# Rugby and Soccer (football) and even Cricket becoming popular in the USA



## SetWave (Mar 7, 2021)

I have discovered a love of rugby, especially sevens, and a great appreciation for soccer (football). Not sure about cricket, yet.

You?


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## hollydolly (Mar 7, 2021)

Well I'm British..I love them all...well football ( soccer) not so much but deffo Cricket and Rugby... you'll find a kindred spirit in @Furryanimal


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## SetWave (Mar 7, 2021)

I just don't understand cricket. Maybe . . . eventually . . .


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## hollydolly (Mar 7, 2021)

SetWave said:


> I just don't understand cricket. Maybe . . . eventually . . .


well join half the world... but once you do you'll love it, and really it's not as hard as you think...


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## SetWave (Mar 7, 2021)

Well, I really have learned to admire the skill in knocking that ball around in soccer (football) and am still learning the rules of rugby. Cricket has yet to make any sense. We shall see . . .


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## Irwin (Mar 7, 2021)

I've never watched a soccer game. Maybe I'll give it a try. Or rugby. The only thing I know about Rugby is what I saw in the movie _The Molly Maguires_. It looks like it might be an interesting game.


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## SetWave (Mar 7, 2021)

Irwin said:


> I've never watched a soccer game. Maybe I'll give it a try. Or rugby. The only thing I know about Rugby is what I saw in the movie _The Molly Maguires_. It looks like it might be an interesting game.


I think maybe most Americans see soccer as just a bunch of running around with very little scoring. But, once I began to appreciate the skill involved it suddenly became very exciting.

Now, as for rugby. The form with just 7 players on each team playing for 7- minute halves is fantastic. Talk about exciting. Woo Hoo.


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## Glowworm (Mar 8, 2021)

I remember a lady in the USA in another forum wondering why we call soccer football in Europe because the players weren't allowed to use their hands. Perhaps that's why we call it football


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## horseless carriage (Mar 8, 2021)

SetWave said:


> I just don't understand cricket. Maybe . . . eventually . . .


Cricket, explained:
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game

Football in it's modern form really started in the early 19th century. At first there were no sporting rules as such and teams were about 20 strong on each side. There was no referees either. It was assumed that the game was played by kicking the ball, hence football. That is until one day at The Rugby School at young fellow, name of William Webb Ellis, picked up the ball and ran with it.

Ellis had not, at that time, broken a rule, it was just assumed that football meant that the player uses his feet. The result of Ellis' tactic was to cause a schism and a parting of the ways. From that time on, handling the ball would be called Rugby football and non handling of the ball would be called Associated football. The abbreviation for associated is: "Assoc." That is how the word soccer came about.


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## Furryanimal (Mar 8, 2021)

SetWave said:


> I have discovered a love of rugby, especially sevens, and a great appreciation for soccer (football). Not sure about cricket, yet.
> 
> You?


Been a rugby fan-supported Newport since 1969 -for a very long time.
Longing for us to be allowed to play again.
Also cricket....really hoping to be allowed to watch it this Summer.
Sevens is  good...games over in fifteen minutes.
leave out Soccer and Horseracing and I’m a bit of a sports nut.
It’s what has kept me sane this last year even if it’s all been enjoyed from my living room!


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## Furryanimal (Mar 8, 2021)

hollydolly said:


> Well I'm British..I love them all...well football ( soccer) not so much but deffo Cricket and Rugby... you'll find a kindred spirit in @Furryanimal


True....


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## Glowworm (Mar 8, 2021)

horseless carriage said:


> Cricket, explained:
> You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
> When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game
> 
> ...


I think that's a very clear explanation of cricket, anyone with two brain cells will understand the game completely now.


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## SetWave (Mar 8, 2021)

horseless carriage said:


> Cricket, explained:
> You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
> When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game
> 
> ...


Ah Ha! So that's the ins and outs of cricket... Thanks a bunch.
Rugby seems to have begun as a game we played as kids running around tossing the ball and trying to tackle whoever had it.


