Soccer or Football?

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What should Austadiums refer to the World Game as?

Poll ended at Fri Jan 21, 2005 10:56 pm

Soccer
12
57%
Football
9
43%
 
Total votes: 21

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Jeffles
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Post by Jeffles »

yob wrote:It isn't even aussie rules.

It's "AFL Football" :wank:
So in 1990 it was "VFL Football" - even in Adelaide.

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stadiumking
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Post by stadiumking »

It's just a matter of getting used to it. I always have to look twice when checking out the sportal headlines. I will always call it soccer, but understand when/if people call it football, as long as their language distinguishes it from Aussie Rules (which it will every time). Likewise people are not going to take me to task when/if I call the sport soccer.
Sally Robbins is a tool, isn't she.

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Simmo79
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Post by Simmo79 »

:?

I didn't think it was necessary.

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Tonic
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Post by Tonic »

Association Football... it's official name - you can't go wrong


btw, a bit of trivia...
i think you'll find that the word 'soccer' actually comes from an abbreviation of its original/official name - stemming from 'Assoc' we got 'soccer'...

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Dasher39
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Post by Dasher39 »

To be honest I didnt even notice the name change. I am not complaining that it got changed, I am more than happy for it to be called "Football"...but there is 9 pages of discussion as to whether to call it Football or Soccer. In the end, does it really matter what it is called?

I cant believe how unbelievably precious some people get over a name, in the end it is just a name!

Egan, no one is stopping you from calling it soccer, you can refer to it as soccer til the cows come home and that is your right. But this is cam's site and if he wants to change it to Football then he should just go for it. "Populist" or not, Football is it's official name in this country now! There should be no confusion, as there is "AFL Football: AFL" and "Football: A-League"...if anyone gets confused by that there is problems!

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Egan
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Post by Egan »

Dasher from the beginning I respect the decision...but as always it doesn't mean I have to be quiet and just accept that I am happy about it, of course Cam can change it...but of course I can state how I feel about the decision to change...

I am not going to say I am happy that a change is made for a small target audience of a site...when the people who have talked about soccer more then anyone else on this site Jeffles, Egan, Cam, Hiraldo 3 of them still call it soccer and the 4th doesn't see a need to change well he didnt when the debate was first ran...the group of 4 have done 80% of the soccer conversation on this site.

Yet we are changing the name for 20% of people who have contributed to soccer related talk on the forum.

That is what I am angry about...but will get over it...but its just a little annoying that the forum is just like every other populist forum out there now...

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Jeffles
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Post by Jeffles »

I bought a DVD today. It has highlights of 6 ODI matches between Australia and NZ. There was one game at the WACA in 1988. David Boon dropped a catch that was well above his head.

Rod Marsh was commentating at the time. He said "they play Australian Rules in Tasmania. He should have caught that mark"

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hot_dogma
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Post by hot_dogma »

I now officially declare from this moment on that the sport of rugby league shall be called NRL.

:twisted:

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IanRitchie
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Post by IanRitchie »

hot_dogma wrote:I now officially declare from this moment on that the sport of rugby league shall be called NRL.

:twisted:
Then this whole debate is pointless!

We should just call each sport by its biggest club competiton.

Thus football=Premier League

Debate over.

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stadiumking
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Post by stadiumking »

Soccer, whoops..football....in this country will now be called Hyundai :D :D :D

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cam
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Post by cam »

hot_dogma wrote:I now officially declare from this moment on that the sport of rugby league shall be called NRL.

:twisted:
Why from this moment on? Australian Rules Football has always officially been referred to as 'AFL Football' in the sports section of this website.
It certainly hasn't just been changed since Soccer's name has officially changed to Football in this country, and also on this site.

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hot_dogma
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Post by hot_dogma »

cam wrote:
hot_dogma wrote:I now officially declare from this moment on that the sport of rugby league shall be called NRL.

:twisted:
Why from this moment on? Australian Rules Football has always officially been referred to as 'AFL Football' in the sports section of this website.
It certainly hasn't just been changed since Soccer's name has officially changed to Football in this country, and also on this site.
My comment was not made in relation to this site as such. More so to the prevailing attitudes which besot people from NSW and QLD who think AFL is the name of the sport.

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Jeffles
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Post by Jeffles »

hot_dogma wrote:My comment was not made in relation to this site as such. More so to the prevailing attitudes which besot people from NSW and QLD who think AFL is the name of the sport.
You mean it's not AFL?

