I Hate Sports Club Letters, 2005
3 Jan 05
Hello from Tampa! If you're from anywhere around here, you'd be very familiar with the grumbling over the local football team (the Tampa Buccaneers). Apparently they're not performing as well as expected. They played well enough last year or the year before to play in the Superbowl -and maybe even win it -I'm not sure. But now they suck! I think it's great! I'm GLAD they suck! It's so comical -every slack-jawed sports fan in town is pissed off at the team! As if they'd each been personally offended! What a bunch of morons.
Pasco Pete
5 Jan 05
Good site. Sports suck!
Lamar
5 Jan 05
Hi! Thanks for a great site! This is the best collection -well, actually, the ONLY collection of anti-sport sentiment anywhere! Here, for all to see, is an alternative opinion. Someone dares to stand up and say they don't like sports. Hooray! Hooray!! It's OK to not like sports. Spread the word!! I'm normal after all!! Gosh, I wish I'd stumbled on this site a long time ago. Thank you very much. :) -Dan
9 Jan 05
Here's an opinion -for what it's worth: I am sick of radio stations assuming that everyone likes sports and that covering sports will increase their listener base. Nothing could be farther from the truth! I like rock. 70s, 80s and 90s rock. The best station in town for that kind of music is (was) 103.5. But when game day comes along, what do they play? Football!! FOOTBALL!! What is wrong with them?! Did they get their DJ degree from K-Mart?! Don't they know that sports and music are largely incompatible? That the kind of people really into music are generally NOT the kind of people really into sports? So 103.5, if you're listening, get that footbal crap off my radio!!!
Oh -and by the way -I don't listen to your mixed-up station any more. I tune in to 102.5. They have one focus -ROCK!
Laxtonr
11 Jan 05
!!Where have you been all my life? Keep the faith my brother. One day the world will come to its senses and professional sports will disappear. Seriously. It's not like they've been around forever. Their rise in popularity has been in the last 50 years or so. It's the result of too many people not having enough to do and being bored. They need entertainment. Professional sports are the modern-day equivalent of court jesters or vaudeville. Except athletes aren't as smart. Or as talented. Makes you wonder why so many people think that they are, eh? Sports fans must be even dumber!
Felonious T. Monk
13 Jan 05
I'm not a ditto-head but I agree. We should prize the real heros of society -the scientists, the researchers, the doctors and lawyers, the city planners and social engineers! They're the real backbone of any progressive and successful community. They're the brains and patient wisdom that make sure civilization doesn't gradually crumble and decay. And I don't mean to say that we should only value those people who've been to college or get paid a lot. The average people who go to work day after day, without any recognition, are also responsible for the continued health of our nation by keeping our electricity humming, water running, cities expanding, etc. But are they recognized for their contributions? Maybe within their narrow specialties their value might be recognized during some brief ceremony with a wooden plaque and a cake but most people will never hear of them. But a professional sports player -a person who contributes absolutely nothing -is known and revered by all. Does that make sense? What convoluted and tortuous twists and turns did our communal judgement take to arrive at a place where we admire arrogant thugs and disdain police and public servants? How about those basketball players that jumped into the stands and beat the crap out of the fans last month? Typical. Basketball players are just thugs. Self-centered, rude, immature thugs. The only silver lining in this unfortunate cultural climate is the certain knowledge that when their career is over, despite making millions of dollars, they will have squandered it all and be penniless. And have AIDS. And though they'll have no one to blame but themselves you can bet they'll blame anyone but.
-You can call me Dick
5 Feb 05
In response to the last contributor's view of basketball thugs, I have just read in my local paper in England that a rugby league player- a game played mainly by thugs- who has been sent to jail for seriously injuring his wife in an assault will now be more than welcome to play for his team again when he comes out of jail. Seemingly the team and the fans are standing by this animal, while not one word of sympathy has been made about his poor ex wife, who has been left with a broken nose and permanent scars. If you're a rugby player, this gives the impression that it's OK to hit women.
I can reveal several other stories about these arses who think they're above the law. One little group of amateur players locally got away with intimidating a whole town until someone was brave enough to expose them for drug dealing and violence. Round about the same time as our friend was sent down for assault, another player is facing manslaughter charges after attacking and killing a man in a taxi queue. Every month local newspapers are full of these guys being done for violence against women, assault, drug dealing and intimidation. Yet, because they're sportsmen who are loved by their retard fans, they seem to be forgiven. I, and quite a large number of people locally, don't.
Glenn, England.
8 Mar 05
Wow, I'm not the only freak in the world! Finally I find people like myself, who cannot stand the average person's attitudes towards sports. I find that professional sports make people ignorant to things that really matter, so that they can pay attention to events that are made to seem much more important than they really are. I'll admit I do some sports: Fencing and Agressive In-Line Skating, but I honestly do not find either of them to be all that important. They're just ways to stay active and in shape while enjoying yourself. I hate jocks; their attitudes towards others and their belief that sports are the be-all-end-all. Somebody needs to put this athletic hierchy out to dry.
-Mark
2 May 05
I have just started up a message board that you may like, it's all about the absurdities of sports. I'm trying to get a lot of members involved. Would you guys mind linking to it?
I will also make a link to sportssuck.org in the board.
thank you
Atreyu
We Hate Sports Founder
11 May 05
THANK GOD! OTHER PEOPLE WHO HATE SPORTS! Sports suck. VIDEO GAMES RULE! ALL SPORTS ARE IS CHASING A STUPID BALL OR PIG SKIN!
3 Jun 05
Good morning, my fellow sports haters.
I see a number of letters here from people saying either "I am so glad I'm not alone in my hatred of sports", or "Don't worry, you are not alone".
Isn't it disturbing that we feel alienated by society because we either have no interest in sports, or actively hate them? Yes, most people like sports, but that doesn't mean it's "normal", it just means that most people have no taste. I am a musician and I LOVE the blues. Do I try to alienate those who don't? No, I have better manners.
My own hatred of sports grew from an inability to play (want to confuse me? Throw me a ball) and the ill-mannered derision of those kids who did have ability and enjoyed playing ("Aw, you're USELESS, you are!"). I was the proverbial last kid to be picked for the team during mandatory PE sessions at school, which was embarrassing enough but made worse by the demeaning sniggers and comments of the boneheads doing the picking. So, embarrassment became resentment, and resentment grew into a gleefully dark contempt for sports and any arrogant pustule keen on them.
Let us stand our ground in the face of the grunting wankers who attempt to convince us that there is something wrong with us.
Two-Dog
8 Jun 05
I have never liked sports, I have never watched them or participated in them. I dont know why, the interest was just not there. What bothers me is that people like to label men that dislike sports as "faggots" or "effeminate" which is seldom true, certainly not in my case. My other interests are definitely 'male', I love cars, radios, woodworking, etc. just dont like sports.
20 Jun 05
Sports are fucking stupid! Some fucking Hack gets paid millions of dollars for doing something RECREATIONAL. Face it you stupid redneck fat fucks, they're getting paid for doing something recreational! fuck! I dont get paid just cuz I Pwn people at Halo! Yet these fuckers get paid cuz they play a fucking game well! It's bull shit! They're all nothing but overpaid rich sons of bitches who dont deserve their money! They should all be fucking gutted! In short, your site kicks ass! keep up the good work!
