This isn't the Football I thought we were talking about...

It couldn't be long before I blogged about American Football, could it?

What sparked me to write about it now was the recent game between the Pittsburg Steelers and the Denver Broncos. Or at least that's who I thought was playing... The Broncos won and it was some sort of 'play-off' game which means the Steelers are out. Imagine Chelsea getting knocked out of the FA Cup by Everton for all you 'real' football fans.

But apparently, the final touch-down was from an illegal play by the Broncos. Something like, they had six men in a line rather than the regulatory five. I suppose it's the equivalent to putting an extra man in a rugby scrum, right? So it was unfair and no the Steelers are pissed off. I don't know American Football too well, but it looked like they were being well and truly beat anyway.

So my opinion on the sport? Well first of all, it has a stupid name. It is not 'football'. Football is football (which is soccer for you Yanks). Why didn't you call this sport soccer? Or handball? Or anything other than something that is already a name of another sport?

I don't quite get the rules either. It's far too technical and all 'stop-start-stop-start'. If you throw the ball out of bounds, it's somehow still in your possession... Odd. And the whole, 'you must get this far in this amount of time' is just weird.

Another thing I don't like is the idea of specialised players. The kicker comes on just to take a penalty, I feel like we could utilise David Beckham like this when he's in his forties to just take corners and free-kicks. But they can change players whenever and however they want, as many times as they want. Unlike 'real' football where you are limited to three changes throughout. And the pay of each players varies drastically. A quarterback will be paid loads, whereas, the fat guy who just smashes people is probably receiving an average wage. At least show some consistency, I mean, in 'real' football, we over-pay all the players. Yeah, players like Rooney and Kompany are on wages above most others, but it doesn't depend on their position.

One thing I do like about American Football, though, is that it has a lot more pride involved in comparison to baseball, basketball and hockey. Fans will actually follow their teams and show support. However! (They're had to be a however.) The support shown is still nothing in comparison to 'real' football. We use our sport and team as a lifestyle and it seems as if nothing else matters when our team play. I remember not going to a party once because United lost to West Ham and I was just too depressed to do anything. Damn Matthew Upson.

I think American Football could be improved by making it an international sport, so the U.S can play against other nations. There's no better tournament than something like the World Cup or the Olympics. But who in their right mind would want to see that happen? A world-wide American Football tournament? Americans would. The rest of the world would just turn the TV over to something more entertaining, like Loose Women...

The Road To Dubai (not the golf).

It all starts tomorrow morning folks! I leave the campus at 6:15am to go to State College and then it's a long bus ride up to New York City. I hang there until early Sunday morning when my flight leaves for Dubai with a one hour stop-over in London, Heathrow Airport.

I really can't wait to get home to see all my friends and family. In a weird way, I'm going to miss campus life though. Yeah it can get boring at times but it's a laugh, and that's what I was looking for in a college.

So thank you people of the Mount. I've loved my first semester - well the soccer football and the people anyway.

I want the next semester to fly by so that I can get playing again and get more goals. We ARE making play-offs next year! I'd like to wish good luck to the two seniors, Luke Fragello and Kevin Wheelden, who had their final season this semester. I'd also like to say good luck to my striking partner in crime, Na'im Bashir, who's transferring out. Finally, a big thanks to Coach Ali for being a great manager and setting us in the right direction. The team can go far under you're influence, I hope you're still shouting at us from the sidelines next year! Good luck guys! Never forget the famous Mounties!

Football, Not Soccer.

Ok then, so I guess it's time for my real first entry which actually relates to the subject of the blog.

A "real" football

I've been living here since August, so about 5 months now. I didn't experience the "cultural shock" that was a term thrown about by other ex-pats who found it difficult to settle in. I think this was because I was fortunate enough to speak the only language known on an international scale - football.

Well, I call it football, along with the rest of the whole world, apart from America. Which leads me into my main point. Where did the yanks get the term "soccer" from? This football/soccer dilemma was the first major difference that hit me, besides the fact that everyone sounded different to me and kept saying "Wow, I love your accent!"

I chose to do my Cultural Literacy Studies research project on the reasons why Americans did not adopt the world's most popular sport as their primary pass-time. I mean, they're American, so wouldn't they want to be the best at it? They have such driven and determined attitudes in all sports, so why not this one?

I'll spare you the boring, historical reasonings behind the lack of "soccer", but it was mainly to do with a lack of success, new sports arising (baseball, basketball, American football and ice hockey), and the fact that they were unable to change the rules to their liking.

Despite my thorough research (total lie there, I spent amount twenty-five minutes searching on Google and bluffed a reference list), I never came across anything relevant to origination of the word "soccer". I'm sure it's very easy to find out, but I really can't be bothered doing anymore research.

So my American muckka's, where's it come from? And don't even try giving me the whole: "We play real (American) football!"- because we all know that's just a pile of crap. The "real" football is the one played with our feet, which is why I guess we called it "foot"ball.