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sandyhill
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Post by sandyhill »

Just caught this thread - entertaining. :lol: . As others have said, this is Cam's site and he can call the codes whatever he damn well likes - I won't lose any sleep over it. But I'll still give my opinion for what its worth.

I hate the term 'AFL football' used anywhere, its just plain wrong. The AFL itself has to take a lot of the blame for what I consider a terribly misguide (and even totally dishonest) marketing decision, especially so in NSW/Qld. The game should be actively marketed for what it is - Australia's own indigenous code of football, just as soccer has (quite rightly) marketed itself as the 'world game'. But no, instead the gurus have decided to just use 'AFL'. Apart from being only the name of one (albeit the major) league, not of the sport itself, 'AFL' could also mean anything (e.g. American Football League) and therefore it fails to capitalise on what ought to be a key marketing strategy.

Anyway, back to main topic - Its a simple historical unarguable fact that the word 'football' is a generic term used to describe various codes in various parts of the world. As a simple (though not unique) example, 'Australian Football' was being played in Melbourne before 'Association Football' came into existence (and which almost immediately was abbreviated to the word 'soccer'). Of course, the game was never called 'Australian Football in Melbourne'. The press, from 1858 (and yes, I have examples of those 1858 press reports - but still no scanner) only referred to the game as 'football'. And so it has ever been in Victoria since - thus both the HUN and Age simply use the term 'football' for Australian Football, and 'soccer' for Association Football.

I have mates who follow football and/or soccer, with some very passionate on both games. But in the many discussions we have, 'football' and 'soccer' are clearly understood as two separate codes. And we always call 'soccer' as 'soccer', not football. That's just the way it is in Victoria (except for a very small zealot minority), and has been for 147 years. Its not going to change in a hurry. This is also the case in SA and I think (Egan can correct me if wrong) in WA. Obviously things are different north of the Vic border in NSW and Qld, where the Sydney media now refer to soccer as 'football' and this usage may also now be common in everyday conversations up there (though not totally - ch9 still promote rugby league as football (e.g. Friday nights). Obviously in Austadiums, being a national forum covering all sports, I am usually careful to distinguish what code of football I mean by using names such as soccer, RL, AF and the other one. But if I'm in a specific AF thread (like AFL 2005) I still use the term 'football' when its obvious what I'm referring too, and other AF followers in that thread would be totally familiar with the term.

I'm not at all concerned what others here call the different codes so long as it isn't confusing - and indiscriminately using the term 'football' in a general thread in which various codes may be discussed can sometimes be confusing. It does bemuse me when anyone claims that the generic word 'football' is the so-called 'official' name of one particular code of football - because no matter how constantly its proclaimed or how cleverly the marketing moguls might like this to be believed, it simply isn't historically true - its common to all, even American and Canadian Football.

Anyway, yet again I've rambled - so much for entertainment value!.
All I meant to say is that I hate the term 'AFL football' and would much prefer it as 'Australian Football'.

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stadiumking
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Post by stadiumking »

Well look at this juicy Age back page feature article by Greg Baum.....


Image

The world over, the name of the game is not the same, Greg Baum reports.

WHETHER you call the game suddenly much beloved of Australians "soccer" or "football" is about as important as how you say "castle" or "tomato", or whether your "chips" come out of packets, like "crisps", or out of the deep fryer, like "fries", or whether you pack your clothes into a "suitcase" or a "port". It says something about you, but nothing about the game. It could be called a rose and still be as gratifying.

Yet within the Australian association football fraternity, a movement has grown up that would have the word "soccer" banished and the game known only, and exclusively, as "football". It has found some traction. The ruling body in Australia is now the Football Federation Australia, SBS calls it football, so do Sydney's newspapers and the ABC is leaning that way. Now more pressure is being applied. There is something imperial about this movement. Today, the world, tomorrow, the word.

Most of soccer's arguments are easily countered. Soccer is football because it is the only game played without the hands? This is too silly, but if you insist, it is also the only game played with the head. No one is advocating "headball" for a name.

Soccer is the original football? This is dubious. Soccer's ancestry might stretch back to ancients booting around severed heads, but it only evolved in its modern form in the latter half of the 19th century, at the same time as rugby and for that matter Australian rules.

Soccer's rules were not standardised until 1863, by which time football clubs in Geelong and Melbourne, for two, were alive and kicking. Soccer then was called soccer — a corruption of "association football" — to distinguish it from rugby football. Its claim on the name "football" is not sustainable.

