely not twee.

yeah i'd say if i ranked them all and included bowls it'd be bottom-half for sure - like darts it's quite 'get on with it and play your shot' hardman nothing-spoken

altho i <3 it (like every other sport here) i am probably going to vote golf because of ivor robson

also not twee:

Hare Coursing
Shinty
Shin Kicking
Anything with "Shin" in it, basically

xp and loads of other reasons like how peter alliss is still a commentator and the whole vernacular of the game but mostly ivor robson

1) Has anyone in the whole of British History said 'Field Hockey' for 'Hockey'?

2) Am I alone in thinking B&S is the obvious winner?

michael that's a bit reductive re: boxing

Yes, I agree. I like Pacquiao, btw. Very good boxer.

Shove Ha'penny, Bar Billiards: twee now, always been twee, never twee?

Stuart Murdoch is a boxer, ergo B&S not actually twee. Also, er, not a sport.

B&S is a trick as the title specifies "professional"

Indoor Games = least twee twee thing ever

sorry I mean Indoor League

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBQ47DbK6ZE

OH YOUTUBE I LOVE YOU

"Nah then"

lol I was searching for that while you were trying to get the name right LJ

But is there any tweeer word than 'tiddlywinks'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOlEYNlSZ44&feature=channel

lol xp you're on it too!

THAT DUDE'S A FUCKING HEADMASTER I HATE THE FUTURE FUCK THIS SHIT I'M OFF TO BUILD A TIME MACHINE

Srsly tho words can't express how much I wd like to go back and live in the 50s/60s/70s

i have to say this is some of the most awesome shit a man can do while sipping ale, would join

The only time I ever saw bar billiards in an actual bar was in a pub near Hampton Court Palace.

I have played bar billiards with ilxors Colonel Poo and Ken C*. We didn't know the rules but it was amazing fun. Glasshouse Stores FAP needs to be done again, this time with a bar billiards rulebook

*may have been UpToEleven; the four of us met up but only three played bar billiards

We had a bar billiards table in one of the pubs in my home town, and there used to be at least one pub in Hull with one. I still can't remember the rules but with a couple of beers it's good times.

What, pray tell, is bar billiards?

Oh God. This reminds me, for obscure reasons I once took part in a village pub pentahlon in 1992 or 1993. This comprised darts, bar billiards, skittles (nothing like bowling), cribbage and shove ha'penny.

3 minutes into the second video posted there xp

http://www.clovisdesign.com/IDS/images/bar-billiards.jpg

There's a mechanical timer that limits the length of your game, you score by knocking the white into a hole after it's hit the red ball, you have to avoid knocking the mushrooms over, there are other more complex rules iirc

I've just realised the correct answer here shd probably be "playing Football Manager on a computer"

Except they're not mushrooms on that table, it's shit

Different holes score different amounts of points. I think if you knock the black 'mushroom' over you lose all your points, but if it's a white one you just lose your points from that break. Not sure of this, it's been a loooooong time.

I've never even heard of it. Wow.

Wd suggest ILX does its own Indoor League. Not that fussed about playing any of the games tbh

xp

It's pretty rare even in the UK nowadays

But Shove Ha'Penny and Cribbage are all the rage Stateside? (xp)

Cribbage is a dope game, does anybody know if there are any sites with online games and regular players any more? It seems to have died off

If cribbage is what I think it is, it still exists here (though I'm inclined to doubt that the word denotes the same activity in both countries). Never heard of shove ha'penny at all.

Cribbage, card game based on scoring points for pairs adding up to 15, usually played to 121 points for a frame?

Invented by erstwhile 17th C. metaphysical poet George Lovelace iirc

I would be up for that. Both cribbage, and bar billiards (I will be in London over Easter, and would be right up for some Glasshouse Stores pub action, if it's even still there - it was shut the last time).

Please note, I have never played bar billiards in my life. But I can play pool so it can't be that hard, right?

(cribbage also allows you to use the phrase "and one for his knob")

(xp) A frame? Dude, you go up and back and up and back on some kind of board with holes in where you stick your pins. On the final way back you're in 'Beer Street'.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think that pub pentathlon involved 'Fives and Threes' (dominoes), so I must be mistaken about one of the events.

A frame being whatever you'd say, a leg or a set or can't remember if there's an appropriate name. Like when I played for pennies we would play over best of 5 or 7 or whatever.

(cribbage also allows you to use the phrase "and one for his knob")

Ailsa, you are my hero(ine). You are the only person I've come across (under 60) who's known this phrase. I've tried explaining it to various flatmates down the years, but it's never really caught on.

What does it mean? They shout it in 'Lord of the Flies' too.

One for his nob, two for his heels. Where I grew up a dead box was called a Bull and Keatley after a local undertakers.

(You get a point if you have the Jack of the same suit as the card that's turned up on top of the deck - "one for his nob". Two points if you cut a Jack - "two for his heels".)

pins = pegs, hence pegging back a lead and other such things.

I have recently started frequenting pubs where people play dominoes. This is a sure sign I am getting on a bit.

xpost one for his (knob) is when you hold the jack of the starter card. two for his heels if you get turn over a jack as the starter.

