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Been busy running around today, but here's some stuff from my guy Ralph, including the honoring of Scottish-born kicker Lawrence Tynes by the British Parliment.The governing body declared him a role model as the only active Scot in the NFL, and is recognizing his Super Bowl win, albeit two years late. Still, it's nice he's still employed by the Giants.
EP
Guys:
ReplyDeleteHad to delete a couple of comments here because they addressed some gross inaccuracies to this story. If you want to accuse somebody of something, know the facts first.
I'm reasonably sure that i'm the only one here who was born and lives in Britain. as such i believe that i am reasonably well placed to say that, as a fan of Football and NYG in particular, as someone who has been to every international series game thus far, and as someone who is fiercely patriotic of any british sporting persons that the popularity of the NFL in Britain has absolutely NOTHING to do with Lawrence Tynes. still, good on him.
ReplyDeleteTwo more comments gone. We're not going into that subject on this blog. I'm sure if you insist on airing your views on these matters, there are plenty of other blogs out there willing and eager to accept them.
ReplyDeleteWe're about football here. When you're ready to talk critically about that, your comments will be welcomed once again.
"The governing body declared him a role model" Those were the words u wrote Ern and any discussion about past activities is relevant. All year long I didnt say it when talking about his terrible kicking but if he is being hailed as a role model... well.
ReplyDeleteI feel that censorship was quite unfair Ern.
Spacey, what is the popularity foundation of the NFL in Britain? Is there a particular team and/or player that gained the attention of Britain?
ReplyDeleteI will always be grateful towards Tynes, as his kick got us into the Super Bowl. That was a long kick on a very, very cold night. Anyone who has ever tried to kick a cold football knows the difficulty. Yes, I would like him to kick longer on kick-offs. I have more issues with the punting from last year than the kicking.
I have a football comment... I think Tynes should have been gone two years ago, immediately after he tried his best to lose the NFC championship to the Packers. His whining and self-excusing cannot hide the fact that his kick-offs are Div-3 College level at best!
ReplyDeleteThere simply must be better NFL kicking talent available, as league-worst "field-position" was a major contributor to the horrific overall NYG team performance last season (although DC incompetence would certainly be at the top of my list).
I don't really care "where he's from" - at the end of the day if he can't kick it through the end-zone then get someone who can. Peace.... JB
CE, theres not been a single guy or team responsible for the current boom in popularity. i think The Bears and William 'The Fridge' Perry will get mentioned a fair bit because of the exhibition games played back in the 90s and because he also played for the monarchs for a while. However, thats an association made generally by the original fans.
ReplyDeletethe current popularity is down, i think, to university students. certainly, thats where i learned to love the game about 4 years ago. just something to do when staying up all night to finish an assignment (or, more likely, not). I was quite snobby about it, to begin with (i think you'll find a lot of snobbishness about US sports from brits especially, who don't know enough about the game, but thats another matter altogether) and its kinda grown from there really. The university game is also where the most competition lies in the playing game and the easiest and most obvious way to get involved in all aspects of the game with people who also enjoy it.
Spacey, thanks for the explanation. I think I understand what you are saying about those being snobbish due to a lack of grasbing the game. During the fall, I was honeymooning in Maui and my wife and I sat next to a couple from Ireland, who were also on their honeymoon. This was the first weekend of the NFL season (yes, I drug my wife to a bar on our honeymoon to watch the season openner. luckily, she knows my love for sports). Well, this dude from Ireland saw the NFL on the TV and said that he hates American football. When I asked him why, he said cause he didnt get the game. I was able to use rugby terms and comparisons to help him understand it. He was a fan of rugby league in Aulstralia, so that made it even easier to make the comparisons of rugby and football.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of rugby, Spacey, do you know who won the 6 nations? Setanta sports got lost from my Directv. Sorry fellas for breaking from the Giants here.
i think that actually the snobbery is more of a sort of patriotic type of thing. because we see Football as 2 things. 1stly, very staunchly american. 2ndly (and incorrectly) as a version (and in our eyes, an inferior one) of rugby. its an incorrect observation, but to someone whos never seen or understood the game before, an understandable one and, like all first impressions, takes an instant to form and sticks around for along long time. so, when a young (or otherwise) Brit comes across a game of Football (especially when i was younger, when it didn't receive quite so much attention here) he'd watch it for a few minutes maybe, not understand it and go "well, this is just a shit, pussy version of rugby" and that woudl be that. certainly, how it was for me and it was only a few years ago when a friend of mine started watching it more intently and explained it, that i overcame my initial thoughts and ideas about it. oh my, i've been rambling.
ReplyDeleteYeah, followed the 6N quite closely. France won the Grand Slam in the end, absolutely stormed it, though we gave them a tough old time of it in the last match. Setanta no longer exists, sadly. Hope you find somewhere else to watch it next year.