Tweak
2 Jul 05
I always ask myself, what's the point of sports? Some people (mostly those faggot hockey players) take them SOOOOOO seriuosly that they exclude others who suck at/or even just don't play thier favorite sport. People join rep-teams travel across the province/state whatever, spend sometimes thousands of dollars on equipment and trips. WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT??? YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE! IN A COUPLE YEARS, IF YOU'RE A JUNIOR, YOU'LL GET A JOB, DROP ALL THAT SHIT AND JUST SIT ON THE COUCH WATCHING AND FANTASIZING ABOUT SPORTS ON T.V.!!! Every 10 minutes in school i hear some fucking dumb comment from one sport freak to another like, "We've got you owned in tonights game" or "HA! YOU LOST YESTERDAY! YOUR LIFE'S POINTLESS! WHY DON'T YOU JUST QUIT THE LEAGUE??!!!" WTF!!! Everytime I hear something like this i go ballistic and often cuss at the kid yelling , WHAT THE FUCKS THE BIG DEAL!!! IF IT WERE UP TO ME SPORTS WOULD BE BANNED, ANYONE CAUGHT PLAYING, TALKING, EVEN THINKING ABOUT THEM WOULD BE SHOT ON SIGHT!!!!!!! And for my hatred of the pointless games, i'm hated by like 100+ hockey faggots.
WELL FUCK THEM ALL!!!!!!!!
L Calvin
15 Jul 05
It's not so much the sports themselves, though I !"£$ing hate rugby, but the way the media psyches a midweek football game into some kind of global event and the morons who regard it as some kind of life or death event and talk non stop about the big game to the detriment of more interesting things.
I'm sure all the money top sportsmen earned and wasted on junk like their fifth SUV could be better used going to a charity and all these armchair sports fans would be better employed getting off their fat backsides and doing some real exercise. Hell, I went for a really long walk in 90 degree heat on Tuesday and I felt better for it.
Geordie Glenn
16 Jul 05
My boss is pretty sporty, he has a blue belt in karate and works out, but he hates all these people who talk about nothing else but sport and avoids sport on the television. He prefers to battle away in the dojo for his black belt than sit on his backside and watch some guys chasing a ball.
I had the misfortune to endure a group of rugby league players- Northern English variant of rugby- in my local pub last night. What a bunch of homophobic( everything was gay this, gay that, pig ignorant, aggressive proles they were, though, as I've pointed out before, this game has produced more than its fair share of wife beaters and thugs. I can see why this game is either loved or detested in my part of the world.I hate it and would dance on its grave, as would my boss, who was once beaten up some years ago for the crime of wearing an alt rock T shirt in front of a bunch of rugby " players." Apparently alternative rock is an excuse to attack someone as these morons consider it gay!
Now come on, guys, how many gays are into alt or punk rock, it's like the jock attitude to goths in American schools. If it wasn't so sad, I'd laugh.
Now with regard to sports I do like, I quite like the attitude and discipline of the martial arts as this is quite intellectual and the players are, despite their fearsome skills, generally peaceful. I did judo some years back and none of us were thugs or bigheads and the people who competed in tournaments did it for love, not money. Sadly, I think that's what's wrecked sport in Britain and America, it's been turned into a billion pound business with players on millions of pounds a year and still not satisfied, while the television hammers sport non stop. While I wouldn't go so far as to say ban it, as I do get patriotic when the England football team is on ( well I watch the last 30 minutes)and I like horse racing, I'd like to see televised sport cut down to the level it was 20 years ago.
Geordie Glenn
17 Jul 05
Beat up by a bunch of fuckin' thugs?! Thank GOD I don't live in Europe where that kind of thing is tolerated. I can understand your frustration. The next time I see a guy wearing a Rugby shirt, I'll spit on him and think of you. Down with Rugby! Rugby sucks!
Tony Tuna
17 Jul 05
Yes, these guys can be arses, Tony, they seem to think they're rock hard and no one can touch them. I'll admit not all of them are like that, but the majority of them seem to think that because they play rugby league, they're invicible. As I mentioned in an earlier post, one received a piffling prison sentence for beating up hiw wife, who was a lot smaller than him, and most of the dumb fans seemed to excuse this. In a more serious incident one has been charged with murder and there have been countless cases of them beating people up, intimidating people and assaulting women.
Another thing that is so crap at the moment is the amount of people who wear sportswear in Britain. I mean, what's the point of wasting £ 60 on a tracksuit just because it has the word Adidas in big letters on it, or a football shirt with another guy's name on it. These people are referred to as chavs over here and there is a big backlash against them by intelligent people.
Check out a website called www.chavscum.co.uk
19 Jul 05
Great site! I only wish I could shove it in the face of every sports fan I've ever known! Like you, I detest sports fans and here's why: they are all followers. There's nothing wrong with being a follower -often it's necessary and being a good follower is just as important as being a good leader. But.. the typical sports fan is weak. He must draw his strength from the crowd. They find comfort in the fact that they can say anything they like and go unchallenged. Because to challenge them would be to challenge ALL sports fans. It feels pretty safe to them. It's like the freedom a religious zealot feels as he condemns whoever disagrees with him -he's safe because who would dare challenge the church?! But thankfully, those days are drawing to a close. We're not afraid to challenge authority any more. We're not afraid to say that sports suck and anyone who hides behind them is a weakling. I just wonder what weak people will hide behind next. Probably politcal correctness. That's still sacred ground here in the U.S. Get ready for the ranks of PC to swell!
Again, great site, and Sports SUCK!
Roland V
20 Jul 05
Try this one on for size, in ninth grade my art teacher was, infact, a Track coach.... That, was the worst year of art class, the man had no artistic ability and every day was the drilling of sports stats into our impressionable minds.... Ick.
TheChrisMan<>..<>
20 Jul 05
You guys are my heros, and i thank you. Im totally buying pins for all my friends.
Chris
20 Jul 05
Youre totally gonna love this.
Now to think of a caption... football for what it truly is...
Keep the fight alive!
Much love, Chris.
25 Jul 05
what a buch of crybabys! ihate sports i hate sports! u hate sports because you were too clumsy to play. always picked last for softball? boohoo! face it you got no skills and u cant get laid! if i ever catch u out talking this crap i will put out youre lights! in front of all your queer friends
Quinlan
27 Jul 05
To the last contributor, here we go again, people who don't do sport or don't like it are gay and can't get women. Try saying that to my friend Peter who is happily married, doesn't watch sport on the television, but is very skilled in wado ryu karate and works out. I'm sure he would love to hear the usual crap from sports bores that somehow he's gay cos he doesn't sit and get off on sports television. I get it all the time and come out with the crack that it looks pretty gay watching a group of half naked men running round a field. I know most sports nuts have no life beyond work and the sports channels. Their conversations revolve around nothing else but Crapchester United's new striker, Bradford Bullshit versus Wigan Wasters and how much better they could do it, etc, etc, while sitting on their fat arses in sportswear boring the intelligent world to death. Meanwhile I've made a sharp exit to watch a film or discuss Live 8 with someone with more of a life than sport. Let's face it sports bores are like religious fanatics, they won't stop until they've converted the world. Quite a few of the non believers on here, except the last contributor, aren't going to be converted.
Glenn.
28 Jul 05
Dear I Hate Sports,
Your site has really touched me. I have been verbally abused by jocks not for being a nerd, but for skateboarding and liking punk music. So fucking what? Wigger shit jocks think they're so great, i'll fucking shoot them all. In seventh and eigth gradea at my school, we don't have P.E. we have athletics, and every kid is forced to do a team sport three seasons out of the year. It is complete and utter bullshit. One and a half hours a day doing pointless shit with brainless assholes is really getting to me and I think drastic action should be taken soon. But anyway, thank you so much for sharing the feeling that I'm not the only one getting picked on by the most evil race on earth... jocks.
