Breakin' it down: football versus football

It's easy for many in a foreign land to proudly proclaim the superiority of their own native culture in some aspect of eating, living or otherwise. For Old Ken, such boasts have been a bit hard to come by in recent years, what with our fine national leadership, progressive attitudes toward scientific fact (evolution, global warming, etc.), and far-sighted foreign policies.



But, if there is one place where a little harmless chauvinism would still seem to be justified, it has got to be the sporting arena. Don't worry, Old Ken is not one of those Yanks who "just doesn't care about soccer." Far from it! As I and numerous of my oversea visitors have found, international football is amazing when played by great players and, more importantly, when watched in an appropriate atmosphere. However, there are certain aspects wherein football in England undoubtedly trails behind the very different game that is American football.

Most obviously, I suppose, I could point to the cheerleaders of American football (see above) or those of English football (see below). No further comment could possibly be needed.



Lest this sound misogynist and objectifying, let's turn to the fans. While in America, we get jackasses: see exhibit A.



In Britain, we get hooligans.



Yet, the real issue I want to get at is the terminology each sport uses to name its unlawful procedures. In American sports, these terms are pretty straightforward: football teams have to keep their expenditure on players within a certain limit. Spending beyond this limit constitutes a "salary cap violation." Alternately, it is illegal to "bet" on a game or to try to make your own team lose for the sake of making a bet result; this would be called "throwing" a game. However, in British sport (see the British newspapers of today particularly), there is a lot of flap over "tapping up." This phrase designates conversations between a player contracted to one team and representatives of another team that wants to sign him. It's fine with me that this is illegal in English football. But "tapping up"? Surely they could have come up with a cooler phrase than that!

The main culprit here, though, is illustrated by the first image in this blog. Those are "bungs." More specifically, they are: "Universal carboy bungs [which] have a generous taper, so they fit standard 3, 5, 6 and 6.5 gallon carboys. It is impossible to push carboy bungs into a carboy. Unlike stoppers, carboy bungs will seal a carboy when they are still wet." Now, in a scandal that broke last night, some prominent English football managers have been accused of taking bribes from the agents of players they've signed. That's illegal. Fine. But why do those bribes or back-handers have to be called "bungs"? It's just too silly!

So, to conclude, American football is ultimately better than English football on the grounds of the superiority of its terminology for illegal behavior. Discuss!