Has your sporting tastes changed over time?

[Red Alert]

When I was but a boy I could not stand to watch or play any sport at all if it was not football. Nothing else in the whole world of sport mattered one single bit to me. AS I have aged I seem to be getting more diverse in my viewing and have found myself very excited by both the Tour de France in the last few years and for the first time I can remember I have been really enjoying the Ashes. Is this an age thing, or am I just really really missing the football?

 

ps. That being said, its still just running into each other holding an egg.

[miserableoldgit]

I have really fallen out of love with football over recent years and would rather watch other sports. I really enjoy Rugby and got ridiculously excited when the Lions won in Australia recently and although not a major Tennis fan got caught up with the whole Andy Murray thing. I also have loved Speedway since I was a kid and watched the Saints every week at Bannister Court. The GP series is brilliant and I go the the British GP at the Millenium Stadium every year. We had a great team in those days. If it wasn`t for my love/passion for Southampton Football Club, who I have been watching since the mid 1950`s, I probably wouldn`t watch football at all now.

[pap]

It's mostly been footy for me all my life, although I've seen people make long-term switches into other sports. Ms pap's family live in Rugby League land and her brother, once a die-hard scally LFC fan, is now an egg chaser, making numerous comments about it being the best sport in the world.

 

So no, very little else apart from football for me. I have a huge amount of respect for other sports, but not the time, especially as I've been watching football for 30 years and still don't really understand all of that either.

[ericofarabia]

It's mostly been footy for me all my life, although I've seen people make long-term switches into other sports. Ms pap's family live in Rugby League land and her brother, once a die-hard scally LFC fan, is now an egg chaser, making numerous comments about it being the best sport in the world.

 

So no, very little else apart from football for me. I have a huge amount of respect for other sports, but not the time, especially as I've been watching football for 30 years and still don't really understand all of that either.

 

Mrs EoA is also from Rugby League stock - her dad played for Leigh in the 60's. I've been to a few RL games and have to say although I don't really understand the rules I find it pretty exciting and better viewing than Rugby Union.

My last game was in Jan, Salford V St Helens and Salford were getting thrashed, something like 40 - 0 but fair play, on a freezing bitterly cold night with only a few minutes to go the Salford players were still going into every crunching tackle on the rock hard pitch as if their lives depended on it. No poncing around each time any physical contact was made, no arguing with the ref, no stops in play if the trainer was needed they just came on and treated the player and even subs were made without any stoppage in play.

 

Football could learn a lot from RL. They even had warm up bikes and exercise mats next to the dug outs so that the on coming subs could do a bit of stretching and warm up before coming on.

 

Total respect to them. It makes me cringe when I see the antics of so called football stars feigning injury in an attempt to get opposition players sent off or win free kicks and penaltys by cheating. I'd love to see them on a RL pitch for even just 5 minutes.

Edited 4 August, 2013 by ericofarabia

[pap]

Mrs EoA is also from Rugby League stock - her dad played for Leigh in the 60's. I've been to a few RL games and have to say although I don't really understand the rules I find it pretty exciting and better viewing than Rugby Union.

My last game was in Jan, was Salford V St Helens and Salford were getting thrashed, something like 40 - 0 but fair play, on a freezing bitterly cold night with only a few minutes to go the Salford players were still going into every crunching tackle on the rock hard pitch as if their lives depended on it. No pouncing around each time any physical contact was made, no arguing with the ref, no stops in play if the trainer was needed they just came on and treated the player and even subs were made without any stoppage in play.

 

Football could learn a lot from RL. They even had warm up bikes and exercise mats next to the dug outs so that the on coming subs could do a bit of stretching and warm up before coming on.

 

Total respect to them. It makes me cringe when I see the antics of so called football stars feigning injury in an attempt to get opposition players sent off or win free kicks and penaltys by cheating. I'd love to see them on a RL pitch for even just 5 minutes.

 

His nipper plays for Leigh at the moment, which is one of the reasons he's so into it. I used to play Union at school; it was one of the few sports where being a podgy semi-mobile lump was an advantage, especially if you play without fear ( used to make it a point of principle to take the PE teacher out ). Even before they moved out there, one of my mates from Uni was from Hindley Green, and this is in the days where Wigan were all conquering, so I naturally heard a lot about RL back then.