--riccar
29 Jul 05
I really hate some of these swaggering jocks, like the last contributor said, who make his life hell cos he skates and likes punk rock music. Hell, there's more skill in skating than a bunch of oversized meatheads trying to chase a bag of wind around and hitting each other cos they get bored. We have the same problem with rugby league players and soccer fans in England: they hate anyone who's different. Yet the big rise in the rock, skate and goth scenes over here, where team sports are generally ignored or hated, shows people who want to be different aren't the saddos and queers the sports Nazis make them out to be. Nearly all my friends who are into music aren't interested in ball games: one guy I knew who was into football( soccer) 10 years ago now hates it as music is more important to him.
Most of my musical heroes have never been jocks. John Lydon of the Sex Pistols even took a beating to get out of playing rugby( sadistic games teachers were a big problem over here in the seventies), Lemmy of Motorhead told a newspaper interviewer to !"£$ off when he asked him about football, and people like John Lennon, Jimmy Page, Marc Bolan and Brian Jones never mentioned the subject, they were more into their music and other interests besides the big game. If a sports bore is to like any kind of music, it's usually the most popular and most simplistic rubbish like dance and r and b. They can't handle something like Kashmir as it goes over their dumb heads. Mind you, if sport is so popular, how come one in three men, according to a recent survey, have no interest in sport. That's an awful lot of freaks and queers out there, sports Nazis, and even more people are getting hacked off with the greed, violence and stupidity of some of our leading sportsmen.
Glenn.
29 Jul 05
I'm glad that this site accomplished its goal -to support others out there who don't like sports and feel alienated because of it. Riccar, you're not alone. As Glenn pointed out above, one out of three men don't like sports. But you'd never know it because the "sportsmen" out there have the rest of us too intimidated to speak up! But that's changing as people become aware that it's OK not to be a jughead sports fan. But, as far as drastic action, I don't know what we can do about reforming sports nuts. They're a lost cause. All we can do -in my opinion -is just support others who feel the same as we do. -Ray
29 Jul 05
I'd just like to add that high school kids should be careful around their gym coaches. The high school gym rivals the Cathloc Church as a sanctuary for child-molesters. I was sexually harrassed by my gym coach openly. It's apparently a semi-legalized, gray area of accepted deviant behavior. Anyway I avoided being assaulted by avoiding my coach. I advise you to do the same.
Dan
30 Jul 05
Dan
I had the ultimate in bully boy weirdo games teachers when I was at school. This guy was a sadist who did nothing else but make people's lives a misery who were no good at sport. I still recall the day, though, when a school leaver flattened him on the way out of school. These guys seem to forget people have memories and get bigger.
One thing that does make me laugh about games teachers is , once they get past 45, they become virtually unemployable. For some reason, most become third rate stand in teachers.
Glenn.
30 Jul 05
Here's a link that I thought was positively inspired. It expresses, in a single sentence, how I feel about sports.
Ronbo
3 Aug 05
An interesting observation I've noted:
When someone such as I proclaims my hatred for sports, I get derisively called "gay" for it.
So, then I show them their own hypocrisy by pointing out the homoeroticism in their beloved sports - you know, with patting all their jock buddies' asses and winding down with that hot steamy group shower...
But then the masses suddenly change their opinion when I point out the blatant hypocrisy - instead of calling me "gay" for hating sports, they'll begin to call me a homophobic asshole, even though I don't have any beef with homosexuals - I just pointed out some hypocrisy.
I have a lot of horror stories about sports, though. Like how the high school football cheerleaders in a small town I used to live in literally ganged up and beat the shit out of someone they felt superior to, and they sent some people to the hospital.
4 Aug 05
I don't mind sports I play rugby and hockey but jesus I hate people that take sports beyond a game, I'm from PEI and I hate to go watch sports because its a rediculous thing to do and all the fans are hicks! Take baseball for example, are these people serious, haha! Its a game
and those parents are playing for their kids haha! its sad!
strangeland_77
12 Aug 05
Ever noticed most of these sports nuts have never played any game since they left school. I see massively overweight men saying how much better they could play football than David Beckham. Yeah, well, go out and do it then, fuckwits, and get out of my face, except you're too fat and lazy and like the attention of other brain dead morons whose life revolves around Crapchester United and nothing else.
I notice my local pub will be showing some second rate game tonight. Think I'll take a baseball bat in and break the television set and then declare the bar a rock bar where televised sport is banned ( except Mortal Kombat and Mixed Martial Arts.) All the fat morons in replica shirts will soon do a runner as the pub will fill up with interesting people who will want to talk about music and films.
Glenn.
14 Aug 05
That's funny, Glenn. And I understand your frustration. Here -in Tampa -it's football season again. I can tell by all the dorks driving around with flags attached to their cars. AND by all the TV coverage. I work from 3PM until 11PM and every night my co-workers have the shop TV tuned into some football game. That shit gives me a headache. For the past two nights -maybe more -regular TV programming has been pre-empted for &^%$#@! FOOTBALL! All work stops and every "red-blooded American male" in the shop crowds around the TV like a bunch of idiots. Thank God for cable and the ability to turn that shit OFF!! But that only works at home. And you're right. The more overweight they are, the more into WATCHING sports they are. I can't figure that part out. -Pasco Pete
20 Aug 05
Well, the football premiership and the champions league season has started in England, so all the sheep will be sitting lobotomised in front of Sky Sports, wearing their overpriced football shirts and watching a bunch of greedy morons kicking a bag of wind around. It makes me sick when a footballer over here earns £ 100,000 a week, fiddles his tax returns and still demands more money. Some of these guys it has been revealed have entered into sponsorship deals with companies so they only have to pay 19 per cent tax, instead of 40 per cent. It's enough to make you sick that footballers over here are never satisfied and the dumb fans are too stupid to notice. And Taggart( a popular crime drama) has been cancelled for a bloody football match next week. That's made me angry.
Glenn.
23 Aug 05
Oh Pasco Pete, I was looking forward to my weekly instalment of Taggart, a psychological murder drama set in Glasgow that goes above the heads of most football fans, wehn I read to my horror ITV1 has cancelled Taggart in favour of Champions League Live, some made for television football tournament. I heard some jerks getting excited about this at work today and felt like saying, What about the millions of Taggart fans. Except the stupid idiots at the television company decided the millions of pounds they had been conned out of by football clubs was more important than showing this highly acclaimed drama series.
However, I do have an alternative: a documentary on a minority channel about Hirohito and the Second World War. I guess I shall be in a minority on the smoking patio at work the following day, when I avoided Stephen I'm A Greedy C!"£ Gerrard and his band of rich whingers chase a big of wind around, in favour of something intelligent, but I can live with that. Must be even worse in Tampa Bay when the alternatives are probably ancient pop videos, college football, golf and reurns of I Love Lucy.
Glenn
27 Aug 05
Just been reading on a news site that a group of young men have been sent to prison for attacking a group of Portugese farm workers in a bar in Norfolk after England lost to Portugal in the European Chamionship in 2004. I can reveal the activities of some of these brain dead fans with regard to their " patriotic" behaviour
Locally, in 2002 a teenager was so depressed when England were kicked out of the World Cup he smashed up a mini mart.
