I am a man and yet I have zero interest in football, or in fact any spectator sport really, although I suppose I don't mind watching a bit of Wimbledon when it comes round. Am I a perverted freak?

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I ask you...

― Martin Heidegger, Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:02 (twenty-two years ago)

No. I am exactly the same.

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I am always suspicious of men who don't like football (or drinking come to that). Its like they have a secret that they just won't share. Im intrigued but what could they possibly have thats better than football - what do you talk to other guys about?

― David_X (David_X), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I love playing football but I always fall asleep when watching it. Almost all other sports bore me to tears.

I talk to other guys about music, art, films, philosophy, ideas, books... Anything really.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I have music (listening to it & making it) I like that a lot, and i think it's much, much better than football. Also what nick s said re art, phil, philm etc.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm pretty much the same here too - zero interest in sports.

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Those who like football also talk about books, art, films, music etc. These topics aren't mutually exclusive.

Even Chelsea supporters can read.

― G Man, Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I like to watch sports but do not mind if i miss it.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:29 (twenty-two years ago)

nobody ever said the topics were mutually exclusive. somebody *did* say that they were suspicious of people who said they didn't like football, and wondered what people who didn't like football actually talked about.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I like playing sports. I'm crap at tennis but I enjoy playing it. I don't mind knocking a football around in the park. But watching it on TV? I don't know, it just strikes me as intensely boring. I can sort of get into the World Cup, but that's about it. Reading, watching movies, cooking, drinking, just about anything beats football on TV.

What do women here think? Is a man who basically has no interest in spectator sports somehow emasculated? Or does it matter not a whit?

Funny how someone comment above that he suspects men who don't like football or drinking. I understand the drinking part. I'm always a bit suspicious of anyone, male or female, who doesn't drink at all. Maybe it's just base prejudice though.

― Martin Heidegger, Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:39 (twenty-two years ago)

speaking as someone who knows and talks a lot to people onthis thread, we always start talking books/food/culture /whatever, but it always ends up with footie.

I'm not suspicious of people who don't like footie/sports (apart from those who only like rugby) but I do always wonder why they don't seeing as it's a major passion for me and most if nott all of my friends (the male ones at least - and a lot of the female ones)

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:40 (twenty-two years ago)

So, to conclude, people who don't like football talk about other things and people who do like football also talk about other things.

It's almost earth shattering isn't it?

― G Man, Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:42 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm not suspicious of none footie lovers because i see them as emasculated. its more (an irrational) feeling that they have something more fulfilling in their lives that they are not sharing. i don't mean things like the arts, books etc. they have something i don't know about. its like the way that people who don't drink always seem so unnervingly happy.

i guess its just a rubbish conspiricy theory.

― David_X (David_X), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:48 (twenty-two years ago)

we revere talonball obv seeing as it is better

― dawnie lizard (mark s), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, cricket is very fulfilling

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Even Chelsea supporters can read.
You cannot generalise like that! It should read 'Even SOME Chelsea supporters can read.'

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 10:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I think the problem I have with non-football fans is I realise they live a much fuller life than me, with four more free hours on a Saturday, and less bouts of suicidal depression brought around by a first round Worthington's cup defeat by Hull.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 10:17 (twenty-two years ago)

What Martin said.

There are some aspects of culture that I don't get at all and feel I'm missing out on - jazz, visual arts, Justin Timberlake. Spectator football does not fall in this category.

― Alan (Alan), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 10:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I feel like a complete fraud by liking football, being interested in who wins, enjoying watching games etc but having almost no emotional investment in any given team and not being able to remember things like who plays for who.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 10:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I hate the glory of victory/the shame of defeat aspect associated with most spectator sports. When that's combined with nationalism, like in world championship competitions, I can't bear it. I've nothing against sports in themselves, I like playing football and other games with my friends, when it's all about having fun and no one takes it too seriously. But if it's all about who's winning and who's losing, it's not for me.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 10:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey Tuomas that's interesting because in the most of English football fandom (i.e. all but the winning top 5% of the teams) there is a glory in failure and defeat. See Dom's post above: there is a very real sense of achivement in doggedly following a failing team, the mythical three of you huddled on the away end watching your team lose 4-0 at Carlisle on a Tuesday night in February.

My mate Neil got in the national papers for travelling three times from London to Darlington (300 miles or so) to see a more-or-less meaningless match which was called off twice. The worst thing you can call someone is a glory boy (i.e. a supporter who's only interested when times are good).

This seems wrong and foolish to me but I can't shake it, it's too deeply ingrained.

― Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 10:46 (twenty-two years ago)

It's a very British trait this. A Cheltenham supporting friend of mine took his girlfriend up to Carlisle for a meaningless Tuesday night game in bollock freezing January. It was her birthday too. When someone pointed this out he said, "well I paid for the B&B."

