snowdelisaint wrote:DUMB at the game are supporters who seem to go to the match only to shout about umpiring decisions. Occasionally a team genuinely gets the wrong end of the stick but at every game I go to there are people who cry BALL every time a tackle is laid. There will be an equal number on the other side shouting "TOO HIGH" and/or "IN THE BACK" at the same time.
These people could do with learning the rules of the game, though arguably it is one of the unfortunate aspects of our game that the rules are not so clean cut (and also change and evolve etc) such that the everyman in the crowd can not fully understand them. In this regard football (the world game, i.e. soccer) -- whose rules are simple, is superior.
I saw supporters of Reading and QPR on the weekend applauding their teams off the pitch -- and this after a match that ended 0-0 and resulted in both teams being relegated from the premier league and a resulting loss to each club of about 200 million pounds.
I didn't mean for this to become a pro-soccer post -- and I do not include Australian domestic soccer in my argument. But Australian rules fans on the whole could do well to concentrate more on praising the efforts of individuals and the team -- regardless of the result -- than blindly yelling, expecting every grey-area-umpiring-call to go their way, baiting opposition fans and players, and other such backward behaviour. I can't see it happening though, it seems intrinsic to the game.
Soccer is basically a predictable game thanks to a round ball on a rectangular playing area where only feet and the odd head are used for movement of the ball- of course the rules are more straightforward and relatively easy to apply... effort for no result, such as a 0-0 score is rather pointless in my book.
Aust Rules is a frustratingly unpredictable game thanks to an oval ball on an oval ground, where all the body is used to move the ball, and due to this unpredictablilty, people and players become emotional, elated, angry, happy etc, and of course rules are open to more interpretation, and as an ever-evolving game, rules are constantly being updated changed, reviewed.