I like that dead box/undertaker thing. My dad probably has a similar phrase like that which I can't remember now.

xpost

What does it mean?

There's a whole patter that goes with the scoring system, which I half remember from my Dad teaching me and my brother how to play when we were kids. 'Fifteen-two and the rest won't do', 'Fifteen-four and the rest don't score', 'Fifteen-six, five's a fix' (not sure what the last one means). '....and one for his (k)nob' is to do with a jack, but explaining what exactly would take more effort than I can summon just before I go to bed.

Yeah, isn't "level pegging" supposed to come from Cribbage too?

Appreciate how a discussion of twee sports has reached peg boards and "one for his nob" btw

(...and by the time I posted, two people had actually explained it)

Re: dead box, my Dad always said "nineteen" because (apparently) that was an impossible score.

"And one for his knob" takes me waaaaay back to my childhood and playing this with my nan.

There are some great scrimshaw boards like this

http://images.oneofakindantiques.com/5327_inuit_scrimshaw_cribbage_board_1.jpg

in Hull's Maritime Museum

I taught my other half how to play cribbage on a very boring holiday once, and he enjoys playing it, but I get unnecessarily cross with him that he just scores "two, four, seven, nine" etc and doesn't say "fifteen-two, fifteen-four, five-six-seven [while pointing out a run] and two for the pair makes nine" or whatever.

I also hate that I tried to work out in my head if there was a hand that would make that a valid example.

(there isn't, because a pair would mean two runs, surely)

5, 6, 7, 9 in the box and a 9 turned up?

Yeah, OK, that would work. Was only thinking in single hands.

Anyway, my answer's still tennis.

I've played cribbage. I was young, but quite good at it. Have now forgotten the rules. Wouldn't mind relearning.

Tennis is a tiny bit too fist-pump hard-nosed to beat golf but it can be exceptionally twee (more the crowds than the players)

Great tennis calls for some of the most punishing feats of fitness and endurance in sport but yeah the thread says UK so it's kinda rad but mostly lol

btw the real answer is chessboxing

Have just gone looking for a facebook cribbage app, btw. Thanks, you guys.

Is there one? Report back

http://apps.facebook.com/nidinks/

Ah, OK, it looks shit and evil and full of "meet singles in your area" ads. Will avoid.

more bar billiards rules: you don't have to use the red, but it scores double. you do have to hit another ball before potting or you lose your break. if a ball comes back over the lines from the 'd', you lose your break. to start the game, or if there are no balls on the table, you put the white on the 'd' and the red on the spot. you can pot them both in one but if you do that more than three times in a row you lose your break. if there are no balls available in the rack to place on the 'd', you take the one nearest the 'd'. after the bar's gone down, if you get down to one ball left, you cover the 50 point holes with the mushrooms, fold the backboard down to cover the end holes, and aim for just the 100 or 200.

i used to score in the thousands, back in the day.

There's another cribbage app, but you have to register. Put "cribbage" in the search box, then look for applications. There's only the two of them that I can find.

ledge, earlier today

http://img.coxnewsweb.com/B/00/79/01/image_5501790.jpg

xpost

I found a site called eCribbage that looks free, will check that and the Facebook app out another time when I'm not falling asleep and getting my metaphysical poets mixed up

bar billiards is sounding more and more awesome - Glasshouse Stores FAP please!

happy to make your wallet lighter anytime

can't even remember if there are tables anywhere else. used to be one in the doric arch, when it was the head of steam.

Am tempted to FAP given sufficient advance notice tbh

NV! wd be greatest FAP ever. and yeah, maybe we could have the Fancy A Kickabout followed by reparation to GS for billiards

Indoor Leagues 3 and 4, featuring compelling skittles and shove ha'penny action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaVV3Rg4XvM&feature=channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AEu0Jg9VcA&NR=1

(Producer: Sid Waddell!)

Fancy a Kickabout likely to be followed by Fancy a Go on the Defibrillator in my case

we would all hold hands and hope for your survival - it would be ever so twee

Trueman looking louche as fuck leaning on the billiard table there

it really is a vision of Valhalla

Where would you even look for a cardie/coat combo like that nowadays?

there's a gap in the market, let's go into fashion, girlfriend

I am in favour of brown and beige tbf

our brand will be 'Trueman'

it works, see

challenging gender assumptions can wait until we've got some basic capital

One of the dudes playing skittles is wearing a home-knitted Leeds Utd cardie btw. You'd get sued to buggery if you wore that on TV nowadays.

^^^this was chortled at on first inspection - can't think of a better combination of twee and savage

OK I gotta go sleep now and dream of knitwear. Tight lines, folks.

Cheery pop, NV

do people really play field hockey professionally?

(if they play like we played in school it wasn't very twee either but rather nasty)

Golf is pretty twee, but in a slightly non-classically twee way. Maybe it's camp, rather than twee? Pastel knitwear, weird shoes, trolleys....

bar billiards is sounding more and more awesome - Glasshouse Stores FAP please!

I shall have to come to this to defend the ILX BB title, won in 2003ish. The semi-final victory of pre-tournament favourite M. Skidmore was one of my greatest sporting moments :).