In 2000, hundreds of England football fans staged a riot in Belgium with rival fans and when they had enough, decided to attack each other.
In 1996, when England hosted Euro 1996 football tournament, when England lost to Germany, two police officers were severely injured when a mob attacked their German car. A Pole was attacked in Brighton because he sounded German and a gang in Bedfordshire wrecked every German car they saw on the street and trashed an Audi garage.
Can't they see it's only a bloody game and real patriotism, like serving your country in war time, is far better than the stupidity of football fans.
Glenn.
7 Sep 05
Hello Geordie Glenn.
From which survey did you get the information that one in three men does not like sports? I despise sports myself but it seems nearer to one in ten, in my experience.
So Rugby is still popular over in England? I was forced to take part in that horrifying and pointless ritual every week at my rubbish school - one teacher referred to it as "legalised thuggery," and I respected him for it in a school where such a statement was heresy.
I came to live in America in 1990, where sports fans are just as moronically fanatical as they are in the UK, but thank goodness cable TV here enables you to easily avoid the crap, even at the end of the season when every sheep is bleating mindlessly about "the game," and watch an engrossing movie. I agree with you wholeheartedly: films and music are infinitely more interesting than sports.
More power to you.
Two-Dog
11 Sep 05
Two Dog
I think it was in a survey in The Guardian newspaper in 2002 that they reckoned 30 per cent of men when questioned about sport said they had little or no interest in the subject. Similarly there was an article on here from The Guardian which stated 51 per cent of people weren't going to watch the 2002 World Cup. I can also quote a poll done by MORI in 2003 that stated 42 per cent of men didn't like football/soccer. As for rugby, we get a lot of rugby league where I live, but I'd say half the people I know don't like it and rugby union is mostly a Welsh or public( independent) school game nowadays. I do know of a Welshman at work who hates rugby and he was once referred to as a weirdo, seemingly in South Wales in the seventies a man who didn't like rugby was classed as an outcast. It wouldn't matter if the guy did loads of charity work, loved his parents and went to church every week, because he didn't like rugby the town would ostracise him. Bloody narrowminded pricks. It's the same in Liverpool if you don't like football, you're classed as an outsider.
I think it all has to do with where you live and which circles you mix with. Football tends to be biggest in the Northern cities, Glasgow and London, country areas and bohemian towns like Brighton tend to have little interest in it, as do older people, rock fans, arty types and internet geeks like me. Rugby league is only really popular in parts of Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire, it's an irrelevance elsewhere and rugby union is, as I've said, a big deal in Wales and the public and grammar schools, but only really followed in England big time when the national team is in the World Cup.( I slept through the World Cup final when England won as I hate the game and didn't want to be seen as a hypocrite.) We are getting quite a lot of hype about England doing well in the Ashes cricket against Australia, but as I find this game to be marginally less exciting than watching grass grow I'm not bothered.
I'll admit we had to play rugby at school and it was just an excuse for bigger vicious kids and weirdo games teachers to vent their frustration on the unathletic. I can assure you the majority of people I went to school with hated it. After all, a school is supposed to be a place of learning, not a sports club. Actually, when I used to do judo, which is a controlled form of agression, our dojo was next door to a football pitch and every Sunday there was an amateur football match and the language and agression of the players was totally the opposite of the controlled and polite world of the dojo. Fair enough, what I was learning could kill, but we showed none of the yobbishness and stupidity of the men on the football pitch and bullying was strictly out of order. I tend to regard modern team sports as a refuge for greedy morons who would otherwise be unemployable, thugs and people with limited interests.
15 Sep 05
What a cool site!
I have to say that I felt something of a pioneer writing an article for the school magazine (getting on for 20 years ago...sigh...) criticising the emphasis that was placed on sporting prowess - well actually I think it was more "why the hell can't you see how pointless football is?". I don't think it made me particularly popular with the sports department. Not that I was anyway. No, they had their own little band of "favourites". These were the students that the sports teachers would have a little joke with and then go on to discuss training and cross country running. People that questioned the whole validity of sport as part of a school syllabus were most definetely excluded. Shame.
The school sports events were always given a very high profile with the "favourites" taking centre stage. Prize giving in front of the whole school. Yet anyone who excelled academically was never given such reward. Kind of odd really given that school is to edjucate - not some kind of adolescent sports academy.
What I have discovered recently though is that many of these sporty favourites have now become the "$5.00/hour at wal-mart" people that one of your other contributors so eloquently ;) described. The "teamwork", "strategy" and "character building" I'm sure comes in very handy when working on the checkout in the supermarket.
A message to anyone unfortunate enough to still having to be enduring school sports - they may laugh at you now for not "getting" the whole sport thing, but in later life they'll be ones asking if you want fries with your cheeseburger!
Guy
15 Sep 05
Guy
I'm glad in one way I wasn't born American as I would have found the whole jock culture unbearable and no doubt would have barricaded myself in the library with the other outsiders to avoid the jocks and probably would have been the coach's, as you call games teachers over there, number one hate figure. I know one of the games teachers I had must have held a party the day I left school.
While it wasn't as bad for worship of jocks over here, I know the school rugby team could get away with far more than the non rugby playing fraternity. I can remember two pupils skipping school and being caught by the housemaster, who just happened to be the rugger coach: the rugby player got away with a telling off, the non rugby playing pupil had a letter sent home, ten detentions and an entry on his school record about poor attendance, which could have wrecked his chances of getting a job. It was definitely a them and us thing. Similarly, when I was getting some grief from a school rugby player and complained to the housemaster, he accused me of making it up. It was one law for them and one for us.
Similarly I remember being at university and the rugby union team made a claim on part of the student union bar. Every Wednesday afternoon in British universities is when the sports teams play, for most students it's just an excuse to chill as participation in sports isn't compulsory. This meant one corner of the bar traditionally was the rugger corner, there were no signs saying this but it was some unwritten rule these fifteen morons and their stupid female groupies laid a claim on the top left hand corner of the bar. Most people tended to tolerate these morons, or kept out of their way as they were in no mood to suffer their childish and often offensive behaviour.
However, one of my friends, a six foot four Asian ex boxer called Sahid ( Shag) from Manchester, decided he would challenge this unwritten rule and sat in the rugby corner, encouraging me and a few others to join him. Of course, ten minutes later the first fifteen turned up, looking like World War 3 was going to break out as their corner had been occupied by the non players. One of these pricks decided to challenge why we had taken " our area", to which my Asian friend stood up and said, " it's not your fooking area, dickhead, now fook off." Seeing that Shag wasn't a man to be messed with, the guy backed down and we returned to our drinking and discussing things such as the new Happy Mondays album. We had broken the unwritten rule, thou shalt not sit in the left hand corner of the bar on a Wednesday. I felt pleased to have shown up these idiots, though having a six four ex boxer as a friend helped.
As a final comment, the ultimate irony in life is that most jocks, and their English equivalents, profess to be homophobic, yet their sports seem to be the most homoerotic pastimes on earth.
Glenn.
19 Sep 05
Hi.
I think the worse thing about "games" teachers is that they kind of think that everybody enjoys the whole physical education thing. One of these great individuals was getting slightly exasperated with a group of us and our lack of enthusiam for "scrumming down" (a very masculine persuit of putting your head between some blokes buttocks). He said to us in his comedic (games teachers are always SOOO funny) way "perhaps you lads would rather do flower arranging" to which we all nodded. I don't think he expected such a "gay" response. No, we all know that it is much more hetrosexual to get muddy then take a shower together.
