Football Related Random Thread

[Chief]

Continued in Part 2

Football Related Random Thread - PART 2

Introducing, The Random Thread: In an effort to keep threads from being derailed (unintentionally or otherwise), occasionally mods will move posts from other threads to this 'catch-all' thread when they can't find a more appropriate home for them. Feel free to continue the discussion but...

www.bigfooty.com

 

[Monkey Daniel]

Nice job, we savage umpires here when our blood is up but it really is great that young fellas like yours are still giving it a go, and pleasingly, sound like they are good at it.

Does it change how you watch games when your son is umpiring?

Cheers TBD
Both sons are into their 3rd season and after today the youngest will have umpired 95 games and the eldest (who started 6 weeks later) 88 games.
Which is impressive as there are only 16 rounds plus finals in a season, they usually have 4 games per weekend.

In answer to your question about viewing games and umpires, yes it has !
There's so much going on and what they (umpires) have to look out for, decisions that have to be made and all within a split second
Positioning is the most important. They have to move up and down the ground along the corridor with their bum pointing to the middle and stay about 20 to 30 metres away from the play.
I've learnt to place myself in the position of the umpire when a decision is made. Most important is that they only pay what they can see.
On televised games, the TV view is usually the opposite of what umpires see and naturally viewers believe the decision is wrong.

At junior games, most are respectful towards the umpires but there's still one or two that think they know better.
I simply challenge them to grab a whistle and get onto the ground and do a better job

 

[POBT]

Great to hear a different perspective on footy Monkey Daniel .

Actually puts into some perspective that umpires love their footy too. I'm going to try and remember that when I next go to the footy.

 

[Gadzorks]

To all the mums on bf happy mothers day.

 

[Mr Ripper]

Great to hear a different perspective on footy Monkey Daniel .

Actually puts into some perspective that umpires love their footy too. I'm going to try and remember that when I next go to the footy.

I actually have tremendous admiration for umpires - personally; unfortunately they bear the brunt of my frustration for the system in which they work.

 

[M Malice]

IMO Australian Rules Football would be the hardest game to umpire/referee on the planet. So many of its rules are open to interpretation.

 

[spotthedog1]

Absolutely - very tough game to umpire, and they deserve respect. Two biggest bugs for me:
- Rule of the week. Not the umpires fault, but definitely still a huge problem in the game. This year seems worse than usual. Interpretations change every week, occasionally even mid-round. How on earth is that fair and reasonable.
- Subconscious bias. Umpires need more instruction at an AFL level (due to crowd effect) around subconscious bias. The biggest ones are:
>>> home-town favouritism. Particularly for Vic v Non-Vic teams in Victoria, and Adelaide teams in Adelaide - the crowds are loud, and the umpires genuinely give away more free kicks to the home team. Last time I checked, we had about a 2-3% home-town favouritism, Vic/SA teams get about a 10% favouritism. At these percentages, it genuinely decides games.
>>> favourites favouritism. This goes for teams and also players. Reputations count, and subconsciously some players and some teams get a bit more leniency from the umps.

 

[Lionheart182]

Does anyone ever stop and think about the fact the Swans have the Sydney Opera House on their guernseys?

 

[M Malice]

Does anyone ever stop and think about the fact the Swans have the Sydney Opera House on their guernseys?

Ummmm, no.

 

[dlanod]

Does anyone ever stop and think about the fact the Swans have the Sydney Opera House on their guernseys?

I know they do but what's there to think about?

 

[BuntonRules]

Does anyone ever stop and think about the fact the Swans have the Sydney Opera House on their guernseys?

You want us with the XXXX brewery?

 

[Skoob]

I'm embarrassed to admit, I never noticed. I always assumed it was just the stupid duck flapping its wings.

 

[Skoob]

After looking, I don't feel quite as silly.

 

[Lionheart182]

I know they do but what's there to think about?

Isn't that unusual? I dunno I kind of just noticed it while watching the game today. Can't think of another franchise with a building on their uniforms. Maybe the New York mets?

 

[briztoon]

Isn't that unusual? I dunno I kind of just noticed it while watching the game today. Can't think of another franchise with a building on their uniforms. Maybe the New York mets?

Sydney Kings uniform also has the opera house on it.

Golden State warriors with the San Fran bridge on it. Cleveland Cavs uniforms has the city skyline on them. Dallas Mavericks uniforms used to as well.

