Is it just me or is there a homoerotic side to football?

The bare legs, the bare arms, the post match bath/showers, the stripping off and shirt swapping, the post goal celebrations.







CC

If, on average, one in ten is 'that way' then in a squad of 20ish there are bound to be at least one of that ilk. Multiply that by the whole Premier League and the answer is 'yes'.

Al

PS - I'm looking round the office wondering the same thing

Of course a lot of players will be openly/closet gay. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that I think that the whole sport is somewhat homoerotic.

The stylised underwear that they play in. All that "touching".

If you wish to look at football in that way that is your choice.
I prefer looking at female beach volley ball in the same way.

On a more serious note, it all about male bonding and replacing the primal urge to go out and kill something. Its just not the same thing going down the Tesco aisle nowdays to "hunt and track" that juicy lamb chop.

Shame the hooligans don't seem to have noticed that.

Maybe they are over compensating for something.

All that rolling around the floor crying when they fall over, the vanity etc. It's all a bit sad.
They may or may not be "batting for the other side", but I'm sure they give their trophy wives a few concerns!

I've always wondered about the hooliganism you only seem to get in football. Maybe it's because male fans leave the stadium feeling so emasculated that they feel the need to go and beat someone around the head to prove their masculinity, or maybe their just not that bright. On the other hand, rugby matches are nearly always trouble free.

Isn't it partly a class thing too? Rugby tends to be followed by 'upper class' people (who are not going to be the types who attack opposition supporters) and football is much more a 'working class' thing. I'd also agree with the idea that maybe they're just not that bright.

Viewing this page in work could lead to serious misconceptions

The upper classes are usually into things like Polo, Croquet (putting green with hammers) and other equine pursuits. I don't think the class system or the amount of wealth comes into it, but if you were to split the population into "civilised" and "uncivilised" you may be onto something. Given that the heart of rugby in Wales is the South Wales valleys and the coal mining towns that built up within them, I would hardly call them "upper class".

CC hit the nail on the head there.

20-30 fashion-concious wimps running up and down a field all day in short shorts and tight shirts is bound to cause a spot of light bummery. Even more so when they fall over for the whimsical reasons they do, and burst into tears because their hair has become unspiked.

I think they get paid more to fall over. They must do.

Male bonding?

Is that some kind of euphemism?

That's why I take my knuckle-dusters to any Wallabies-Wales match.

There is a definite class distinction with rugby union - even in supposedly egalitarian Australia it's followed and played by the upper echelons of society, while rugby league is played and followed by the so-called working classes. (Football is a distant fourth in terms of followers.)

As for why football suffers hooliganism and rugby doesn't, perhaps rugby tends to attract a better type of person.

You don't only get it in football. Go look up some of the behaviour of Cleveland Browns fans in the NFL. They demolished towns. There've been riots after chricket matches in India. It was more common in football than in other sports back in the 70's and early 80's but these days violence at football grounds is a much much rarer event, at least in the UK.
There's nothing inherent to a given sport that produces violence in those who watch it. Sport exists within the general culture of a place. Some places have more people who see violence as a valid means of expressing something, others don't.

Jon

Remember there are those who go to football matches to watch football, and those who go to start a fight.

People watching football isn't very newsworthy, people fighting is.

Therefore the people fighting give the others a bad rep.