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## Chet (Mar 8, 2021)

SetWave said:


> *I think maybe most Americans see soccer as just a bunch of running around with very little scoring*. But, once I began to appreciate the skill involved it suddenly became very exciting.
> 
> Now, as for rugby. The form with just 7 players on each team playing for 7- minute halves is fantastic. Talk about exciting. Woo Hoo.


That would be me. I think that goes for any other sport with a goalie like hockey too. Eliminating the goalie would give those games a whole new direction with new strategies. Players would play both offense and defense plus more scoring.


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## oldiebutgoody (Mar 14, 2021)

Growing up in Brooklyn, NY soccer and cricket are not new to me.  In fact I grew up in the East New York section of Brooklyn which has a large West Indian population.  One of the high schools I attended (Lane) did not have a football team - despite its large size, it had only a soccer team and what a squad it was! 

Cricket rules are very easy to understand: Microsoft Word - Cricket For Dummies Cheat Sheet - For Dummies (fivescc.co.uk)

My only objection to the game is that the popping crease dimensions [equivalent to the batters box in baseball] are too small (they were made centuries ago when the average athlete was much smaller than they are today. The size and dimensions of the stumps should also be increased as the sport has too much offense in my opinion.  But I do greatly enjoy the T20 format which is a quicker game than the normal one and is far more fun. 

Rugby is played quite often at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.  In all honesty, I am startled that it still is not as popular in the USA as it should be.  This bearing in mind that they used to draw crowds of 40,000+ in California back in the 1920s:

When Rugby Ruled. For more than a decade in the early… | by Stanford Magazine | Stanford Magazine | Medium


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## Glowworm (Mar 14, 2021)

oldiebutgoody said:


> Cricket rules are very easy to understand: Microsoft Word - Cricket For Dummies Cheat Sheet - For Dummies (fivescc.co.uk)


When I was little my dad used to be an umpire and play cricket and strictly speaking there are no rules in cricket, they're actually called laws.


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## oldiebutgoody (Mar 14, 2021)

Glowworm said:


> no rules in cricket, they're actually called laws




Indeed!

I recommend the novel  *The Cricket Match  *by Hugh DeSelincourt:

The Cricket Match - Kindle (amazon.com)

... and a terrific movie called "Lagaan":

https://tinyurl.com/5dte7uap


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## Tommy (Mar 14, 2021)

I've a friend who used to play rugby in New Zealand.  He told me that "soccer is a gentleman's game played by ruffians;  rugby is a ruffian's game played by gentlemen".  And that .... is the sum total of my knowledge about either.


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## SetWave (Mar 14, 2021)

Tommy said:


> I've a friend who used to play rugby in New Zealand.  He told me that "soccer is a gentleman's game played by ruffians;  rugby is a ruffian's game played by gentlemen".  And that .... is the sum total of my knowledge about either.


I've heard that said. Perfect.


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## oldiebutgoody (Mar 14, 2021)

The *Barbarians rugby club motto*, written by Walter Carey: “*Rugby* football is a game for gentlemen of all classes, but for no bad sportsman of any class.”


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian_F.C.


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## hollydolly (Mar 16, 2021)

Rules of cricket :...

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in.. goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.
 When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. 
Sometimes you get men still in and not out. 
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.
 There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game  

You're welcome


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## Old Salt (Mar 16, 2021)

We've been watching soccer since 2014, when a German player with my last name scored the winning goal in the World Cup! I had been in the habit of watching baseball and hockey because with soccer you have to be content with one or two goals. Boring!!! Not so, after a while you start to appreciate the skills of the players and now it wouldn't be Sunday without all of us gathering at my place to watch a recorded game. The world Cup got us used to certain faces, most of them from Bayern-Muenchen, so shortly thereafter we picked them as our team! Talk about a stroke of luck! They have been on top of the standings in the Bundesliga ever since. Somebody called the players "ruffians!" The players are gentlemen in the games we watch. The British fans gave the game a bad reputation. That was some years back, though. Nowadays we play soccer without the fans. Thanks Covid-19!!!


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