Are All Footballers The Same?

I didn't raise the subject about you and any PL player love interest. I merely put forward a theory as to why it was not likely to happen.
On reflection, if you ever want to travel down that road you have the advantages of youth AND snacks.

Going off Doffcockers point about school, i was the captain of the Basketball team in my year and the year above (mainly because i was very tall for my age) and the team spirit shown to me by older lads was fantastic.

they didn't ostracise me because i was younger than them and was taking one of their mates places in the team, they rallyed round.

Now football on the other hand was a whole different kettle of fish, i was, admittedly crap at football, it's not my sport, i use my hands not my feet, but during any P.E lessons where i was in a team with any players from the school football team i was routinely abused and bullied.

l won't tar everyone because thats unfair but using my school purely on it's own, football was the sport that attracted the lowlife chavs, bullies and abusers. 2 People on the football team beat my mate up because he died his hair black one year, i mean how low do you really have to be to do that.

I think they beat up your mate because they were dickheads, not because they were footballers. It's true that in any team sport there is (or at least should be) a cameraderie which necessitates conformance to norms, but in my experience football is a broad church, especially at the amateur level. It's when they get hothoused that the pressure rises to conform.

wanderlust wrote:I think they beat up your mate because they were dickheads, not because they were footballers. It's true that in any team sport there is (or at least should be) a cameraderie which necessitates conformance to norms, but in my experience football is a broad church, especially at the amateur level. It's when they get hothoused that the pressure rises to conform.

Thats basically what i was getting at, the sport suffers because of the type of character it attracts.

It's not really something you can blame the sport for because a sport is just an inanimate object in the grand scheme, but it definitely has a cultural problem, certainly in the UK at least.

There hasn't been any bullying on the clips that Brother Dar has forwarded from Africa. Perhaps we should copy their example. One young man even appeared to be playing barefoot. Health and Safety would go nuts over here.