Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Soccer-boos



IN A FEW HOURS’ TIME, Australia’s soccer team will play the first of two games vital to its hopes of making the World Cup finals list. We can imagine the players’ excitement as they loosen up for the contest ahead. Even now the coach must surely be leading a last-minute refresher in the theatrical arts of thrashing, writhing and moaning, vital skills and FIFA-endorsed responses for those moments when an opposition player casts a mean glance, says something rude or refuses to venture an opinion on whether pastels are this year’s hot colours for soft furnishings.  A bit of sobbing and, often as not, there will be penalties and a goal. If a score fails to eventuate, the crowd will tear up the seating and blind each other with flares, the deficit of manly fortitude on the pitch neatly balanced by brute thuggishness in the stands.

The rise of soccer in this country is often hailed as a signifier of maturity, proof that we are now full-fledged members of the world sporting community. Take that with a grain of salt or, more appropriately, with a barf bag. Soccer is to sport what Julia Gillard is to decency, and if there is an ounce of moral resolve in Canberra it would have been banned for the societal cancer that it is.

Soccer encourages sooking in boys and young men.

Soccer has all the visual appeal of Craig Emerson vocalising in his crusty underpants.

Soccer is endorsed by Julia Gillard, who squandered $50 million attempting to bring the World Cup to our shores. Thank the Great Bunyip that everything she touches dissolves in failure.

Soccer is mostly followed by hollow-chested Poms and the hairier strands of woggery. Once upon a time followers would set about each other with knives at half-time, but this once cheerful feature of the game has now been re-directed into acts of pre- and post-game vandalism and mayhem on the streets surrounding the stadiums in which it is played.

Soccer leads to discord and war, from El Salvador’s biff with some other benighted nation too insignificant to recall to the recent conflicts in the Balkans, where all those fob-pocket backwaters undoubtedly tapped reserves of spleen that had been building through decades of countless 0-0 draws.

Let it be noted here that Australian Rules has never prompted an international incident, except with the Irish, who also play soccer and cannot therefore be considered rational or responsive to reason.

Tonight, when Australia’s team takes the field against Jordan, turn off your TV for the sake of our nation’s future and pray for defeat.

And remember, Gillard supports soccer, so there cannot be a single thing to be said in its favour.

23 comments:

  1. Provincial!!! There is a whole world out there.

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  2. Professor, I usually love reading your articles. I check your website every day for new additions and have done so for a long time. I must say that is the most ridiculous one you have ever written. Ok, you don't lke the game but I can't believe you could post such garbage!

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  3. Whilst I agree with your views on Soccer, it must be said that AFL is not far removed in the "pastels and poncing" stakes, remember one ill advised comment by a 13 year old girl and an AFL player is reduced to a quivering wreck.

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  4. Fan is short for the Latin fanaticus, meaning "insanely but divinely inspired". So you don't have to be mad, but it helps you fit in.

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  5. What about billiards, Prof? That's got a whole damn table full of round balls.

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  6. "Soccer encourages sooking in boys and young men"

    And this from someone who supports a games which produces the likes of Adam Goodes!

    Four - nill, four - nill, four - nill....

    World Cup here we come - at least then we'll be able to play some international competition rather than the incestuous prancing around which is AFL.

    You're on a loosing wicket (pitch?) Bunyip :)

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  7. Spoken like a true Bogan

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  8. There is only one "Football" and it isn't played by some frolicking Harry Highpants in the south east sorner of the world.

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  9. Association Football's real crime is it's worldwide popularity which seems to stick in the craw of people who follow minority sports.
    Do the minority of Australians who play AFL do so so they can win at something?

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  10. As an Aussie I like to see us win - at everything.

    But watching a yawning game of soccer is near on impossible... so I'll just wait for the result...

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  11. Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.June 12, 2013 at 11:53 AM

    "the Irish, who also play soccer and cannot therefore be considered rational or responsive to reason."

