Staff Interviews - Tiberius

[emjay]

Cool... I'll take you up on that some time... thanks :-) But not tonight (well it's actually morning but my sleep's out of whack) cos I'm watching that film Every time I've tried to learn about it I've come up against a brick wall because everything (sports encyclopaedias etc) assumes a basic knowledge of the principles of the game, which we just don't have over here because there's nothing like it. I watched about 20 minutes of a game on Channel four once and just thought if I pay enough attention to the commentary I'll get the gist but it never happened :-( So it would be great just to get a rundown of the basic idea of the game :-)

For starters, here's a newbies guide that I wrote:
https://atheistforums.org/thread-35335-p...pid1156118

Cool... that was great See, I don't think you'd ever get such a detailed guide written by an American because too much would be taken for granted, so one written by a Brit (albeit one who's now gone native ) answers all the questions of someone who hasn't grown up with the game. Did you learn about the game after you moved to America?  And I'm glad you're just as pedantic as I am... I was gonna ask whether a touchdown actually involved touching down and from what you say, no it doesn't... it just involves getting the ball into the end zone. That would have been a point of confusion for me watching a game cos I'd be wondering 'have they scored or not?'.

It does look a really good game and tbh like you I don't really like football (as in Soccer... but I still think it retains the most right to the use of the name football so I'll continue to use it here just to annoy the Americans ) because it usually is just continuous passing save for a few attempts at goal that usually only happen within extra time, making me think why have you (and I) bothered with the first 45 minutes I watch it, get behind it, and bet on it when the World Cup's on, just out of patriotic spirit, but I don't actually like the game. I prefer Rugby because there's more scoring involved, and variations on scoring (like with handegg).

It's been a long time since I last watched Rugby but as I recall, one or the other - Rugby League or Rugby Union - is more... at least superficially ...similar to handegg in the sense of always stopping and starting after scrummages (i.e. American scrimmages) but I always preferred the other one because it was more violent ...it was always frustrating for it to stop and start over so little when in the other one, basically as long as a player could still move, even with a million people piled on top of him dragging them along, play continued But that said, from what you've said I can now accept handegg as literally 'a completely different ballgame' and quit with the comparisons to Rugby. It looks really interesting from a strategy point of view and I can see that with all that in mind, the brutal way probably wouldn't work... it's a more precise and methodical game.

Anyway I'm looking forward to watching it with you and Hammy, but do be prepared for some annoying interruptions and silly questions the first few times while I get the hang of it