Soccer is the world game? Well, yes, and no. It is the most popular game in the world, and bless it. But if globalisation has taught us anything, it is that biggest is not necessarily, or even often, best. In the US, which as we all know rules the world, it is still "soccer". The American suburban stereotype is a "soccer mom", not a "football mum". Some Brits dislike the word "soccer" because they think of it as American. A punk band recorded a song titled: It's Football, not F…… Soccer. This does not recognise the fact that the word soccer originated in England, and was made popular at Oxford University.

In the US, football is gridiron. In Canada, it is Canadian football. Ireland, Gaelic football. New Zealand, rugby. So the world divides up. Hockey in Australia is played on a field, in the US on ice.

In Australia, the concept of football is a bit like our railway gauges — a muddle, yet workable. Football in the northern states is either of two codes of rugby. In the southern states, it is Australian rules, or simply "rules". As it takes root in the northern states, it is called AFL, to emphasise the distinction from rugby and league. Technically, this is not accurate, for AFL is the name of one competition, not the game. But Australian football people don't mind if it helps to avoid confusion.

Here is the point. None of the other codes in Australia insist on being called "football", though all are football. One is AFL, one rugby, one league. Soccer is convenient to identify the other, the fourth code. There is no confusion. Moreover, it is what the game has been called here historically. But soccer alone wants to be called football.

It is hard to know why soccer authorities and aficionados are so anxious. Is it for fear of not being taken seriously on the world stage? A forward effort at the World Cup will take care of that. Is it a fear of not being taken seriously in our own country? Arguably, making a scene about a name stands only to make the code look ridiculous.

Is it because of an inferiority complex about the game's chequered past in Australia? It need not worry. Soccer was once a byword for "different" and "contemptible". It was also a crucible for ethnic tensions and sometimes violence. But authorities have worked hard to cast off those shackles and tethers, and have succeeded. The game now is as sweet-smelling that it might as well be a rose.

The Socceroos are as popular as any national team. And they are the SOCCERoos. Robbie Slater argues that this title was never official, but was a journalist's appellation, and ought to be abandoned now. This is futile because it denies the way culture evolves. Lasting advances come from within rather than by lordly decree. Official status has nothing to do with it. The Ashes were the work of a group of flirtatious gentlewomen, not cricket authority. They have lasted well enough.

The fact is that the word "football" has a well-understood meaning in Australia.

It is a different meaning than elsewhere. To some, an increasing number, it includes soccer, and well and good.

It is not life and death. "Soccer" might as well try to re-appropriate "football". We can live with the contradictions. Indeed, it is precisely this sort of quirk that attests that language is alive and we are alert to it.

In cricket, a wicket is variously a pitch, a set of stumps, the act of knocking them down, what a batsman prizes or a partnership. Somehow, we always know which is which. Wicket, wicket. Tomato, tomato. Football, football. We get by.

...........................

Australian rules says
December 5, 2005




AARON DAVEY, Melbourne footballer: "If it's called football over in Europe, I'm not really too fussed, but I reckon football's football in Australia and soccer's soccer in Australia and so in Australia, we should just use those terms. If you hear football, the first thing that comes to your head is AFL, it's not really soccer in Australia. If you talk about footy, they are going to think it is AFL."

BOB DAVIS, Geelong premiership coach: "I suppose from an Australian's point of view, we have been used to football for our game for 150 years now. I would like to think Australians can keep football to themselves, but there again, if you have got a huge amount of publicity and we did really well in the World Cup, they have probably got a slight angle for them to come at us again. But I think it will be a long time before soccer overtakes football and for soccer to be called football in Australia."

RODNEY EADE, Western Bulldogs coach: "Like most people, I grew up in a time when there was no confusion about the terms soccer and football, but now that there is, I don't mind the term Australian football for our game. I've got no problem with that at all. In a way, it would define the game as our own, the sport we created."

JEFF KENNETT, Hawthorn president: "Football, to myself, always will be (Australian) football. To me, soccer always will be soccer. As much as I love soccer, my background is not where soccer is automatically football … I don't think it really matters one iota and any energy wasted on one code trying to change it for the other is a waste of energy. It means different things to different people … it's a reflection of our wonderful diversity."

DAVID HOWLETT, AFL Umpires Association president: "I live in Sydney now, and in Sydney it is referred to as AFL, and I think that's the case with Brisbane. More or less, the brand has become the code and that's all anybody describes it as now.

"The AFL brand means it is Australian and I think that's the way to go. If people are going to rugby league, they say they are going to league, and rugby of course is (union). They still call it the footy but you have to ask them which one they are talking about. Soccer can have soccer or football. It doesn't change the fact that it's not much of a game."