    Sadly, Prof, with regard to the sporting field, I can only concur.

    However, in the interests of balance concerning the attractions of that international field, and of my own self-esteem, I should invite the Sporting Hairy Irish Ape in my life to respond to your views, as he was so deeply immersed in the game last night as to be immune to my personal blandishments and entreaties for physically demonstrated affection. That has to be serious. There must be something about kicking around a bit of inflated leather than I just don't get.

    You have to admit that even you, Prof, despite your generous comprehension of all things extant under the purview of the Great Bunyip himself (indubitably a He Bunyip), would not see my point of view with regard to differently shaped leather objects of the same general ilk.

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  12. My one and only attendance upon a Perth Glory game involved watching two teams perform a two hour warm up, then during the four minutes I was in the deserted public conveniences the villains apparently scored a goal and the match was over.

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  13. Well said Professor. Sheilas, wogs & poofters just about sums up these pasty faced pommy poseurs and mono-browed Mediterranean types. You'd never have seen Mal Meninga writhing in agony. I did watch the first five minutes of the so called World Game. The trouble was, I had to use so many so called recreational drugs to stay interested it wiped my memory. I had to video myself to appreciate just what a good time I had and to find out who won.

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  14. No, Bunyip, I cannot agree, Rugby Union is a game of men played by men, for men to watch.

    Rugby league is a game for and played by the manlier homosexuals.

    AFL is a game played by the homosexual 'mincing handbag' set.

    Soccer is a game played by and for those homosexuals far too effeminate to play AFL (and, of course, by those squealers even the most effeminate of homosexuals find unappealing - the Europeans)

    Mk50
    Canberra

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  15. Now that was brilliant! it summed up everything I feel about soccer, only with more bitter derision and a nicely woven in contempt for Gillard. A tick in every box! :-)

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  16. I agree with your comments about soccer, Prof, but then I suggest that all football is vile and plebian.

    When one is a child one plays sport so as to learn some interesting things about beiing a member of team.

    But when one gets to 21, one should give up all that stuff.

    I am firmly of the view that poor old Melbourne is a second-class city because it is too hung up on sport, especially that horrible Australian Rules thing.

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  17. Unlucky mate, and I'd say there's about as much chance of 'da boys' missing Brazil as our Iraqi opponents on Tuesday becoming Christians.

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  18. Heh...I guess you follow that bastardized form of Basketball that was once the proper sport of Aussie Rules...30 years ago.
    Good luck remembering all the Rules.

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  19. And Rugby League will never die. It's the last thing we'll see before the stars go out.

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  20. All this would ring true Professor, were it not for Princess Adam Goodes, who has forever sullied the character and manliness of our game. We could put up with rape-dodgers, druggies, alcoholics and wife beaters sullying our sport, but when a famous, overpaid, 10 foot tall grown man beats up on a teenage girl, that's the end of it.

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  21. The Old and Unimproved DaveJune 15, 2013 at 7:27 PM

    Motivational music for ball sports...

    Aussie Rules ... "Up There, Cazaly"

    Rugby ... "World in Union", with the Holst-derived "I Vow To Thee My Country" melody.

    Soccer ... Edith Piaf's "Je Ne Regrette Rien"

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  22. Thanks Professor you have put words to a decision I made when I looked from the soccer pitch at the parents lining the sideline yelling abuse at their Under 9 children.
    I left the girls game and switched to Hockey at the ripe age of 9. At least the parents stayed away from the hockey field, too scared of the potential for injuries.
    I feel AFL's problem could be cured by sleaves, spending time looking at your arms can cause all sorts of mental problems, just look at Paul Gallen, hockey players suffered terribly when their sleaves were removed, fortunately they do not have the income to fund this addiction to mirrors.

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  23. I have never understood why people need the validation of their peers for their preferred sport.

    That said, I also don't get why people are so insecure they need to slag off a sport they don't understand.

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