"SmileyMan" wrote:As a fully paid up rugger bugger, I shall have to object. There are some smug anti-football types, but most fans will happily watch a footie game, and appreciate the skills required for both. I think most of the smugness comes from the incredulity at how badly football is run, with FIFA living in the stone age, the terrible disrepect for referees, and the non-punishment of play acting.
Most of that is fair comment. I was anyway well aware of my ridiculous generalisations. I certainly wish that disrespect towards referees would be stamped out in football, and don't see why it can't be done easily with immediate punishment. But for all the weaknesses in football, which as you say most football fans are prepared to accept, there are plenty in rugby too, and most of the rugby fans I speak to don't acknowledge them at all.
I don't accept that anti-football sentiment is a rarity among rugby fans either - in my experience, when I express a preference for football to a rugby fan I'm derided. If I hear one more time that 'football is a game for gentleman played by thugs, and rugby is a game for thugs played by gentlemen' I shall scream. There are so many more thugs in rugby than football it's ridiculous. The conversation then usually turns to what a bunch of pansies footballers are, and that the odd punch up is all part of a man's game. Which of course completely contradicts the original point being made! Am I not correct in saying that a current England international (Dylan Hartley) has had bans for both eye-gouging and biting in the last few years? How gentlemanly!
I actually quite like rugby as a spectator sport, but find it almost impossible to have a reasonable discussion with anyone wearing a replica rugby shirt. Also, you say football is badly run, but surely you're not holding the RFU up as some beacon of common sense and trustworthiness?