 

Maybe I should get myself down to a St. Helens game. See what all the fuss is about. It's not cheating. They're the Saints too, right?

[The9]

When I was a kid in the 80s I'd watch absolutely any sport, though I used to find horse racing (except the Grand National), golf and cricket pretty tedious.

 

But I'd watch a ton of athletics, all the football that was on tv, Five Nations rugby, Athletics World Championships, the whole of Wimbledon, Kelloggs City Centre Cycling, London Marathon, Tour de France, Commonwealth Games, Olympics, NFL on Channel 4, NBA before MotD on BBC1, basically pretty much anything - back when there were 4 channels and you'd take the sport where you could get it.

 

Nowadays I literally just watch football and occasional NFL, NHL and NBA - plus I caught myself watching Hants T20 the other night, but that's hardly cricket. I couldn't give a toss about anything else. I watched a load of stuff during the Olympics but that was a one off. I watched a little bit of the TdF this year as it happened to coincide with a spell of working from home, and I had a mate running London Marathon so I saw that, plus the Wimbledon Men's Final was the only bit of that I've watched in about 20 years, but I have no interest in the sort of sports that Question of Sport used to ask loads of questions about in the late 80s and I know literally none of the "stars" outside Usain Bolt, Andy Murray and Tiger Woods.

 

But I've also gone from watching all football to watching only football I'm specifically interested in - there's just so much of it out there now.

[Saint_clark]

I flicker in and out of other sports, have found myself watching F1, UFC, cricket, rugby and golf at one point or another. Regularly watch Brits in tennis grand slams. I used to be able to watch any football match and get into it, but nowadays it's a bit more difficult...which has resulted in me putting a few quid on a team to win whenever I watch football as a neutral now just to try and get into it.

[Red Alert]

I used to be able to watch any football match and get into it, but nowadays it's a bit more difficult...which has resulted in me putting a few quid on a team to win whenever I watch football as a neutral now just to try and get into it.

 

This is me almost perfectly now. I used to watch any footie that was on the telly. I always though some league 1 cloggers was still much better than anything else on the tv at the time. Now I find myself flicking around to see what else is on as I just dont get into it in the same way I used to.

[ericofarabia]

His nipper plays for Leigh at the moment, which is one of the reasons he's so into it. I used to play Union at school; it was one of the few sports where being a podgy semi-mobile lump was an advantage, especially if you play without fear ( used to make it a point of principle to take the PE teacher out ). Even before they moved out there, one of my mates from Uni was from Hindley Green, and this is in the days where Wigan were all conquering, so I naturally heard a lot about RL back then.

 

Maybe I should get myself down to a St. Helens game. See what all the fuss is about. It's not cheating. They're the Saints too, right?

 

When I first went up to Leigh to visit Mrs EoA's folk, it took me a while to figure out that there were just too many Follow The Saints stickers in cars, to be SFC fans in the 'hood!!

 

Actually from what I've seen, a lot of their merchandise doesn't always have the Club Crest on - you could get yourself some good Saints stuff from there.

[dinger]

Very similar to the OP really. When I was a kid I would watch any sport and be gripped by it, glued to Grandstand/World of Sport every Saturday. In my mid/late-teens I was going through a socialist, pretend to be working class phase and convinced myself that only football was real sport. These days I'm comfortable admitting that test cricket is the pinnacle of sporting endeavour. And I'm back to watching any sport that I can, I just love a contest, although I still can't get my head around rugby (either code). In fact as time goes by I find myself more drawn to watching slow stuff like cricket, golf, snooker, bowls, stuff you can switch your mind down a few gears to.

 

But the three where I actually support a team are:

Football - Saints (obviously)

Cricket - England/Hants

American Football - Dolphins

 

Everything else it's just fun to see people who are good at a thing trying to be better than the other people doing a thing.

[Colinjb]

My first sporting love was Formula 1, the Nigel Mansell title winning season. Only really got into football when I was 12, Euro 96 really made something click with me. I've become more open minded with sport as i've grown older, it only used to be those two core interests at one time but now i'll happily watch and get into anything competitive.

Edited 10 August, 2013 by Colinjb