IAN JOHNSON, managing director, Channel Seven (Melbourne): "In Australia, I call it soccer. I can't see a reason for change. Footy has been football for 150 years and really is a long way ahead of soccer as a popular sport — both as a TV sport and a participation sport. It's good for soccer to get in the World Cup, but it's still got a long way to go."

STEVEN ALESSIO, former Essendon player: "I don't see why we can't share the name. They're both football, just different forms of football. People talk of confusion, but as it is, we refer to Aussie rules or soccer when we need to differentiate between the two. I prefer the name football rather than soccer because it brings the game into line with just about everywhere else in the world, but it needn't be at the expense of Aussie rules. I've been on plenty of footy trips in my time and whenever we were out on the tear and asked what we did, the answer had to be 'Play Aussie rules' because no one had a clue if you said 'Play football'."

...................

The word from soccer
December 5, 2005


JOHN O'NEILL: Chief executive of Football Federation Australia: "Calling the sport football puts us into line with the vast majority if the world. For us, it was an important symbolic change as part of repositioning the game from 'old soccer' to 'new football'."

LES MURRAY: SBS head of sport, Australian soccer's "Mr Football" "It's the original football. Before the other sports came along, this was the only sport that was known as football. It's known as that around the world. It's also played with the feet, not the hands — hands are taboo. With globalisation, we have to be part of the world, and that's now why more and more people are calling it football in Australia. To continue to call it soccer here is defeatism for the game, it's acceptance of a permanent second-class sporting citizenship. Anyway, they are not codes, they are different sports."

JOHN DIDULICA, chief executive of the players union Professional Footballers Association: "In the simplest terms, you use your feet, so it should be called football. But when you are competing for respect and credibility around the world, to call yourself soccer is an admission that you are a second-class citizen. To be treated equally by the other leading football nations, we have to win their credibility, and to do that we need to be called football."

ARCHIE THOMPSON, Melbourne Victory and Socceroos striker: "I guess it should be called football because it is everywhere else in the world but to me, the name does not really matter as long as people enjoy watching it and playing it."

GARY COLE, Melbourne Victory football director: "It's football because it's the biggest and best. I don't know how many countries play rugby union or league. I know how many countries play Aussie rules. (Soccer) is played around the world. There's 205 countries that are affiliated with FIFA. Football is Football, always has been, always will be — apart from here."

JOHN BOULTBEE: Head of high performance unit with FFA: "With the A-League, we have adopted the tagline 'It's football but not as you know it'. But as soon as you get to the Socceroos and internationally, what we are playing here is football as you know it for the rest of the world. Everything is going global and this is the global football code. We have got no choice (but to change the name)."

NICK THEODORAKOPOULOS: National Soccer League championship-winning coach with Wollongong Wolves: "It's very simple … it should be called football because we play with our feet and because the whole world has adopted that name. Why shouldn't it be adopted in Australia? The game is known worldwide as football. We have called it soccer for so many years, so it's kind of inbred with the culture of this country, but I think what we have to do short term is call it 'football-soccer' and then maybe three or four years down the track drop off the name soccer."

TOM SERMANNI: Coach of the Australian women's team, the Matildas: "I am in favour of our game being called football. The only place it's probably only called soccer is in the US. Nobody has got a god-given right to the name, but if you talk about football anywhere else in the world, everyone knows what you are talking about. It can be confusing when you talk about soccer to people who never know it as that. And with no disrespect to games like Australian rules, but if you went overseas and referred to that code as football, no one would understand. That's not causing offence, that's just stating the reality."

compiled by MICHAEL LYNCH

.......................

Football: the story so far
December 5, 2005


Pre-1800s Evidence suggests versions of football existed in ancient China, Japan, Rome and Greece, as well as among the Aztecs. "Mob football", an extremely violent game involving hundreds of players in which a ball might be transported the length of a village, was extremely popular in England around the 12th century. Henry VIII later reportedly became a keen player, but Elizabeth I had a law passed that provided for players to be "jailed for a week, and obliged to do penance in church". The word "foot-ball" originally referred to a wide variety of games played by peasants in medieval Europe, as opposed to the games played by horse-riding aristocrats. The name was used initially for any game played on foot with a ball, not just those that involved kicking a ball.