An ex girlfriend actually served one of my former games teachers when she worked in a jewellers. She recognised his name (I'd spoken in less than favourable terms about him) and confronted him "What did you do to him?! He won't have anything to do with sports now!". He didn't really have an answer, but went on about how his girlfriend was going to be blown away because he was going to propose (he was buying an engagement ring) and how everyone in the shop should keep it quiet because the local paper might break the story and spoil the "surprise" (Sadly, he was serious too).
My girlfriend got home and said "You're right, he IS a complete twat".
Guy
20 Sep 05
Guy
He probably had a boyfriend, but was keeping it quiet. From a gay friend at work, I know of several rugby players who are gay. It must be all these showers and body contact that must turn them. Not that I'm a homophobe, as I have quite a few gay friends, but the latent homosexuality that surrounds games like rugby and the English public schools, where fraternisation with women was frowned on, makes you wonder. The irony is they all seem to attract the women, maybe it's a female thing about seeing a powerfully built man in a rugby shirt, but I know from past experience they keep the women to one side when they go out and often treat them like submissive cretins. I'm sure their homophobia, which is rife in rugby league, is a form of a defence mechanism to hide their real tendencies.
Glenn.
21 Sep 05
If you think America and England have more than their fair share of rabid sports-mad hethans, spare a thought for us stuck here in Australia! This country is virtually driven by Sports - the education system values throwing and catching a ball as much as english grammar or math and its media is under a virtual sports stranglehold.
Forget missing out on the Monday morning watercooler conversation, if you don't spectate sports here - you're considered a social outcast! The situation is so disappointingly bad that "Sports Institutes" replace standard educational curriculum for youngsters whom exhibit sporting promise; Companies regularly promote Sports days where employees dress in their team colours and our "Australian of the Year" award was won by a sportswoman! Indeed, sportspeople are viewed as "heros" and saturate much of our print and TV media.
Typical Australians have no tolerance for individualism or not liking sports - The tired old accusations of being ho!
mosexual, soft or a "wuss" (laughable local slang) are levelled.
Australian Football is perhaps the most boring, inane, uninspired, insipid, irrelevant, unsophisticated, laughable and downright stupid "sports" game on the planet. It relies on brawn - not skill, and the standard uniform is very effeminate (tight knitted sleeveless vests and hotpants). Those from the US and UK have probably not witnessed this mindless drivel because the rest of the world is simply not interested in it - but let me tell you, from a lowpoint in the mid 90s, the game appears to be increasing in popularity due to the blatant commercialism and media support. Co-workers whom I personally know to have no interest in this garbage game, still engage in "how bout them blues?" chit-chat and claim to follow a team because they cannot bear to fight against common sentiment. This is particularly sad. I quite enjoy telling people I don't follow Football when confronted with "Go the Doggies/C'arn the Reds" small talk in meetings.
Unfortunately, the stranglehold the media and corporate conglomerations have on this country will only continue the brainwashing.
"Mate, I don't give a f*ckin rats @rse whether your team won or not. It matters to me about as much as it would matter to your team if they just found out you dropped dead from choking on a chicken bone."
Encise
21 Sep 05
Guy,
My mother was a teacher, and she pointed out to me that some of her colleagues, PE teachers or otherwise, considered their chosen subject to be the only important one. So it's not a mindset limited to sports coaches. The PE teacher at my old grammar school was one of those rare fellows who understood that there were some boys who JUST DID NOT GET IT, and yet he did not discriminate. He was an exception, from what I read on these letter pages. I was one of those boys, and he was always decent to me. Years after I had left school, I heard he had a heart attack while refereeing a rugby game, a sport he loved, and he died instantly. Even those of us who vehemently hated sports were sorry to hear of his passing, and missed his gently wicked sense of humour, and the good grace he showed in NOT demeaning those boys who were witless on the playing field.
On one occasion he was in conversation with my best mate and myself, and asked us, as a point of interest, why some of the boys would do anything to avoid taking a shower after an afternoon of rugby. I don't remember what we said, but I wanted to say that being wet and naked in a shower with twenty teenage boys gives me the creeps. Thank goodness he did not discriminate FOR the sporty boys or AGAINST those of us who were clueless with a ball at our feet. Any boy who misbehaved would be punished.
I wonder, now, if he understood how unenthusiastic we felt about an afternoon on a windswept field in shorts and shirt, fumbling with a rugby ball, as our ineptitude was frustrating for him too? That may have been why he always went and coached the boys who enjoyed it, and left us duffers to other teachers who knew nothing about teaching rugby and didn't want to be there any more than we did.
What a shame that most of the sports-loving boys there, who had the manners of rutting polecats, did not follow his example of fairness.
Two-Dog
21 Sep 05
Gday Encise
I have relatives who live in Perth,WA, and the big deal there is Aussie rules and cricket. I don't know much about Aussie rules, as it's never played in England, but I know sport plays a huge part in Aussie life. I have heard Germaine Greer express her contempt for the cult of sport in Aus, which explains why she prefers living in England. However, even here, the God of football( soccer) has been elevated to a level where it can become unbearable and difficult to avoid as many pubs are now sports bars full of sports bores.
Luckily we're not as sports crazed as in Australia, I put it down to your better climate as well, but the rise of sports television and radio over here is making sport too predominant. I gather whenever I walk into a bar nowadays and turn my back on the sport or duck out of sports conversations I can sense people think I'm weird. Luckily I'd say I do have friends who don't like sport, or don't treat it as some kind of religion, so I know who to talk to. I think Aus, a bit like some of the cities for football and Wales for rugby, must condition people to like these things as its the predominant thing and many people want an easy life. I must admit I did compromise some years ago, pretending to like football, but then realised I wasn't part of it, frequently stumbled in conversations and got laughed at and then thought sod it, I don't see why I should conform. I'd imagine plenty of Aussies who have been taunted on the footie field or didn't make the grade at rugby feel exactly the same, I daresay people like rock fans, intellectuals and outsiders like goths hate it like they do here.
Glenn.
24 Sep 05
Two Dog
You must have been lucky with your games teacher because the one I had at my first high school was a sadist, a bully and a total thicko. I've mentioned this tosser in an article and that man put me off sport for life. The ones I had at subsequent school weren't as bad, at least they didn't resolve to hitting unsporting pupils and one guy from Yorkshire I got on with to an extent, but their main interest in life was the dreaded game of rugby union. Every Thursday morning we had this two hour ritual of freezing pitches, snow, rain, pain and cold showers. Whatever was the point of this game, especially when the country was suffering from the worst recession since the war, was lost on me as I'm sure those two hours would have been better spent on teaching us English or maths. I'm sure , as occurs in English schools now, it would have been better giving non athletic pupils the option of dropping this subject at 14. After all, I had no interest or aptitude in chemistry and I was given the option of dropping that, but we all had to face the dreaded rugby pitch until we were 16.
Glenn.
25 Sep 05
I visited a town called Middlesbrough six years ago and something annoyed me. Among the derelict factories, smashed up houses and general dereliction( the place is like an English Detroit and has the worst poverty and unemployment in England) stood a football stadium that had cost tens of millions of pounds to be built. While the rest of the town was falling apart, apparently a new football stadium was more important. Middlesbrough FC had also made a killing selling their old ground, but rather than plough it back into the depressed community around it no doubt this went into the directors pockets.
