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Football was first invented by the caveman Og, who also happened to be the world's first foot-doctor, as a means of drumming up business. Or at least stoning people, since that was what was being used as a ball. After he got stoned (with assorted balls from assorted people) there was a decline in the game's popularity for a few thousand years. Till Attilla the Hun decided that the game would be very good for training his soldiers. So he would get a bunch of prisoners to play a game and then a soldier would get thrown in as a referee. If he survived five minutes he would be promoted to general. But a lot of good soldiers ended up generally dead instead, so the practice was again discontinued till our time. But now there are several different types of football, all claiming to be football, so I've decided to give you some proper definitions.
Rugby football
This is a game played only by idiots since it involves one person holding the ball and then everybody on the field jumping on him and beating the daylights out of him. But the idiot is usually drunk (pubs have this tendency of being close by) and doesn't notice.
At fixed times, usually every thirty seconds, most of the players get in a big huddle in the middle of the field so they can tell silly jokes and make nasty comments about the spectators...
"See that woman in the third row with the big nose? Doesn't she look ugly?"
"You idiot, that's my mum"
... and get everybody mad at each other again.
It is worth pointing out that most of the people who play rugby are medical students. This is because it's a tax-free way of getting dead bodies to practice on. The next of kin don't mind since they can't usually identify the bodies anyway.
The best rugby team in the world is the All-Blacks. No-one knows why they are called that, since it's usually the opposing team that's left black (and blue). They consist of the first eleven people to get across a busy Auckland street at rush hour the day before a match. Without using traffic lights.
Australian Rules Football
The rules of this game are very simple, being
However, most of those who play the game find the rules rather hard on the brain. Which is why you often see veteran players walking down the streets of Sydney holding their heads in their hands. Or in plastic bags.
American Football
The name is of course quite misleading since no-one ever touches the ball with their feet. But attempts to rename it American Handball failed because Maradona had already given South American handball a bad name. The rules of the game are much harder than those of Australian Rules and are all kept in the Official RuleBook, which has laid unread in the White House basement for the past two hundred years. Consequently all players wear really heavy suits of armour before going on the field in case the other guys also don't remember the rules that they don't remember. It has been remarked that the average IQ of the average American Football team of Average Americans is close to zero, so perhaps the rules have been forgotten so the players can easily remember what's left.
Football
The Americans would call it soccer, but that's irrelevant outside the States. It is played by twenty-two players who get paid for collecting yellow and red cards. Not that I know why they bother, since they can easily make those cards at home. Everyone uses their feet, two use their hands and a few use their heads and get off the pitch as soon as possible. There are also three other people on the field, normally called "that mother-f**ing bastard who doesnt know what a whistle/flag is for". The aim of the game is to kick a ball into one of the two nets, preferably not your own. And because each team wants to borrow the other team's net to hold the ball, they don't usually like each other. Hence the cards mentioned earlier.
Football probably has the most interesting spectators in the world. They are very colourful, especially when their team loses and you see all these pretty patches of red and orange on the terraces. Sometimes they show their appreciation of a fine match by showering the players with food and drink. Of course, that's usually in the form of orange peels and empty plastic bottles, but it's the thought that counts.
by Dino Surendran (1997) dinoj@usa.net, but some (not much more than some) credit should go to Peregrine's Peabody's Completely Misleading Guide to Sports. I can't quite remember who the book's author was - no it wasn't PP.