The old Seattle Supersonics uniforms used to have the Space Needle on them.

 

[Milux]

IMO Australian Rules Football would be the hardest game to umpire/referee on the planet. So many of its rules are open to interpretation.

Not to mention in one second about 3 free kicks could be paid.

 

[MacMum]

I'm embarrassed to admit, I never noticed. I always assumed it was just the stupid duck flapping its wings.

I've always thought it was a mixture of both the wings of a swan and the OH..

Like the umpiring, maybe it's all in the interpretation ..

 

[MSB ROYS]

If you thought our season was going badly, spare a though for Leyton Orient's fans and staff.

 

[Skoob]

I've always thought it was a mixture of both the wings of a swan and the OH..

Like the umpiring, maybe it's all in the interpretation ..

Like umpiring, maybe it's designed to confuse, and the correct answer is whichever explanation they choose on the day.

 

[dlanod]

I've always thought it was a mixture of both the wings of a swan and the OH..

Like the umpiring, maybe it's all in the interpretation ..

Pretty sure that's what it's meant to be.

 

[MSB ROYS]

I've learnt to place myself in the position of the umpire when a decision is made. Most important is that they only pay what they can see. On televised games, the TV view is usually the opposite of what umpires see and naturally viewers believe the decision is wrong.
At junior games, most are respectful towards the umpires but there's still one or two that think they know better.
I simply challenge them to grab a whistle and get onto the ground and do a better job

I have umpired quite a few games myself and I agree that you can only pay what you see. I also use the line to hecklers to umpire a few minutes about giving it a go themselves, and of course, none of them did even though even it was an internal match! This is a very interesting perspective re positioning of camera versus umpire. I also think that as supporters of a team that we overwhelmingly concentrate on our players that creates a cognitive bias, which means we see every infringement. The older I get the worse I have become in regards to this - or may be it's just that I am desperate to see us win more games in the last few years.

Mentioning Leopold, I remember playing in the YMCA little league played at Belmont Common when I was growing up in Geelong (a long time ago now)!

 

[dlanod]

Isn't that unusual? I dunno I kind of just noticed it while watching the game today. Can't think of another franchise with a building on their uniforms. Maybe the New York mets?

Good question. briztoon mentioned GSW and SuperSonics, which were the only two I thought of. Most err on the side of pretty simple gear and there's not many iconic buildings, so I guess it is unusual in both circumstance and desire.

 

[M Malice]

If you thought our season was going badly, spare a though for Leyton Orient's fans and staff.

And we thought Angus was bad, at least we can't get relegated MSB.

 

[Mr Ripper]

If you thought our season was going badly, spare a though for Leyton Orient's fans and staff.

The moral of the tale: get off your arses before it's too late. It's our game.

Edit Thanks for posting, MSB.

 

[ZoBlitz]

If you thought our season was going badly, spare a though for Leyton Orient's fans and staff.

There's a book edited by Nick Hornby originally published in 90s called My Favourite Year in which a bunch of English football fans talk about their favourite year (or in some cases their most memorable year). One of the stories is about Oxford United which was bought by millionaire Robert Maxwell and barely survived due to the usual story of rich men destroying clubs through their ego and (in the end) lack of money. The book is on Kindle and it's worth checking out and not just for this story either, there some good humour in there.

I'm glad that private ownership is no longer a thing in the AFL because I end up feeling that clubs are one bad owner away from disaster...

Tangentially related to this, I'd recommend anyone who's interested in the changes that happened in the VFL in the 80s/90s that led to the competition going national and the "professionalising" of football should definitely read Garry Linnell's Football Ltd: The Inside Story of the AFL. It's by far the best AFL book I've read and it goes into the behind the scenes stuff that was happening in football during that period like the expansion of the competition into the other states, the changes of player movement rules, the creation of the AFL commission, the financial difficulties of the Victorian clubs in pre-expansion period, the various merger talks that were going on prior to our merger (book was published in 1995), the battle between the AFL and MCC about the MCG... It's excellent. As a Lions fan, it's worth reading just for the section about the Bears creation and survival.

 

[royboy2]

I've always thought it was a mixture of both the wings of a swan and the OH..

Like the umpiring, maybe it's all in the interpretation ..

This was the logo for about 5 years in the 90's