Early 1800s Various codes of football exist: the Aboriginal game marn grook, various English school versions, rugby and a form of Gaelic football. In 1815, Eton College establishes a set of football rules that other schools, colleges and universities begin to use. (To this day, Eton has a unique brand of football known as the Eton Field Game.) Later, the rules are standardised and a version known as the Cambridge Rules (which allowed for players to use their hands "only to stop a ball and place it on the ground before the feet") is adopted in 1848.

1856 Thomas Wentworth Wills, a New South Welshman, returns from England, where he had excelled with the Rugby School football and cricket teams, and canvasses the idea of a winter game to keep cricketers fit in the off-season.

1857 On October 24, the Sheffield club in England is formed as a means of keeping cricketers fit during winter. The club still plays in a lesser league and is the world's oldest football club.

1858 On July 10, Wills and his cousin Henry Colden Harrison decide rugby is too tough on cricketers' bodies, particularly on the hard Australian grounds, and devise an Australian version of football, which draws upon aspects of existing forms of football. The first known Australian football match takes place between Melbourne Grammar School and St Kilda Grammar School. St Kilda wins, but the match ends in an argument over the rules. On August 7, the Melbourne Football Club, an offshoot of the Melbourne Cricket Club, is informally organised on the same day that Thomas Wills umpires a match between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College (which continues over three weekends, ending in a 1-1 tie).

1859 On July 14, Melbourne Football Club is formally founded, making it the second oldest football club in the world. Three days later, Wills chairs a four-member committee to draw up the first rules of Australian football (drawing heavily on rugby rules).

1863 The Football Association is founded in London. Undergraduates at Cambridge had attempted to unify the rules in the mid-to-late 1840s, and on October 26, at London's Freemasons Tavern, representatives from 12 clubs and schools from the London area meet to thrash out a code for the game. Those who support rugby rules walk out. At this time, the word "soccer" comes into use, particularly at Oxford University, as a shortened word to describe the new game, association football.

1863 On December 8, association football and rugby finally split.

1866 Harrison chairs a meeting at Melbourne's Freemasons Hotel in Swanston Street to update the Australian rules.

1869 Soccer includes a provision in its rules forbidding any handling of the ball. Until then players could catch an airborne ball. Meanwhile, Australian football teams are limited to 20 per side, having previously been as high as 40.

1871 In England, 21 rugby clubs come together to form the Rugby Football Union.

1872 On November 30, a crowd of 4000 watches soccer's first international match, a scoreless draw between Scotland and England in Partick, Scotland. Also the year in which the English FA Cup, the oldest football competition in the world, is first contested.

1875 Soccer introduces the crossbar.

1877 The Victorian Football Association is formed, as is the South Australian Football Association. Australian football formally adopts the oval ball and bans the round ball.

1880 Australia's first soccer club is formed: the Wanderers, in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta. In August, the Wanderers defeat a team from The King's School 5-0.

1884 The Gaelic Athletic Association in Dublin is formed.

1885 The West Australian Football League is formed.

1886 The creation of the International Football Association Board finally puts an end to disputes about soccer's rules, disagreements that largely involve the Sheffield clubs, which had announced their own set of ideas in 1857.

1888 The English Football League is formed, comprising 12 clubs (all based around the north of England and the Midlands). Preston North End is undefeated in the first season.

1897 First Victorian Football League season.

1904 With excitement about soccer spreading abroad from Britain (due largely to the influence of British sailors and traders), football associations and federations spring up all over the world. In May, the world body, FIFA is founded in Paris. The seven original members are France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain (represented by Madrid FC), Sweden and Switzerland. The wary Brits do not join until 1906.

1923 The Football Association (Australia) is formed as the first national controlling body of soccer in this country.

1930 The first soccer World Cup is hosted and won by Uruguay.

1961 The Australian Soccer Federation takes over control of the sport, after several clubs had broken away from the Football Association because they were dissatisfied with its administration.

1965 Australia plays in its first qualifying series for the World Cup.

1969 Journalist Tony Hoystead coins the name Socceroos, and begins to use it in his articles about the team.

1974 Australia plays in the World Cup finals for the first — and to date only — time.

1977 Twenty-seven clubs apply, but only 14 are accepted, to join the National Soccer League of Australia.

1987 The VFL goes national, with teams admitted from Queensland and Western Australia.

1990 The VFL changes its name to the Australian Football League.

2005 Soccer Australia changes its name to Football Federation Australia, and the A-League replaces the NSL. The Victoria Soccer Federation becomes Football Federation Victoria.


Vote: ((!!!!))
http://poll.f2.com.au/current.mpl?site=age-sport

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