Stop ussing the phrase "field hockey", it's hockey!!!!!!!

It does differentiate it from ice hockey I suppose. Not that you need to since ice hockey is not a major professional sport in the UK but then again neither is hockey.

Ice hockey is a bigger professional sport in the UK than hockey surely? It certainly has been in the past. We didn't invent it though.

ice hockey is pretty twee tbh. i mean, if you take out the sticks, the padding, the violence and the competitiveness, it's basically just ice-dancing to song2.

Not to mention the diddymen-sized goals.

none of these are twee in the self-consciously-harking-back-to-a-fey-golden-age way that baseball is in the states.

Not even cricket?

everyone calling cricket twee has never played or understood cricket

But twee in the "in the self-consciously-harking-back-to-a-fey-golden-age way that baseball is in the states"?

I don't believe it myself, but it has more of that going on than, say, darts

cricket never harks back to a golden age unless we're talking about the west indies team RIP ;_;

it loves talking about times past and regurgitating facts, figures and anecdotes, but of all the major sports it has done perhaps the most to modernise and radicalise itself in the face of change - it looks forward like a motherfucker

as for the game as it is played, by we the people, well it's not so much twee as ultra-competitive and fraternal

http://images.theage.com.au/ftage/ffximage/2009/07/08/ponting_ashes_URN_wideweb__470x343,0.jpg

That trophy looks suspiciously twee to me. Added points for Jennings-esque schoolboy attire.

Also they take a break for afternoon tea, possibly including iced buns on paper doilies and sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/910000/images/_910638_7cricket300.jpg

"you sayin' we're twee, man?"

the ashes urn (i.e. the trophy itself) is by a comfortable margin the twee-est going concern in english cricket

much as the baggy green (the hat he is wearing in that photo) is BACM the twee-est going concern in autralian cricket

your photo is unfair

cricket rly isn't twee, the larger part of its following is laddish and provincial afaik, and considered purely in formal terms it's elegant and corinthian

Unfair? That's the high point of test cricket! xp

ricky ponting is about as twee as liver cancer

twee break is because ppl be tired after 2 hours in the field and maybe fancy a drink/bite to eat/rest

nakhchivian = valuable and OTM new poster

yeah NickB but you've chosen the twee-est possible photo relating to the Ashes and held it as representative, also India-Australia has been the pinnacle of Test Cricket for several years now

hahahahahaha dude XD

Don't let them fool you, Aussies are twee

^^ (ty)

http://www.rebelsport.com.au/ecom/rebel/artwork/product_images/large/1534001560003000.jpg

Go Ricky!

aussies are twee about:

-the baggy green
-AFL (mostly goal umpires' attire)
-state of origin rugby league

but generally they are fucking hard-nosed and desperate about everything else

australia is the very antipode of twee
that teddy bear is probably stuffed with heroin and going through bangkok customs

fucking hard-nosed desperation is the ideal breeding ground for twee

i'd like some concrete examples of australian tweeness, and how it diverges from 'sentimentality', please

http://showclix.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/dameedna.jpg

Ew strewth, luv!

fine

* insert pic of inanely grinning man in silly green cap holding world's tiniest sporting trophy *

http://www.costumebox.com.au/images/P/Khaki-Slouch-Hat-detail-DSC.jpg

cricket is a twee version of baseball and baseball is the tweest sport in the US!

dammit ken

baseball is 500x twee-er than cricket and it isn't even the twee-est US sport

Related Words for : twee
dainty, mincing, niminy-piminy, prim

tennis is definitely the most niminy-piminy.

No namby-pamby, no credibility

Quidditch is pretty damn namby-pamby. My childhood encyclopaedia featured similar things which may or may not be real - eton wall game, real tennis, etc.

dainty, mincing, niminy-piminy, prim

This does sound like the tail-end of the Eton 1st XI batting order tbh.

Or the next Tory cabinet

Twee = any sport that you have to iron your clothes for

Also cable-stitch jumpers.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Sport/Pix/columnists/2009/5/18/1242684508088/A-typical-village-cricket-001.jpg

Not twee at all. Oh no.

Bravo Monty!

well there isn't normally a bloke with a dress in the middle of the field.

baseball is 500x twee-er than cricket and it isn't even the twee-est US sport
― queen of the rapping scene (acoleuthic), Thursday, 4 March 2010 13:49 (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

baseball people can hit balls with a wooden stick. cricket people uses half a door and still miss.

Blokes in dresses is more rugby union (xp)

in that photo, countless grudges, aspirations and differing opinions are brewing

belle and sebastian vs camera obscura

Also a nice pot of tea. x-post

haha

For me, this probably comes down to golf knitwear vs. cricket knitwear

http://lyrics-keeper.com/pics/H/a/i/Haircut-100-1-big.jpg

^ why did no-one tell me that Richard Madely was in Haircut 100?

Curly Watts on the right-hand side too

Always thought of them as a cricket jumper band, going for more of a romo-tennis look there I suppose though.

Trouser legs tucked into white socks in dark shoes is SUCH a good look. Please revive.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ohhhhh screw all y'all