Do you think West Ham will be relegated from the Premiership this year?

[Sten Sture]

The internationalization of sports coverage on the Tele has created some strangeness in my life. I can name more players on the Hammers roster than I can on the rosters of all the baseball, football, and basketball teams in my city!

I've never even been to England!

[Sava]

I believe the name "Football" is taken. Kindly refer to your silly game as "soccer"

[Frozzy]

Actually football dates back to before the United States was formed.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Indeed. I never understood how none of the american sports have it.

There is a reason. You had hundreds of local teams in English Football, just about the same situation as baseball. In England, every team joined into the association. In the US, seperate groups of teams formed seperate leagues. There was no uber-league, like in England. You had literally 100s of leagues in the US.

Teams from the major cities joined to form the 'majors'. Instead of inviting the smaller clubs to join them, they instead bought all the best players from them. Later on, they started to buy the 'minor league' teams themselves as repositories for young talent. So while in England, you have a load of local teams join together, in the US, you had the rich city teams join and at the same time wanted to screw the smaller city teams.

Future professional leagues were not local affairs, but were creations of rich people owners. There were only a few owners who would be able to afford a team in American football, basketball, and hockey. There is one major exception: The Green Bay Packers of American Football, who are owned by the city of Green Bay.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The internationalization of sports coverage on the Tele has created some strangeness in my life. I can name more players on the Hammers roster than I can on the rosters of all the baseball, football, and basketball teams in my city!

I could probably name more baseball and football players in your city than you .

[C0ckney]

i think setting up proper national leagues would be very hard for the states, purely because of the distances involved, in a lower league match it's bad enough for a team to have to get from the south west to the north east, but imagine you had like two US 3rd division teams from new york and LA.

even here we only have five truely national leagues, the prem, divisions 1,2 and 3 and the nationawide conference. after that it splits roughly into north and south (ryman and unibond) and then into local leagues. although unlike the US it is possible to get from them to the nationwide.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
Shame, another league title for the Gooners would be too much to bear.

Gooners?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sava
I believe the name "Football" is taken. Kindly refer to your silly game as "soccer"

Yes indeed, so your game shall be referred to as "handmelon" from now on.

[C0ckney]

arsenal's nickname is the gunners, so some people (usually scummy yids ) refer to them as 'the gooners'.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Gooners?

Another nickname for Arsenal. Their real nickname is the The Gunners, so calling them The Gooners is just a silly play-on-words used mostly by people who want to express the fact that they think Arsenal are a bunch of goons.

I've heard quite a few Arsenal fans use it over the past few years, though, it seems like their trying to claim it for themselves.

[FrustratedPoet]

bah! C0ckney beat me to it.

Careful how you use the phrase "scummy yids", though. I know exactly what you mean, but not everyone on this board would.

[C0ckney]

i'll prolly get a letter through from the ADL tomorrow now

[Az]

i think setting up proper national leagues would be very hard for the states, purely because of the distances involved, in a lower league match it's bad enough for a team to have to get from the south west to the north east, but imagine you had like two US 3rd division teams from new york and LA.

even here we only have five truely national leagues, the prem, divisions 1,2 and 3 and the nationawide conference. after that it splits roughly into north and south (ryman and unibond) and then into local leagues. although unlike the US it is possible to get from them to the nationwide.

The secondary leagues could be placed on a state-based system, similar to the relegation from and to the regional lower leagues here.

The concept of relegation would still exist.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
bah! C0ckney beat me to it.

Careful how you use the phrase "scummy yids", though. I know exactly what you mean, but not everyone on this board would.

Which is why we'd better explain it...

Anyone referring to the 'Scummy yids' is generally referring to Tottenham Hotspur, a North London club with a sizeable Jewish following...

This not so nice nickname shouldn't be blown out of proportion considering West Ham are called 'Cockney Scum', teams from Liverpool are 'Scouse Gits', Man Utd is 'Manure', and northern teams in general have the catch all of 'Northern Bastards' etc...

No one said it was a civilised game...

[Drake Tungsten]

Tottenham Hotspur is the coolest name ever...