I gather it's even worse in America where local governments that profess to be broke can still stump up the cash for sports grounds and schools can sack languages teachers through lack of resources but still continue to lavish money on sports coaches and facilities. It's enough to make you sick, as sports take a higher priority over public services and education.
However, driving through Middlesbrough and seeing cars covered in football stickers, it made you wonder if people are prepared to suffer in this rotten, depressed environment so long as their beloved football club gets its new stadium. I'm sure I would much sooner see the town improved before the football club got its new stadium, but no doubt football always comes first.
Glenn,
29 Sep 05
Normally, I find the "Dilbert" strip dully unamusing, but I came across one today that really stopped me in my tracks. It involves Wally, the work-shy character, telling his colleague, Asok, that he "was always the last kid picked to be on a team." We can relate, as if this is A Bad Thing, something of which you'd think Wally would be ashamed. Then another character steps up and says "I need two people right now." Presumably she's putting a team together for an office project. "I'll take Asok and ... I'll keep looking." This right in front of Wally. Again, you'd think he'd be crestfallen, feel excluded. Asok says to him, "So it's like a super power?" "Pretty much," says Wally, having just avoided an odious project when he'd rather stand around the office drinking coffee. More to the point, others think he's just inept, when in reality they are blissfully unaware that he is cleverer than them.
So, our inability to do what most of these utter idiots want can be to our advantage! If a bunch of boneheads at school don't want you to play some dopey-arsed sport with them, other steaming pillocks will not want you to help them do their meaningless office project later in life! This will be a distinct advantage to those of us who would rather just quietly do our job and/or post these spiffing little wotsits on our favourite web sites.
Two-Dog
1 Oct 05
Two Dog
We have the same thing where I work in the civil service. There's a clique of five twentysomething women, all going out with rugby or football playing partners, who are totally obsessed with work and all the petty, crap rules we have to enforce, but which can be bent very easily if you're cunning enough. To piss this clique off, I either laugh at them or bend the rules so I don't have to suffer some irate caller a few weeks later. I tend to find this with a lot of sports fans, they're such damned small minded conformists who surround themselves with like minds, non fans tend to be far more individualist and more interesting people. Locally, I know a lot of sports fans whose other topic of conversation is work and who's getting overtime this week, yawn.
However, on a more serious note, my grandmother is seriously ill in hospital and the nurses are totally dedicated. What a shame these vital people to our country earn well under the national average, while some greedy, useless footballer with no real skills makes £ 5 million a year and still wants more. It's time more value was placed on nurses, doctors and teachers than these arrogant, useless individuals.
Glenn.
6 Oct 05
Our national, or rather some people's, national football team is playing on Saturday. The media is now psyching this up as if it is a matter of life and death that England beat Austria. No doubt some joker will pick up on the fact that Austrians speak German and Hitler was a German, so we can pysche up the old wartime prejudices that occur whenever England plays Germany. Really, do I care that this 90 minutes of tedium which will probably be a goal less draw and will be classed as a disaster on a par with the Titanic sinking by football fans and media pundits? Am I a secret traitor for ducking out of this game, same as our local rugby league team are playing in some final on Sunday, and I find the prospect of these two piles of boredom marginally less exciting than watching paint dry? Yes the sports brigade, who recently looked at me like I was a leper for not knowing what the football offside rule was, will be watching closely for dissenters this weekend.
I'm proud to be a team sports hater, in the same way someone from Muskogee is proud to be an Okie or was it the other way round? We ought to hold a convention every year or when the World Cup or Superbowl is on.
BTW dictators like Hitler and Stalin were very keen on forced exercise and the use of sport to keep the masses down.
Glenn.
7 Oct 05
Damn, you're right, two-dog. I never thought of it like that. I guess I AM lucky I was never chosen to participate in all the reindeer games as a kid. Think of all the time I would have wasted with those ignorant bastards!
And Glenn, I feel for you. I know just how you feel. It's like everyone in the whole damn country has been infected by some kind of virus and turned into football-lovin' zombies! But hopefully, one day, people will grow up and see the light and we'll meet other people with enough balls to say, "Football?!" Who gives a fuck about football?!".
Until then, all I can say is I HOPE WE LOSE!! --Ray
16 Oct 05
"BTW dictators like Hitler and Stalin were very keen on forced exercise and the use of sport to keep the masses down."
Well, I'm glad to see your letters have gotten a lot more reasonable in the past three or so years. :)
- John, the silent observer
18 Oct 05
Glenn,
If we held an anti-sports convention any time the FA Cup is on, or the U.S. Superbore, or the basketbore "playoffs" or the World Series (why do baseball nuts call it that when it just involves American teams? Self-glorification, I suppose), or any of those colossal yawns, we'd only give the sporty types more of an excuse to dislike us and make their childish knee-jerk "homo" comments. I find that the best way to disarm these robots is to ignore them, otherwise they have a forum for their drivel. If enough of us watch something else on the goggle box, maybe the Faceless Ones at the TV companies will do something useful and show a Marx Bros movie marathon instead.
I e-mailed a couple of TV stations here in the U.S., months ago, about their unfunny situation comedies, so they added me to their survey lists. So, any time they show a new series they've been rabidly advertising, they e-mail a survey to their viewers. Lately, one station has been showing a brand new prog about a woman who becomes President, starring that lovely creature Geena Davis. I've not watched it, it doesn't look interesting, but they've been hyping the thing EVERYWHERE: on billboards, on buses, during commercial breaks on TV. They are really pushing this prog. The day after the first episode aired, I got a survey e-mail (along with thousands of other people, I suppose), asking me what I watched last night. They particularly wanted to know about this show (I don't remember its title). So I cheerfully indicated "no," as I had done something more useful, like clipping my fingernails. So, if you e-mail whoever televises the most sports, maybe your voice will be heard. I hope the buggers send me a survey after the Superbore in January. I doubt it though, as they know millions enjoy it. Unfortunately, I suspect mine will be one of the very few voices of sanity crying out in the wilderness.
Two-Dog
21 Oct 05
Two Dog
England have qualified for the World Cup, so expect this to be rammed down everyone's throat next summer. Fair enough, I suppose it's something for the fans of this often not very good national team to look forward to, but non fans will be forced into some kind of exile during June, or will pretend to be fans for the duration of the World Cup. Unlike previous World Cups, where the overbearing presence of fans in England shirts make disinterest dangerous, I shall be boycotting the whole thing and probably sending letters to Sports Suck while England are drawing 0-0 with Bolivia in what the BBC has probably hyped as the game of the century and what the sheep will regard as the biggest national crisis since 1940 as England couldn't defeat a bunch of " dagos." And as the World Cup is in Germany, I can imagine what kind of Second World War references will be dragged up, and God help BMW owners, like my sister, if we're defeated by the " krauts and huns."
I really couldn't care less if the massively overpaid, anti social, untalented and overrated national team win or lose this borefest. Does it make me feel any better that these undeserving rich have reached the quarter finals, where they usually get knocked out? Meanwhile, people with more talent in their big toe struggle to pay their mortgages and for their petrol while a thicko like Wayne Rooney will no doubt pocket a couple of million in sponsorship during the World Bore? It makes you sick. As previous contributors have said, the real heroes in society are people like doctors and nurses, not someone who chases a ball, contributes nothing to society and would probably tell his adoring fans to fuck off if they approached them. Unfortunately, not enough people can see through the hype.
