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Women's Football (or 90 Minutes of Lust)

15:57 / 10.11.02

I know there's a few footie fans here, anyone into the women's game?

I've just been to see Hayle vs Roche. I'd only seen one women's match before this one, and it was refreshingly different from the men's game - somewhat slower, so you could actually see what was going on. There were some great moves, some bad ones, but the tackling was clumsy rather than malicious, there was no cheating, and the teams hip hip hoorayed one another at the end. Hayle lost 5-2, which was a shame, but it was very enjoyable and I'll be going back. And the ground is surrounded by hills and fields. Beautiful!

And I'm going to sound horribly shallow here, but I think I fell in love five or six times this afternoon....

16:02 / 10.11.02

I fell in love five or six times this afternoon....

I used to work with a woman who plays for a N. London team, so I know exactly what you mean. Rrr!

11:39 / 11.11.02

Hmm. Not many takers here. The women's world cup is held next summer - I'll be hassling you folk to check it out....

12:13 / 11.11.02

You should have taken some pics, SFD. :-)

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:20 / 11.11.02

Funny you should mention it - two of my friends (who just revealed they've actually been supersecretdykes for the past three years) have just had a bunch of footballers staying on their floor - down from the UK from the gay games. I had drinks with them at a friend's farewell, a couple of weeks ago. They were ace.

Goodness Gracious Meme

13:38 / 11.11.02

Like the abstract. When you have to start explaining your addictions ....

Used to follow women's football pretty closely when I was playing, less so now but still follow it to a degree but must admit to being a glory-hunting premier-league watcher, when I can. Used to go watch Millwall Lionesses play quite often when I lived in South London.

Agree that there are differences with the men's game. It's no less competitive, for sure, but it *is* slower. But, actually sfd, the women's teams I played in and watched at uni were probably *more* vicious than the men's team, plenty of players were not above a sneaky elbow when the ref wasn't looking, and there was the odd bit of hair-pulling. Served me right for having long hair, I guess

But - offtopic - this was nothing compared to the women's rugby. Oh boy. In which scratching/biting/yanking hair/kicking/elbowing were all apparently part of the typical business of the scrum. Watched (no I didn't play, I'm not insane) alot of matches and it was rare there weren't several players needing attention after the match

Also par for the course: (not that this'll be of any interest) loads of huge strong women covered in mud.

14:19 / 11.11.02

I'm very familiar with women's rugby. Nashville Women's Rugby have a close relationship with my Aussie football team, the Nashville Kangaroos. One of the players is President and coach at our college affiliate, Vandy Aussie Rules Club, and Nashville Women' Rugby play Vanderbilt Women's Rugby each year at our annual Australian Festival.

The first time I saw Nashville play Vanderbilt, I was very impressed. They really tackle hard - you can hear the "thump" when one of the players is hurled to the ground. It's not a game for women who want to look pretty, unless you define "pretty" by black eyes and other bruises, but it is a great sport and the camaraderie is exceptional.

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:36 / 11.11.02

God yeah, all of the above kicking etc is in addition to tough but *legal* tackling.

14:37 / 11.11.02

I drove past the hotel half a mile from my home, and they've got a sign up saying "Welcom Women's Rugby Teams!" I'm trying to find out where they're playing. Or maybe it's just a convention.

15:03 / 11.11.02

I've been looking for women's rugby down here but there doesn't seem to be any, or at least it's not listed. I'm not a major rugby fan, but I'd be willing to have a look; huge, strong women covered in mud being, of course, not something I'd be interested in at all!

While it was not a vicious game I saw on Sunday, I was in my school's rounders, netball and hockey teams, and there was some pretty nasty girls involved in that. There was nearly a huge fight after one game, for which I nearly got the cane for, and one of the hockey games I missed had some of the opposing team offering my team out. I got hit very hard over the head with a hockey stick once, too.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:15 / 11.11.02

oof, god yes. Remember hockey being especially violent; there was one match in particular where a whole load of the girls had been 'grassed up' by someone else for something or other, resulting in lots of detentions. So next PE lesson, contrived to all be on one team and have this poor girl on the other.

It was't pretty.

15:19 / 11.11.02

I was the goalie in the hockey team - a pretty good position to be in. Basically I had great big wooden boots on, shin pads, gloves and a helmet - everyone ran for it when I legged it towards the ball.

I know someone who went to school in America, where women's football is taken much more seriously. A bunch of us tried to get to play at school and were told it wasn't allowed as 'it was for boys'. A shame, there were some good kick arounds in the playground, as I recall.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:23 / 11.11.02

A bunch of us tried to get to play at school and were told it wasn't allowed as 'it was for boys'

Yeah, ditto, we got netball. Big fucking whoopee. I definitely have a very different relationship to playing and following football to lots of my male friends, who were *forced* to play it (and given the option would probably rather have submiitted to netball!) and ostracised for not supporting a team.

