why do americans find "soccer" boring? spin off

on a saturday and sunday morning in britain there are huge fields with 5 or 6 football/soccer pitches all over the country full of amateur and semi-professional boys,girls, men and women playing the sport they love to watch. every city in the uk has 1000's of teams, each town 100's and each village 10's of teams. football isnt just a spectator sport, its in the core of our community.

does america have a similar thing for american football? do men play for their local pub/bar? does each town and village have a team? or is it just college and professional teams?

Originally posted by stellspalfie
on a saturday and sunday morning in britain there are huge fields with 5 or 6 football/soccer pitches all over the country full of amateur and semi-professional boys,girls, men and women playing the sport they love to watch. every city in the uk has 1000's of teams, each town 100's and each village 10's of teams. football isnt just a spectator sport, it ...[text shortened]... ub/bar? does each town and village have a team? or is it just college and professional teams?

Actually, soccer is played more like that here than football is but we do have semi-pro, high school and recreational football teams.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
on a saturday and sunday morning in britain there are huge fields with 5 or 6 football/soccer pitches all over the country full of amateur and semi-professional boys,girls, men and women playing the sport they love to watch. every city in the uk has 1000's of teams, each town 100's and each village 10's of teams. football isnt just a spectator sport, it ...[text shortened]... ub/bar? does each town and village have a team? or is it just college and professional teams?

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/bigcount/registeredplayers.html

USA has the second most registered players behind Germany. USA also has the second most players overall (registered and unregistered) behind China.

Yeah, there is a place right by my house where the Seattle Sounders practice and I think there are ten fields but four of them are smaller for the younger kids.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
on a saturday and sunday morning in britain there are huge fields with 5 or 6 football/soccer pitches all over the country full of amateur and semi-professional boys,girls, men and women playing the sport they love to watch. every city in the uk has 1000's of teams, each town 100's and each village 10's of teams. football isnt just a spectator sport, it ...[text shortened]... ub/bar? does each town and village have a team? or is it just college and professional teams?

We play softball in America. Even I played a few years.

Originally posted by tomtom232
Yeah, there is a place right by my house where the Seattle Sounders practice and I think there are ten fields but four of them are smaller for the younger kids.

is it run by the seattle sounders? could you go and watch small local teams playing a.football?

Originally posted by stellspalfie
on a saturday and sunday morning in britain there are huge fields with 5 or 6 football/soccer pitches all over the country full of amateur and semi-professional boys,girls, men and women playing the sport they love to watch. every city in the uk has 1000's of teams, each town 100's and each village 10's of teams. football isnt just a spectator sport, it ...[text shortened]... ub/bar? does each town and village have a team? or is it just college and professional teams?

For recreation, we play variants of football such as touch football or flag football. It's not really practical to play real (American) football because people, especially adults, are not interested in getting themselves killed or maimed.

Originally posted by sh76
For recreation, we play variants of football such as touch football or flag football. It's not really practical to play real (American) football because people, especially adults, are not interested in getting themselves killed or maimed.

would it be fair to say basketball has the largest amateur participation for the main american sports (basing my theory purely on having watched lots of amercian movies)

growing up in england all the kids in the area would be on a field after school playing football until it got dark (jumpers for goal posts, isnt it).there would be 20 or more on each team 5 nights a week then all day saturday and sunday. i dont see kids doing that as much these days but there is still always a hand full of kids playing on the field near my house. do kids in america have a similar thing? i think ive seen roller hockey being played in the street (in movies) but i imagine that would be a regional sport where ice hockey is more popular.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
would it be fair to say basketball has the largest amateur participation for the main american sports (basing my theory purely on having watched lots of amercian movies)

growing up in england all the kids in the area would be on a field after school playing football until it got dark (jumpers for goal posts, isnt it).there would be 20 or more on each ...[text shortened]... treet (in movies) but i imagine that would be a regional sport where ice hockey is more popular.

Depends on the community, I suppose. In black communities, certainly basketball is number 1. In Hispanic communities, it's probably soccer.

I grew up in a suburban middle class white Jewish community. When we were kids, we played baseball in the spring/summer (usually with wiffle bats and tennis balls) and touch football in the fall/winter. The disadvantage of both is that you need a fairly large field, but we had plenty of space since it was a pretty spread out community.

We used to go out into the backyard with either tennis balls and wiffle bats reinforced with layers of electric tape or softballs with wooden bats. 6 or 8 of us would play with a system of "automatics" for balls hit to the outfield and with my childhood swing set slide as a strike zone. One fielder plays shortstop and the other first base. Pitcher about 30-40 feet away. Pitch as hard as you can, swing as hard as you can. No umpires. Strikes were easy to call. If it hits the slide it's a strike. Otherwise, it's a ball. We'd play all afternoon and run up final scores of 34-29. If you bothered to keep track, you'd probably be something like 21 for 47 with 6 home runs and 14 runs batted in.

In the winter, we'd go out in a 33 degree day with coats that would invariably come off as we ran around and warmed up our bodies (besides, it's hard to throw a football accurately in a coat) and run around playing touch football for hours. We'd count by 1 (not 7) and if you were lucky and it was a good game, maybe you'd have a final score of 10-9. If it was a blowout, you'd just call the game over and make new teams and start over.

We played basketball occasionally, but baseball and football were the staples. I can't speak for everyone, but I never really enjoyed playing soccer. To me, running up and down the field and only getting to touch the ball once in a while seemed kind of pointless and boring, but I'm sure it was at least partially due to the fact that we never got into any kind of professional soccer.

