The Sports Guy blasts lame American atmosphere and praises soccer crowds

Re: The Title of This Thread is Poor

Hopefully.

 

What are you on about? I lived in London in the 80s, and sure there were lot of Spurs fans, but only marginally more than today. If anything, the big bandwagon team was Liverpool. By miles and miles and miles.

I think the Sports Guy needs to be cut some slack. The people who are criticising his little mistakes here and there are the same ones who can't wait to make fun of typos or grammatical errors in a post. Does it really make that much of a difference whether he said Arsenal's drought ended in 2004 or 1998?

I commend Simmons for having made an honest effort. He did some serious research (it takes a lot of time to read all those e-mails) and is at least trying to understand the sport, as well as the culture surrounding it - which is more than any mainstream American sportswriter would have done a few years ago. If anything, the article will raise the profile of the sport in the US and will let people know that the excitement doesn't have to die down just because the WC is over.

He also had a few spot-on areas, like the cheers prompted by jumbotrons, stupid music playing during games, etc... And of course he came to the only logical conclusion. Not that I'm biased or anything

 

Re: The Title of This Thread is Poor

Right. I guess you can just call me bigfoot, then.
I'll see you at Fados for the derby, you little bandwagon jumper, you.

 

I figured this was coming. From the Sports Guy:

You knew I'd have some screw-ups in Wednesday's starting-from-scratch column about the English Premier League . Here were the biggies:

• Tottenham Hotspur's nickname is "Spurs," not "the Spurs." Nobody ever calls them "the Spurs." Unless you want to be a wanker. Along those same lines, the term "EPL" is never used. Only "Premier League."

• Liverpool's main rivals are Everton and Manchester United.

• Newscastle is now sponsored by Northern Rock.

• Celeb update: Jay-Z is an Arsenal fan and James Lipton is a Spurs fan.

• Arsenal did win the Premier League in 1998 and 2002. Not sure how I screwed that up.

• The LeBron comparison for Theo Walcott didn't work -- Walcott hasn't played a single minute yet.

• Amazingly, I forgot to mention that Tottenham Hotspur's emblem is a cock and a ball.

• In my Godfather/London analogy about the Premier League, Chelsea should have been Sonny, not Manchester United. Just a brainfart on my part.

• Multiple readers agree that Highbury (Arsenal's stadium) is more like Wrigley than Fenway.

• Wigan coach Paul Jewell wrote in himself to say, "I do not wear a trenchcoat on the sidelines, more often than not I wear a warm-up jacket. Sometimes a suit. Cheers!"

 

he's a good writer. very entertaining. and until recently all his soccer comments were pretty negative so i'll take the tradeoff of whatever people didn't like about the article.

he was putting comments in that fans had sent him. he wasn't going to each team's site and doing research. it was purely people lobbying for teams and giving him facts and opinions.

he's a completely shameless homer for boston which i love. it's a running theme in his articles. before he was espn's "sports guy", he was "Boston sports guy" and wrote for a local web site.

and what he's saying about the atmosphere at mls games -- it's hard to disagree. i wish we had 1/10 of EPL atmosphere or fan conviction.

 

Right, where as MLS soccer broadcaster seem to be telling the crowd, "You are having too good of a time, so will fail to mic the crowd and make are commentary as boring as possible." Please note that JP, Messing and Davis are exempt from the previous statement.

 

Re: The Title of This Thread is Poor

No such thing as an American Spurs fan? Um, right....

 

The LeBron comparison for Theo Walcott didn't work -- Walcott hasn't played a single minute yet.

A solid LeBron comparison would have been Wayne Rooney.

Hopefully, this article will spark the intrest of more Americans to watch the Premiership. I got hooked on soccer watching the EPL on FSC, I think that it is a brand of soccer that American's would identify with and enjoy. The physical nature of the play with less diving, and more goals than the WC coupled with the atmosphere is something that can hook fans.

Once you are have the bug, you then look towards other teams more local teams to support as well whether it be USMNT or MLS.

 

Actually it's more often called the 'Premiership'.

 

Anyone fact checking Simmons needs to go have a good drink and buy a bigger pair of briefs. The guy is the best sports read this side of Phil Ball.

 

exactly, that pissed me off more than him picking spurs. oops I mean the Spurs. no one calls them the spurs. they dont play basketball in san antonio. Oh, btw it proved not to be food poisining.