We worship him like a god, now.

― G Man, Wednesday, 6 August 2003 11:02 (twenty-two years ago)

AP is a god amongst men yes, he'd like this thread too.

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 11:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm always a bit suspicious of men who creep around at night, wearing hooped jerseys, and carrying large sacks marked "swag", myself

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 12:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Chris speaks the truth above. Lots of conversation last night with a lot of people, but it all came down to football in the end.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 7 August 2003 11:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Not liking sports is one of the most attractive things a man can do.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Thursday, 7 August 2003 20:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm serious. It's even better if you barely understand the sport.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Thursday, 7 August 2003 20:59 (twenty-two years ago)

i will never win Melissa's heart :-(

i have zero athletic skill, yet i love watching and talking about sports. i especially like talking about sports because it's a great social lubricant -- it gets me to open up and start yapping and i've made many friends and acquaintances over the years just by offering my opinions on whether, say, joe montana really was a better QB than john elway or dan marino (correct answer = NO) or whether Tug McGraw should be better remembered as a Met or a Phillie (anything that puts the Mets in a positive light, or the Phillies in a negative light, is always the wrong answer).

― Tad (llamasfur), Thursday, 7 August 2003 21:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't understand why sports should be considered any more frivolous/useless/boring/etc. than music--except for the associations being a sports fan carries in certain contexts. But surely sports itself is fascinating, like a difficult math problem overlaid with a superstructure of personality and ambition!

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 7 August 2003 21:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Which is basically what music is too!

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 7 August 2003 21:04 (twenty-two years ago)

except sports requires considerably more effort, talent

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Thursday, 7 August 2003 21:20 (twenty-two years ago)

elway > marino > montana

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Thursday, 7 August 2003 21:20 (twenty-two years ago)

the idea of spectator sports confuses me, it's fun to play but why would you want to watch someone ELSE play?

― Maria (Maria), Thursday, 7 August 2003 21:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I respect sports, and understand the passion people have for it, but I personally just don't care. Whenever I'm flipping through channels, baseball and basketball and football just look like dead air to me. May as well be a blank channel.

And yet I like to watch golf. Go fucking figure.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Thursday, 7 August 2003 21:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't understand team sports. I mean... too many people, for one thing, and you can't look at them all at the same time on TV and I never was much of a team person anyway. I s'pose I vaguely support certain teams when the World Cup rolls around, but the whole club football thing bores the shit out of me.

Tennis, though... I love tennis. I love playing it, but haven't for a while because I hate losing (and am shit so tend to lose), but I love watching it too. And following it. Tennis is to me what football is to most English people... I follow my players like others follow their teams. And no, I can't explain precisely what's so fascinating about it, but I do argue that individual sports are inherently better than team sports.

― The Lex (The Lex), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:04 (twenty-two years ago)

the idea of going to a show confuses me, it's fun to play music but why would you want to watch someone ELSE play music?

(I'm playing devil's advocate a bit here. I don't watch sports myself, or much understand them for that matter. But these are questions I've been asking myself lately.)

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:05 (twenty-two years ago)

almost all sports on TV bore me, with the exception of certain American college football games.

however, i lived & died with my college hockey team for the entire time that i was at university, even learning all (& helping to create a few of) the obscene & puerile chants.

Oh yeah, and Hockey Night In Canada is worth it, for Coach's Corner if nothing else.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:05 (twenty-two years ago)

amateurists point is a good one. surely there is little difference between a sports jock, a mulleted metalhead or prentious art ponce. the stereotypes are equally repugnant.

why would you want to watch someone ELSE play?

personally i see it as a way to escape your (ok my) mediocraty. living out success fantasies through the lives of others.

― David_X (David_X), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Surely there is a pleasure in seeing an abstract set of rules executed well? I think maybe it's the explicitness of this aspect of sports that turns people off.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Sports broadcasts tend to be very poorly designed, as a whole. The Olympics fare a little better, as does tennis, because with individual competitions it's harder to fuck up where you put the camera. But when you watch a baseball broadcast, for instance, what you see has only a passing resemblance to what a fan at the park is watching.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

in 90% of the world sports functions as the social bond-lubricant between men that to not like/get sports is misanthropic

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

... er, my point being, a) that might be part of what turns people off (a friend of mine is trying to "learn to appreciate baseball," because her boyfriend is so into it, and has said she has no real trouble doing so at the minor league games, but the major league broadcasts are just dull), and b) it might contribute to non-sports-fans having trouble understanding why anyone would be into spectator sports.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:19 (twenty-two years ago)

television is at least 60% of the reason why football has surpassed baseball in popularity - I actually prefer to watch football on tv whereas baseball on tv doesn't compare to in person.

