Can't argue with that!

Strangely despite all the physical contact in the game it does not seem to have the homosexual overtones of "the beautiful game" either.

Yes or maybe the violence takes place on the field rather than off it

Ex Tight Head Prop with the scars to prove it

I find football is gaining ever more family fans going to the match. Many more women and children go to the match nowadays, as at least I've seen from city.

Away fans tend to be more hooliganistic and lower league fans like those from milwall.


Horse f*ckers , We wonder why charles looks like that.

It always makes me laugh when footballers suggest that rugby players are gay!

I don't think it's "homoerotic". When I play rugby, I celebrate a try by rushing up to the scorer and usually ruffing up his hair and giving him a "man hug" - in football though it all seems to be far more ... delicate.

The testosterone expended on the pitch I feel reduces the need for it to be expended off it.

Plus the fact that rugby players get paid less, it's therefore less "glorious" and showy. The type of school which teaches young men to play rugby generally tends to be private schools, therefore the kids are getting an education at the same time rather than the kids bunking off school to play footie. You'd get the cane at my school if you bunked off lessons for sport! (I was in the last school in England to abolish the cane, claim to fame >.<)

I also feel that in rugby you've demonstrated that you're a man on the pitch. You've shown that you can run through a horde of big, bulking men and slam a ball down behind them. The fans know this, and they have a great amount of respect for the men on the pitch, whether they be on their team or the opposition. That respect is transferred to the fans for the other side - there's no intense rivalry because they know that ALL the men on the pitch are brilliant at what they do and to say otherwise would just reflect stupidly on themselves. Fights don't start over comments like "oh your guy took a dive" or "he was faking it" or "that should ref was blind". The players tend to have more respect for the ref, and I reckon it's much harder to fake stuff in rugby! Even if you're bleeding you're going to bloody well finish the game.

Coming from an ex right-wing I can say I am more of an observer of rugby than a player of the game (I got thrown the ball a few times, went and scored, sat down and waited for the bigger boys to do all the work again).

I don't really agree with your private school and rugby comment.

I've certainly never been to a private school and I used to play for my school.

I agree with the rest though.

I think there's something in the fact that the nature of rugby allows any pent up aggression in the fans to be expended, even if vicariously. Football tends to leave you hanging as there's no outlet for all that testosterone.





I used to play right wing as well and that was my experience of rugby - until I got shifted to flanker. Couldn't really stand up for a week after my first game there, but I absolutely loved it.

This picture of a football warm up made me smile.

I think that says more about you if you percieve football to have homosexual overtones

I think it's got more to do with Footballers being viewed as fops and nancys who insure their legs, command huge wages for kicking a bladder around a field for 90 minutes and crying like girls if someone else touches them on the field.

Whereas, Rugby is seen as more of a "real man" sport, where getting hurt is part of the game and you do it in all weather, for the love of the competition.

Although, all that "hands through the legs" stuff still makes me giggle

for the love of the competition and the large wage packets. Rugby Union has been pro for some time now.

Rugby is a thugs game played by gentlemen, football is a gentleman's game played by thugs.
As a teacher once told me. I've never enjoyed playing either.

Either way, yes, CC, I can see the homoerotic side of football. But equally, I think it's an easy observation to make about any organisation which discourages mixing of the genders. All boys together, eh? *shivers*

Yeah, but my point is about the "perception".... Footballers wages are advertised widely and (in some cases) ridiculed, you don't hear so much about Rugby players pay or transfer fees (IMO)

Same here - I went to a comprehensive school, played outside centre and sometimes right wing. We didn't have a football team.
As for football being homoerotic...Probably not so much of the "erotic".