You can't beat country footy.

alchemysa · Sep 1, 2012

Nothin' I enjoy more than watching the boys play footy on Saturday. Can you do this in the U.S.? Sit in your car and watch the local team? It was sunny today but the comfort of your own car plus a thermos of coffee makes even a cold wet windy day enjoyable.

dave1949 · Sep 1, 2012

I guess that is soccer? Yes, in rural areas, we watch baseball and softball like that in the summer. A lot of our youth sports here are organized from within the schools. They have their own playing fields as part of a campus layout. Those are a bit more restricted due to school policies and such.

MossRoad · Sep 1, 2012

When my kids ran track, we could park and watch from the car. But that's about the only sport we could do that.

Fooball and soccer you can't see from the parking lot due to the bleacher seats in the way.
Baseball and softball diamonds can be seen from the car, but if you can see them, the balls will find your car with foul balls and home runs over the fence!

Basketball is mostly indoors and cross country and golf you have to get out and walk to watch.

About the only sport we can watch from the car is to go park by the lake with your gal at night and watch the submarine races. (my apologies to Arthur Fonzarelli).

jinman · Sep 1, 2012

dave1949 said:
I guess that is soccer?

Australian football (footy) is NOT soccer. It's more like rugby than soccer, but really more like American football with no pads. One of the coolest rules is that you have to bounce the ball off the ground ever so often if you are running with it. I watched footy in a bar while my ship was in Fremantle, WA and found it quite entertaining.

Youtube promo

alchemysa · Sep 1, 2012

Yes its 'Australian Rules'. Two teams of 18 players on a large oval shaped field that doubles as a cricket ground in summer. Crowds at country matches are usually pretty small so its common to be able to watch from the car, but even many of the outer suburban have room for cars. Sport here is much more community based than school based so sporting grounds are much more open affairs and I'd suggest our clubs cater to a much wider range of skill and age levels than a school based system would. (Perhaps encouraging a higher participation rate in sport than in many countries.) The pic was taken just before the match so spectators are wandering around and young kids are having a casual kick. Its a bit different in the 'big league' where they can get sixty or seventy thousand people to a mid season game, and the players earn millions.

Work hard during the week and play hard on the weekend. Its a lifestyle some countries will never accept or appreciate. 5 more Aussie soldiers died in Afghanistan this week.

creekbend · Sep 1, 2012

jinman said:
Australian football (footy) is NOT soccer. It's more like rugby than soccer, but really more like American football with no pads. One of the coolest rules is that you have to bounce the ball off the ground ever so often if you are running with it. I watched footy in a bar while my ship was in Fremantle, WA and found it quite entertaining.

Youtube promo

Thanks for posting the Link.

dave1949 · Sep 2, 2012

alchemysa said:
Yes its 'Australian Rules'. Two teams of 18 players on a large oval shaped field that doubles as a cricket ground in summer. Crowds at country matches are usually pretty small so its common to be able to watch from the car, but even many of the outer suburban have room for cars. Sport here is much more community based than school based so sporting grounds are much more open affairs and I'd suggest our clubs cater to a much wider range of skill and age levels than a school based system would. (Perhaps encouraging a higher participation rate in sport than in many countries.) The pic was taken just before the match so spectators are wandering around and young kids are having a casual kick. Its a bit different in the 'big league' where they can get sixty or seventy thousand people to a mid season game, and the players earn millions.

Work hard during the week and play hard on the weekend. Its a lifestyle some countries will never accept or appreciate. 5 more Aussie soldiers died in Afghanistan this week.

Amateur leagues are popular in Germany too. Primarily soccer and basketball. Since sports there aren't closely tied to school, they do tend to continue to participate as adults. Every village of any size has "Sportverein" and "SportHalle" (sports association and sports clubhouse). The local sports association will put on round-robin soccer tournaments during a week of sports festivals (sports by day, grilled wurst and beer drinking by night with live music!).

There is some of that here with adult softball leagues, bowling, maybe basketball too. But they sure don't put as much work into the fun side as the Germans. :laughing:

RobertBrown · Sep 2, 2012

deleted:confused3:

RobertBrown · Sep 2, 2012

years ago you could watch it on espn. When espn first started,they had the matches from Australia. Seems to me the game was fairly simple, sort of like football except they had 4 posts instead of 2. When a goal was scored, a guy in a white had ran out and waved his arms.
I like baseball better....go Rays!

alchemysa · Sep 2, 2012

RobertBrown said:
years ago you could watch it on espn. When espn first started,they had the matches from Australia. Seems to me the game was fairly simple, sort of like football except they had 4 posts instead of 2. When a goal was scored, a guy in a white had ran out and waved his arms.
I like baseball better....go Rays!

I can understand if it didn't win you over. IMO Australian Rules doesn't translate to TV very well. It can look like a mad scramble. Its too non-stop to have replays that explain whats going on. And TV directors often cram so many close-ups and fast cuts into every play that its almost impossible to get any appreciation of the strategy and ebb and flow of the game. It was even worse back when you were watching it.