Glenn.
22 Oct 05
It's refreshing to see others thinking clearly about sports. Especially about 'pro' sports. Do you think scientists, engineers, teachers, doctors, firefighters and even military men and women who are getting shot at have multimillion dollar contracts? Ha! These people are actually contributing to society while the 'professionals' are playing games for people's entertainment. Sports is just plain bullshit. If they aught to get paid, pay them an average salary like any other job. Give the people who are saving lives on a daily basis and those who make America a better place to live the big chips that they rightfully deserve.
Bruce
22 Oct 05
What up, comrades! Guess who or what I saw at the car wash yesterday? Russel. Russell the foot-ball stud, Russell the voted-most-likely-to-suceed, Russell the class prseident! Washing cars! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Two years ago he was the golden boy. Coaches wanted him. Cheerleaders wanted to have his baby. Everybody thought he had it made! Look at him now! I think it's funny. I wasn't getting any action in school but at least I have a real job now and make over 50K a year! Who's the golden boy NOW?! Hey, Russell, there's a streak on my windshield! Do it over! ha ha ha haha
Rob
24 Oct 05
Two Dog, that was some timely advice. For the past two Saturday nights at 8 PM my favorite show has been preempted for a baseball game! At 8 o' Clock I turn the channel expecting to see my favorite show and BAM! it's fuckin' SPORTS! Baseball. It must have just turned into Baseball Season. I was appalled! How can they just throw out a great show that has been on EVERY Saturday night at 8 PM for the past two years at least???! I mean, it has a track record, it's a proven event. And some fuckin' BASEBALL game, which nobody knows anything about PREEMPTS IT?? I don't get it. It doesn't make any sense. But anyway, you're right -the situation won't change if we don't do something about it. I wrote my local station and politely explained my preferences. I was polite because I want to get on their survey list too so I can have some influence on local programming. Here's a couple of links that will help find YOUR local station:
foxtelevision This is for FOX -select the appropriate city from the list and hopefully your city's station will have some way of expressing your opinion. Mine did. BTW, your input may be tied to a short survey. I suggest rating everything the station does very high so that they're likely to include you in future surveys.
NBC -same goes for this NBC link. Select the appropriate state and then city.
I'm encouraged that this will have results because a friend of mine wrote me not long ago and said that their e-mail campaign actually resulted in the cancelling of a planned sports stadium!
Don>
25 Oct 05
And now we have the ultimate in greed, the England football captain David Beckham now demands he is paid £ 750, 000 ( $ 1.5 million) a week or he walks. I reckon this could make him £ 30 million pounds( $ 50 million) a year, on top of the countless millions him and his ex Spice Girl wife have made over the last ten years. Like, hello, what makes a thick, useless moron like you who hasn't exactly done anything worthwhile in your life demand the sort of money Bill Gates makes, who has done something useful like create Microsoft. Will any of this go to charity, or more likely will most of it be hidden in a foreign bank account while you and your stupid wife buy Buckingham Palace to prove how rich you are? I certainly won't be cheering on this moron and his football team when all the sheep will be next summer in the World Cup. God, I know America has produced some greedy useless sports stars, but this guy seems to be even worse. I detest him.
BTW I quite like the story about the jock who's reduced to washing cars for a living. I wonder if he's a grossly overweight moron that most women would cross the road to avoid now.
Glenn.
28 Oct 05
Some years ago, during footbore season, a local college radio station here in Southern California would air a game (presumably featuring their team) on Fridays, at about 7 pm or 7:30. I enjoyed listening to (and taping) four hours of blues music from 9pm to 1am every Friday on that station, and would look forward to it all week, as there is precious little authentic blues on ANY radio station EVER, and I am a keen blues musician, singer and songwriter myself. They aired the blues programmes all year round, but if they aired a footbore game during the season, it would often cut into the blues by as much as an hour.
Not content with airing the game itself, afterwards a couple of bores would make us endure their pointless post-game critical/appreciative drivel (and why ON THE RADIO? All you have to go on is a dull commentary, you can't see the simian players or their antics!).
One Friday, I got well-and-truly fed up with it, so I called the radio station to complain about the footbore cutting into the blues. They told me that footbore fans would complain if the game commentary was cut short for another programme. I told them that this blues fan was complaining because the blues was being cut short by some brain-dead sporting "event", and that sports on the radio are pointless (as if they're not pointless enough in ANY medium) and if the blues is scheduled for 9 o'clock, then let's have the blues at that time. The response was, "So, don't you like sports?" HEL-lo!
So, obviously, mine was a lone voice that evening, and they were never going to cut into sports coverage for ANY music, especially blues, which has, alas, never been the most popular musical genre, nor will it ever be. I was, to them, a ranting old fart, even a crank caller, and I'm sure the idiots had a few dismissively derisive things to say after the call. "What kind of homo doesn't like sports?", "Much better than boring old blues," etc.
If enough of us make our feelings intelligently and articulately known, maybe these unthinking sheep will take notice, but whether we like it or not, there are millions of sports fans in America (and the rest of the world) and sports do generate BILLIONS of dollars/pounds of revenue for many companies in several industries, and I doubt we'll change their assumptions. However, I'm not going to sit by while drooling troglodytes tell me what to listen to and watch. I refuse to conform to their trite demographic. It all boils down to this: all the TV companies want our attention, so their advertisers will be able to show us their wares. If they hear from enough of us, "No, actually I watched a DVD instead" or "No, I read the latest Tom Clancy novel, much more gripping than footbore", "No, I went for a walk," "No, I watched paint dry," maybe it'll sow the seeds of doubt in their minds, because they then do NOT have our attention.
Maybe...
Two-Dog
30 Oct 05
Two Dog
Try the BBC, which is still funded by a compulsory licence fee, for dropping other programmes in favour of sport. Grandstand, the BBC's Saturday afternoon sports show, now goes on for an extra 30 minutes so a panel of bores can yap about the football results. If the Five Nations rugby tournament is on, then this is now scheduled in peak time on a Saturday night. Wimbledon is still shown simultaneously on both channels and snooker tournaments dominate BBC Two, supposedly the intellectual channel. Like what's intellectual about two men potting coloured balls for hours on end in an arena that's like a mortuary as it's so quiet?
Next year I shall probably go into exile to Greenland as the World Cup will take over the media for a month on top of Wimbledon, golf tournaments and God knows what other sporting crap the BBC has rights to. Even the escape route of ITV won't work as they also have World Cup rights and Channel 4 will probably be showing the reality boreathon Big Brother. I can imagine conversations will be dominated by " did you see Beckham's penalty in the 91st minute?", to which I will reply, " No I was contributing to an anti sport website at the time." I might have to brush up on my judo skills, mind you, as some sports fans can react violently when an England match is involved.
Glenn.
31 Oct 05
Glenn,
If I could get BBC America among my tatty satellite channels, I am sure I'd enjoy some of the programmes there, but I don't miss the yawning abyss of Saturday afternoons dedicated to all that dull shite, that always seemed so pointless when I was a kid in England. As I probably said in a previous post, at least one can watch a DVD, or find another channel that doesn't mention anything about sports so, here, one can safely avoid most of it. Most of my office colleagues are women, so I don't get dragged into conversations about the Superbore, "playoffs" or World Series.
