WHAT IT IS, IS FOOTBALL!

 

WHAT IT IS, IS FOOTBALL!

Every so often on the Letters page of my local morning newspaper, some followers  of other sports, generally lovers of rugby or soccer, pen letters poking fun at our great Australian game of football, otherwise known as Aussie Rules or Footy. Sometimes pronounced Foody! Rhymes with Goody.

These writers appear to be upset, bemused, irate, iindignant, amused, perplexed or may just confused that our great game of Australian Rules Football has different rules to their game. Just imagine how they would react if the knew that Autralain Rules Football started out as Victorian Rule, because the game was born on Melbourne  half way through the 19th Century. Not only that Auystraliuan Rules football is not governed by rules but by laws. The way in which the great game s played and officiated is all set out in The Laws of Football.

The people writing disparaging letters about our game's Laws/Rules all complain that in Aussie Rules football you get a point for missing the goals. It’s called a Behind. They complain that if the ball goes through the goals, but is touched by a player on either side, or hits the goal post on the way through, then it is not a goal but a behind. Instead of six points the team only scores one point. They say that no matter how it goes through the goal posts it should be a goal.

They complain that if the  ball  hits the posts and bounces back  in to play it should be “Play on”. In the Aussie game if the ball hits the post, the   umpire stops the game, because if the ball hits the goal post it means a behind has been scored or If the ball hits the point post it is deemed to out of bounds. 

What these critics fail to understand is that Australian Rules Football is not Rugby and it is not Soccer. It is different game with different rules. And we love it.

I do not mind rugby and soccer lovers attacking our game because it shows that they are frightened of it, probably because  because it is fast, virous and more spectacular in every way. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “When they start calling me names I know that I have won the argument.” 

I have never seen any letters to the Editor from Aussie Rules fans pointing out absurdities in Soccer or Rugby. However, just for the sake of prolonging the argument I am taking a leaf out of their grumpy book to point out some anomalies in their games.

First off, the name Soccer. The round ball game is called soccer in Australia, Canada and the USA and probably in some other places, too. However, in 2005,  the Australia  Soccer Federation,   in what it thought was a great one fingered salute to the Australian Football League (AFL), changed its name to the Football Federation Australia. Then in 2020, it changed its name to Football Australia.   Fair enough. But that  organisation which seems to loathe its game being called Soccer has a national men’s team which it calls…wait for it…The Socceroos.  Maybe  it’s  time for another name  change…one way or the other. The Footeroos? The Federoos?

In Australian rules the players take postions all over the field. It is a team game but each player has direct opponent. In rugby, the two teams start in the opposite halves of the ground. Their aim is to get the ball up to the other end and score a Try, by touching the ball over the end line and by scoring a goal by kicking the ball  through the goal posts.

Seems like a good plan. However, while the rugby  team can run forward with the ball, they can only pass it backwards. What? Why? No Aussie Rules fan has ever written to a newspaper saying that this is a foolish rule. The fact is, we do not care  at all about the Rules of Rugby . But it does seem a very strange rule. Of course in Gridiron, the American high tech version of Rugby, the Quarterbacks can throw the ball as far forward as they like. Usually, with dead eyed accuracy to another player who is well forward of the ball.  You cannot do that in rugby and you definitely cannot do it in soccer.

If you score a Try you  get a free kick at goal. You not only have to kick it through the goal posts but over a cross bar which it a couple of meters above the ground. Why? What happened if the  ball goes through the posts but under the crossbar?  Well, it is no score at all. Why?

Soccer has few strange rules, too. Probably the strangest is that you cannot use your hands unless you  are the goal keeper. Seems unnatural to me. You can use your head but not your hands. In these days when concussion and its after effects are coming under increasing scrutiny, the use of the head may one day be banned. That’s if the soccer administrators use their heads.

Even stranger though, is that  if a player causes the ball to go over the side line, on purpose or accidentally, it must be returned in to the play by  a player from  the opposite team. Well, that  is not strange but how it is returned to  play is mind boggling. Just  how does this player return the ball? He throws it! He uses his hands and he throws it.  I am not  making this up. It is the rule in soccer, a game where you are not allowed to handle the ball. Why don’t they kick it  in? Or head it in?

Like rugby,  the two soccer teams occupy either half of the ground at the start of play. Their aim is to get the ball into their goal at the other end of the ground. Unlike rugby, soccer players can pass  the ball forward which is quite sensible as, otherwise, it would never get anywhere near their goal.

However, in Soccer,  the Offside Rule says that no player can be ahead of the ball. In simple terms the offside rule says, “an attacking player, when in the opposition half, must have at least two opposition players, including the goalkeeper, between him/her  and the opposition goal when a pass is being played to him/her.” For those who do not know, “The opposition half” is the half of the ground in front of  the goal net that the attacking players are trying to reach.

Even soccer lover have trouble with this rule. In fact the Offside Rule once stipulated that three opposition players must be between the attacking player and the goal. Hockey had the same rule which was amended in 1972 from  3 players to 2 from the halfway line. In 1987, hockey amended this rule to only apply within the 25 yard area. Then in 1996 they experimented with a No Offside rule. This gave more power to the attacking side, speeding  up the game and, more importantly, led to more goals being scored and making for much more exciting and dynamic game. In 1998 Hockey canned the  offside rule altogether. Hockey lovers say  this improved their game.

 So far, Soccer has been happy to stay with the two man offside rule. That is probably why soccer crowds are known for singing and chanting to keep themselves awake and amused during low scoring games. And rioting, of course. At many grounds soccer barrackers are segregated in separate areas of the ground.

Goals are still hard to score in Soccer and draws are quite common. However, the administrators have made it very easy to score goals in soccer. If the ball crosses the goal line and goes into  the net it is a goal. It does not matter if somebody touches it or it hits the posts at the side or on top of the goal. If the ball is in in the net then it is a goal. If it hits the top of the goal and bounces inside the goal line and then bounces out again …it is still a goal. In fact, even if an opposing player kicks, heads or otherwise causes the ball into the net, it is a goal.  They call it an Own Goal.

Indeed, goals are so rare in soccer, that when a player scores a goal he goes into a well rehearsed highly  choreographed routine which often involves him ripping off his shirt. Of course if a player unfortunately scores an Own Goal for the opposing side he does not dance for joy and rip his shirt off. Quite the opposite.

I do not write these lines to belittle rugby or soccer. They are both wonderful games. In fact, some of my best friends played rugby and/or soccer. Nothing wrong with that! I write merely to point out that Australian Rules fans have refrained from writing letters poking fun at soccer and rugby basically because we could not care less.  We love our Australian footy game and we love the  rules, er, pardon me, Laws that make it unique.

As somebody once said, “It’s more than a game!”