15:43 / 11.11.02

Mm. Think I was one of the concientious objectors. Not sure I would have preferred netball, seemed like bowdlerised basketball to me at the time, but I do remember not feeling keen to to play football, hockey or rugby with the likes of "Keef," who had been lobbing hay bales and manhandling livestock on his dad's farm since he was knee-high.

Years later, I discovered five-a-side could be quite fun and that some teams are mixed. Even better. And someone recommended I claim to support a small side like Orient because none of the Man U, Liverpool etc. oiks know anything about them so you get neither ostracised not dragged into the tedious bollocks they consider conversation.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:51 / 11.11.02

Yeah, this sounds like alot of my friends, whereas for me, football was the thing we weren't allowed to do. Therefore cool.

I also have a football (and cricket)-mad dad who encouraged me at every turn.

*Then* I figured out that being a petite speccy brace-wearing Asian girl wittering on about Match of the day had a two-way effect. It either:

Really spooked people = Cool
Or

Rehabilitated my slightly/stopped me getting beaten up as much as you would expect = Cool.

Tryphena Absent

16:02 / 11.11.02

I got hit in the shin with a hockey stick at school. I had a bump on my leg for weeks afterwards and it was very pretty, all the colours, ouch! After that I stopped playing forever but then I always followed the advice of Flora from Cold Comfort Farm and stood frozen in the middle of the pitch occasionally running in the opposite direction from everyone else. I was a 'spoil sport'.

Football was no better than anything else, probably 'cos I sucked ass, my legs just didn't seem to be able to connect to the ball. I'm much better now and that's really not meaning much. Good will never be the word to connect me and sport.

16:57 / 11.11.02

Me, I remember the dreadful day when my mother took me to one side and told me I wasn't allowed to chest the ball any more when I played football, because 'it would stop my breasts growing'. Some hope!

17:22 / 11.11.02

I may be male and unsporting in general but my 2p:

Hockey is a WONDERFUL game that not enough people appreciate. And it's great in all its forms - the hacking muddy game is very different to a slick, pro, astroturf game... but they're both great in their own ways.

And if you think hockey's violent, I have one word for you:

Lacrosse.

Men's is psycho, women's is only marginally less psycho. And when you get fourteen teenage girls onto a pitch, with all that teenage stress, big sticks, and a game more prone to violence than hockey... you join the dots.

18:13 / 11.11.02

Women's lacrosse is extremely violent! No helmets... and they only introduced gum-shields in my third year at school, by which time several teeth had been knocked out (not of me, btw). No padding either, and running around in gym skirt and aertex shirts on Southsea Common in midwinter was not a lot of fun...

The thing is, when you're no good at it you stand an equal chance of getting whacked with a crosse (either in the air or while trying to hack the ball on the ground) or with a very hard ball flying through the air at speed. Nice.

Goodness Gracious Meme

11:11 / 13.11.02

my mother took me to one side and told me I wasn't allowed to chest the ball any more when I played football, because 'it would stop my breasts growing'

Whaaaaa? Je ne comprends pas.

The thing is, when you're no good at it you stand an equal chance of getting whacked with a crosse (either in the air or while trying to hack the ball on the ground) or with a very hard ball flying through the air at speed. Nice.

and again.

Who decided this was a *sport*? Although, faced with sixty grotty kids to 'teach' for ninety minutes, I can suddenly see the appeal...

11:45 / 13.11.02

There's only one sport I know which is more violent than Lacrosse ..

Hurling ! put 15 semi crazed irishmen in a team, give them each a four foot long piece of wood and then tell them they have to get the (small) ball into the goal.

Ouch !

pointless and uncalled for

12:12 / 13.11.02

Hockey is a wonderful sport. It has all of the nessecary ingredients in it. Speed, violence, skill, sticks and all. Ice Hockey is even better because the sticks are bigger, the violence is more extreme, you get mullets, people throw squid onto the rink and blood bounces on ice.

13:57 / 13.11.02

Hurling is indeed more violent than Lacrosse. And it too is a wonderful game. Shame they don't televise it in this country.

14:37 / 13.11.02

Polo. Who has actually watched this sport? In most sports you can fall over, in some sports you can be hit by a hard ball. In polo you can fall off the back of a galloping horse (although the are called "polo ponies", they can be freakin' big "ponies") and then be smashed in the face by a hard ball straight of a mallet with the tremendous velocity of both a very long handle and being propelled by someone travelling on the back of a speeding horse. Then, as a sort of coup de grace, you will be trampled by the entire herd into the hard, faeces-strewn, compacted dirt.

I also have seen an unmounted horse deliberately run into an elderly lady spectator. Some of those damnable, freakin' big polo ponies have a lot of hate and disdain for the human race.

14:46 / 13.11.02

And, to return vaguely to the topic, plenty of women play polo. The times I've watched it has been about 50/50.