Speaking of Beckham, my wife told me recently that she had read or heard that he and his Spice Girl wife (can you imagine what intellectual giants their offspring will turn out to be?) are so wealthy that they EMPLOY someone to OPEN THEIR CHRISTMAS PRESENTS FOR THEM? I don't know if this is possibly a silly rumour that someone started. If it isn't, words like "decadent" come to mind. Maybe the arrogant pustule wants 750 thousand quid to Captain the England team just so he can pay some hapless fellow to go to the toilet for him...
Stephen
2 Nov 05
Your website fucking rules.
I'm sick of liking sports being considered "normal". I'm into science fiction, mecha anime, model building, and the like. I get made fun of for that. I'm a high school sophomore in a jock-infested school. Jocks don't deserve the right to persecute me for what I like, because you know why? They're the same way with sports. I ramble on for hours about the works of Gene Roddenberry, Yoshiyuki Tomino, and George Lucas. That gets me made fun of. But nooo. a jock can talk with his dumbass buddies about the Patriots/Red Sox/whoever the fuck. Yes, I live in Massachusetts. We have too many obnoxious baseball fans up here and I'm sick of it. This is how I've chosen to live me life and they need to accept it. The only sport I show interest in is paintball, but that's barely a sport. I'm also in Drama Club. You think that gets me respect? Fuck no. "Durr, you like to get up on stage and act in front of hundreds of people so you're gay!" Uhm, right. Memorizing lines and being able to have the courage to get up on stage in front of that many people isn't an easy task. Not everyone's some sports-obsessed meatsack. I can like whatever I damn well please.
I can't wait until Bill Gates takes over the planet and nerds can roam free.
--Zack
4 Nov 05
Stephen, I can also tell you that David Beckham admitted to wearing his wife's thongs last year. If it was someone else, then it would be " pervert" or " weirdo", but because it's him he can get away with it. I dread to think what his kids Brooklyn and Romeo ( such great names, they sound like basketball players) will turn into as both parents are brain dead except where it concerns money.
Zack, I reckon Bill Gates should be the next president, with Stephen Hawking as his deputy. Bush and Kerry were jocks, or jock groupies in their day,hanging round the locker rooms with a load of useless jock scum discussing how to beat up the science nerds and the queers in the art room. BTW, I still recommend a good anti-jock film called Revenge of the Nerds or, more seriously, an English film called The Good and Bad at Games where an unathletic pupil at a public( ie private) school takes revenge on four pupilsten years later who give him a really bad time in the sixth( 16-18 school years) form for being crap at sport and generally being more interesting than them. Actually the English public schools used to be notorious for their obsession with rugby. No surprises then that they've turned out a large number of homosexuals.
Glenn.
7 Nov 05
Glenn,
Brooklyn and Romeo????? Gentlemen, the prosecution rests...
Two-Dog
Stephen
8 Nov 05
Two Dog
And they used to think Frank Zappa's kids had mad names.
Glenn.
12 Nov 05
At least there's one advantage American sports have over English ones is that, unless the guys make it professionally, which less than one per cent do, there are no teams for them to play for after they finish school or university, barring coaching. This must be an advantage as the jock hierarchy are effectively finished when their education ends- how I laugh at stories of the high school football star being reduced to a nobody washing cars after he leaves school- but in England an amateur sports scene is pretty big, especially in rugby. If a local rugby player fancies a bit more on pitch and off pitch violence with his buddies after school, then he can always join a local rugby team, where he can last out until he is 30.
Believe me, amateur rugby league- the union code is a bit more select as it has a more middle class image, even if the players are dicks- is a breeding ground for nightclub bouncers, one locally is a total pyscho, violent nobodies and female groupies who admire the fact these are men who can handle themselves and do a real job like manual work, unlike poofs( gays) who go to college and do office work. Sadly these men often create a bad atmosphere whenever they arrive in bars with their team colours and female hangers on in tow. Non players, or people who would be targets for abuse( goths, perceived gays, people with long hair, single men or women) are often advised to leave or keep a low profile as there is a threat of violence in the air. Hitting one of these guys, unless they are on their own, which is rare, is suicide as the whole team would soon jump on your back as they act in a pack mentality. Just imagine if jocks were still allowed to play their game and rule the roost when they were still 30 and you have the idea. In the mining villages where this game has its biggest following, we have had a case locally where three team members, who were jailed last year, intimidated a whole village into keeping quiet about their criminal activities until someone finally broke ranks and exposed them.
So, while I totally agree with American contributors about jocks at school and university, at least these guys are finished when they leave the school gates for the last time. In a few places in England, the English equivalent still can be active for another ten years.
Glenn.
4 Dec 05
I was thinking last night: whenever the football or the Super League season is over, not many people seem to talk about it. Perhaps if the seasons didn't start again people would forget about these dreary games and they would die out and maybe people would talk about something more interesting and the television would show better programmes.
However, people of the world, beware next year because as soon as the football season finishes in May, two weeks later the World Bore( Cup) starts and a month of sheer hell starts for non fans. This is a time for non fans to go to ground, especially in England, where a kind of forced patriotism is introduced where you are expected to watch every minute of every England game and not to watch it is classed as treason by brain dead fans. I, for one, have admitted I will not be watching one second of this tournament.
Glenn.
19 Dec 05
I'm sure all of you people are aware of what's happening to our economy. Lay-offs, pay-cuts, people fearing for their jobs, union busting. It's amazing anyone even cares to watch a bunch of millionaires play a game who's outcome means absolutely nothing. This grossly overpaid business is a slap in the face to the underpaid working class people of this nation. People who are actually designing, machining, assembling and servicing products that help make all of our lives better. The beer drinking, sports watching people of this country need to wake-up from this coma that they're in and stop promoting this non-productive madness. Are peoples lives that pitiful that they have to escape it by spending their hard-earned money, and time on professional athletes who couldn't care less about them? One could only imagine the difference it would make if these same people paid as much attention to the pathetic politics that are actually holding them down.
James
31 Dec 05
sports r my life. u dumb shits are clueless and stupid wat moron could live without sports?????????
Goyankees1139@aol.com
31 Dec 05
I don't like sports, but I don't know if it's more because sports on TV are so insanely (and inanely) boring or because of what they do to people! Just two examples:
1. At a retirement party for a friend, some friends and I were sitting in the family room talking, having a nice conversation. In the middle of it, two Penn State fans just walked in and turned on the TV, totally ignoring the fact that we were there. When we pointed this out, we were told that "The game is on, you can go elsewhere." I don't think I have to point out how rude that is, but in case any sports fans are reading, IT IS.
2. Two years ago, I was scheduled to make New Year's dinner for my family. I had bought a huge pork roast, made the dough to do my own rolls, bought beverages, etc., and then my mom called and asked if our TV was working yet (it was on the fritz at the time). I said no and she said, "Well, we can't come, then, because the X versus Y game is on." I was stunned and finally managed to say, "Are you telling me the game is more important than New Year's dinner?" To which she replied, as if I had to be a cretin for asking, "Yes!"
Now I should point out that my mom and I have a great relationship and she is not evil or manipulative but sports made her act that way!
My other beef is with the "physical education" part of American schooling. I totally agree that exercise is healthy but team sports don't teach exercise. Why aren't we teaching kids how to do enjoyable physical activity they can do all their lives (unlike team sports) that will help them remain healthy, not tear their bodies to shreds?
I'm not even going to address the ridiculous salaries and behavior of the pros; that's been done before. I love you guys. Your site is my manifesto! Keep it up!
SL