This was before the days of roller blades and so we never played hockey. In summer camp, I used to play hockey on asphalt courts where you moved from place to place by running; no skates of any kind. I enjoyed the game, but everyone needed sticks and you needed a good court, which made the game impractical as a backyard game.

Originally posted by sh76
Depends on the community, I suppose. In black communities, certainly basketball is number 1. In Hispanic communities, it's probably soccer.

I grew up in a suburban middle class white Jewish community. When we were kids, we played baseball in the spring/summer (usually with wiffle bats and tennis balls) and touch football in the fall/winter. The disadvantage ...[text shortened]... s and you needed a good court, which made the game impractical as a backyard game.

so if you guys play touch football for fun as kids, do you not keep playing as adults?

you dont need a big pitch to play soccer. there are lots of variations of the game 11v11, 6-a-side, 5-a-side (which has a special yellow ball) 2 on 2, 1 on 1, headers and volleys, football tennis, headers, keepy-ups, wallie, wembly, piggy-in-the-middle and lots ive probably forgotten about. i think its versatility is probably why its so big.

i loved your description of childhood sports, it looks like there really isnt much difference between the fans of each sport at the heart of it.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
would it be fair to say basketball has the largest amateur participation for the main american sports (basing my theory purely on having watched lots of amercian movies)

growing up in england all the kids in the area would be on a field after school playing football until it got dark (jumpers for goal posts, isnt it).there would be 20 or more on each ...[text shortened]... treet (in movies) but i imagine that would be a regional sport where ice hockey is more popular.

Soccer/football is the largest amateur sport in the USA. Playing all the other sports is simply not practical because of equipment. I believe any given Saturday there are more college games going on than you could dream of in the UK as far as football goes. Even small college towns have tailgate parties, and all sorts of activities. To give you an idea a Florida Gators game attracts all the stadium occupiers plus a couple hundred thousand more outside for the tailgate party. No doubt football is a true national pastime in the UK and that's great, but we have a host of other sports as well. Baseball, rugby, Lacrosse, hockey, lawn hockey, volleyball, and on and on. Most large colleges have all sorts of athletics going on. Simply put the variety is so huge garnering attention for soccer is difficult because of the competition for attention from other sports. Right now March Madness is going on. Other than UEFA matches regular EPL football will not attract a whole lot of attention here, excepting the big games.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
Soccer/football is the largest amateur sport in the USA. Playing all the other sports is simply not practical because of equipment. I believe any given Saturday there are more college games going on than you could dream of in the UK as far as football goes. Even small college towns have tailgate parties, and all sorts of activities. To give you an idea ...[text shortened]... s regular EPL football will not attract a whole lot of attention here, excepting the big games.

do non college going adults participate in team sports? if you wanted to play a team sport what options would you have? im trying to get an idea of how sport works in the u.s. for the average fella.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
do non college going adults participate in team sports? if you wanted to play a team sport what options would you have? im trying to get an idea of how sport works in the u.s. for the average fella.

Sure. We have basketball leagues, softball leagues, baseball leagues, hockey leagues,
volleyball leagues, football leagues, tag football leagues, soccer leagues, cycling,
karate and various other martial arts, tennis, etc... the list is pretty limitless as far as variety.

They also have other recreational type activities in things like bowling, table tennis

That being said, you have to live in an area where those interests are to find leagues,
mostly in or near the larger cities for the larger varieties.
Smaller locals will have lesser offerings of course, but there is usually some availability.

They also have youth leagues as well. Then of course your have play for schools at
grades 7-12 and then in college, but those are selective based on ability ad not
necessarily open to all. At the college level, they have intramural sports for the
non-collegiate athletes in most of the varsity sports.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
do non college going adults participate in team sports? if you wanted to play a team sport what options would you have? im trying to get an idea of how sport works in the u.s. for the average fella.

Of course they do. Same as in the UK. How many of the people you mention in their pub leagues play with any skill? The difference is we admit we lack the skill and defer to those who do and come and watch. Further, we have many ex-athletes coaching high school or dedicating themselves to promoting healthy lifestyles. Plus, we do not have the hooliganism you folks have in the UK. Crowds behave and on any given fall Saturday there are millions watching either in the the enormous amount of stadia or on TV, listen on radio, attend tailgate parties. There's Pop Warner little league football, little league baseball, soccer everywhere, softball leagues, flag football and on and on. No shortage of amateur sports of all kinds. Swimming is also big and there are pools everywhere, track and field competitions. The reason soccer loses appeal is it competes with much more compelling sports. Anyone can play soccer. Not anyone can play football, baseball, basketball. Further, our professional soocer leagues are but a shadow of the the European leagues. I refuse to watch scholckball as I call it an instead watch UEFA, Serie A and EPL and La Liga matches.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
Of course they do. Same as in the UK. How many of the people you mention in their pub leagues play with any skill? The difference is we admit we lack the skill and defer to those who do and come and watch. Further, we have many ex-athletes coaching high school or dedicating themselves to promoting healthy lifestyles. Plus, we do not have the hooliganis ...[text shortened]... e to watch scholckball as I call it an instead watch UEFA, Serie A and EPL and La Liga matches.

yeah i have to admit the standard of pub leagues can be pretty bad, every so often you will play a team that have somebody who has played for a professional club and they stand out by a mile.

why do you feel anybody can play 'soccer' and not everybody can play 'football'?