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Not just the way the broadcasts translate, I think, but the fact that you can stay current with a team by only watching once a week. But yeah, from what I understand, football works better on television than baseball does (I've never seen one in person so can't compare as well as I can baseball, basketball, tennis, hockey).

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:25 (twenty-two years ago)

but baseball (and from a UK perspective cricket) makes great TV cos you can get a beer, take a pee, hey even have a conversation a yet still not miss a thing ... plus they last for hours

― David_X (David_X), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I like watching sport because I am completely unable to do it. But people who play sport as a hobby and watch it professionally probably do so with the same interest/pleasure/frustration that I get by writing music criticism as a hobby and reading it being done professionally.

The only team sport I've watched live is football - what I liked about it was the sense that I might not be looking at the right thing at any time. That was exciting.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:30 (twenty-two years ago)

All sport sucks. It's a fact.

― Calz (Calz), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:32 (twenty-two years ago)

The first recorded literary reference to baseball was in Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey".

― Mark C (Mark C), Thursday, 7 August 2003 22:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Just the word, though, if I remember right.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 7 August 2003 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, tep - football inspires/allows....wait for it...dilletantism alot more than baseball. baseball is much more for fanatics - lengthier season, history, stats galore.

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Thursday, 7 August 2003 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

which "football" are we talking about here?

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 7 August 2003 23:03 (twenty-two years ago)

some of us are talking football, some of us are talking futbol

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Thursday, 7 August 2003 23:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Blount and I are talking about American football, I think (I was, at least) -- some of the points might still apply to European football/American soccer, arguably.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 7 August 2003 23:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I was too, but the main point - sports = male social lubricant - is true for both.

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Thursday, 7 August 2003 23:09 (twenty-two years ago)

But not for 90% of the world, Blount. MAYBE America. In France if you go on about "le foot" with a new acquaintance you are regarded as somewhat odd at best and naff at worst. I agree about America tho, even if a guy doesn't follow baseball at all it's like he appreciates it if you moan about the Mets with him for awhile, he notices your appeal to some essential shared maleness. I think in other countries this often gets replaced with other things. (In France: politics?)

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 8 August 2003 04:53 (twenty-two years ago)

in france, proving yer manliness and social lubrication = talking about getting pussy and shamelessly macking on those you want to fuck (those are pretty universal). shit, maybe even the peeing in the street thing is french male-bonding for all i know.

― Tad (llamasfur), Friday, 8 August 2003 05:02 (twenty-two years ago)

elway > marino > montana

we have a winner!

― Tad (llamasfur), Friday, 8 August 2003 05:04 (twenty-two years ago)

ha - I almost mentioned France as an exception but I worried I'd end up channeling Adam Gopnik's ghost

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Friday, 8 August 2003 05:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Gopnik's ghost - 'yes, politics'

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Friday, 8 August 2003 05:10 (twenty-two years ago)

anyone who could read sartre's la nausée or anything by jacques derrida or jacques lacan from cover to cover, or sit through certain of godard's seventies films, is much more of a man (or much more of a masochist) then i'll ever be.

― Tad (llamasfur), Friday, 8 August 2003 05:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Does Gopnik say that in his book about France?? Hahaha. I will grudgingly confirm his perceptiveness / I will grudgingly admit to having the same perception as he. I think it's true though! People know so many tiny details it's nuts, they're like radio call-in stats freaks. I didn't encounter much poontang discussion. Maybe I wasn't with the right (wrong?) crowd though.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 8 August 2003 05:16 (twenty-two years ago)

That's weird, I was supposed to read that before i went over there. But I never did so the lovely Emma B secretly gave it back to the person who had gotten it for ME for my birthday (cause the gifter wanted to read it herself!) But. Denmark? Zimbabwe? China? What's the big sport in China?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 8 August 2003 05:28 (twenty-two years ago)

ping pong

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Friday, 8 August 2003 05:39 (twenty-two years ago)

In Zimbabwe the males bond through the sport of beating dissidents with electric cable. Oh and football.

― Sam (chirombo), Friday, 8 August 2003 07:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I agree about America tho, even if a guy doesn't follow baseball at all it's like he appreciates it if you moan about the Mets

Unfortunately (well, I think it's unfortunate, of course), I think this is a regional thing. In New Orleans, people follow college baseball and minor league baseball somewhat, granted -- but I have had to explain, both there and in Indiana, what city the Red Sox play in. Someone asked me in New Orleans once if I'd seen "the game yesterday," and I asked "Cubs or Braves?" -- they meant the Saints.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 8 August 2003 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

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