Completely OT, but quick question...

[RUPD3658]

While I am not a fan of soccar I truely hate the Wiggles. Every Australian we Americans see in the media is tough and rugged. I thought you were all that way until these 4 ruined it. Captain Feathersword? Oh, please.[:-]

At least it isn't as bad as the crap the Brits poison our kids with (Telletubbies and Bobah)[:D]

[Reg]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay
Alas, his day has passed...

If only that were true.... I'd never seen a junior soccer player 'Red Card'ed until yesterday in my son's game.

BTW, It was all the fault of a fire breathing coach who THEN had the gall to blame the referee!!!!

[bradfordkay]

Oh... I wasn't talking about rough play... I was just talking about Andy Capp!

[Tomo]

We call Soccer in Japan too.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: RUPD3658

While I am not a fan of soccar I truely hate the Wiggles. Every Australian we Americans see in the media is tough and rugged. I thought you were all that way until these 4 ruined it. Captain Feathersword? Oh, please.[:-]

At least it isn't as bad as the crap the Brits poison our kids with (Telletubbies and Bobah)[:D]

I dont think anone from the USA should comment about other Nations TV!!

[Ron Saueracker]

I'm pretty sure that every non-UK nation refers to said sport as soccer. They just have to get over it. They also call hockey "ice-hockey"...like there is another version.[;)]

[Yamato hugger]

I blame Feinder for starting this thread.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

I'm pretty sure that every non-UK nation refers to said sport as soccer. They just have to get over it. They also call hockey "ice-hockey"...like there is another version.[;)]

Yeah I remember when I was in Canada and I mentioned that Australia were the World hockey champions they looked at me strangely, like the didn't believe me or something... [;)]

[Ursa MAior]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

I'm pretty sure that every non-UK nation refers to said sport as soccer.

By far not all of them. On the continent it is literally foot-ball in most languages (fußball e.g.) [;)]

How is it in greek Ron?

[Sonny II]

ORIGINAL: RUPD3658

While I am not a fan of soccar I truely hate the Wiggles. Every Australian we Americans see in the media is tough and rugged. I thought you were all that way until these 4 ruined it. Captain Feathersword? Oh, please.[:-]

At least it isn't as bad as the crap the Brits poison our kids with (Telletubbies and Bobah)[:D]

Hey, whats wrong with Telletubbies! They are one of my favorites![:D]

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

ORIGINAL: RUPD3658

While I am not a fan of soccar I truely hate the Wiggles. Every Australian we Americans see in the media is tough and rugged. I thought you were all that way until these 4 ruined it. Captain Feathersword? Oh, please.[:-]

At least it isn't as bad as the crap the Brits poison our kids with (Telletubbies and Bobah)[:D]

I dont think anone from the USA should comment about other Nations TV!!

At one point, i would have agreed with you... until i travelled overseas and actually saw some of the local programming... [X(]

It only got worse when they had some specials like:
The BEST OF (fill-in-a-country-name) TV ...

[Dixie]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: JeffK

ORIGINAL: RUPD3658

While I am not a fan of soccar I truely hate the Wiggles. Every Australian we Americans see in the media is tough and rugged. I thought you were all that way until these 4 ruined it. Captain Feathersword? Oh, please.[:-]

At least it isn't as bad as the crap the Brits poison our kids with (Telletubbies and Bobah)[:D]

I dont think anone from the USA should comment about other Nations TV!!

At one point, i would have agreed with you... until i travelled overseas and actually saw some of the local programming... [X(]

It only got worse when they had some specials like:
The BEST OF (fill-in-a-country-name) TV ...

I suppose it depends on what you are used to. When I was in the US I tried watching the TV, but the stuff they had on was terrible. I was glad to get back to good old blighty and the BBC [:D]

Also, we invented football, also known as asscoiation football back in the old days when everyone was called Alf or Cyril. This means we get to call it what we like [:D] [:'(]

[DaveB]

Of course we also invented TV, which was originally only on for about 15 minutes a day and presented by well spoken chaps in dinner jackets and bow ties. (For extremely informal occasions a lounge suit and tie was acceptable, but it was against BBC policy to have informal events on TV until 1968). No joke, my mate's Mum used to go and wash and put her makeup on for the announcer at closedown, she thought 'I can see him, so he can see me...'
 
Televison, unlike Football, in Britain was therefore the realm of a 'different sort of chap'. On TV one only had a flat cap if one had a sports car to drive, one often had a ladies name despite being a chap (Hilary was popular, Gladys was considered to be taking the ****), and ones mass did not increase exponentially when it rained - unlike in soccer. Oh, concussion was almost entirely the province of the lower classes too.
 
For those former colonies and - let's call a spade a spade - foreigners - the distinction between the British people who committed 'soccer' and those who provided TV, was chiefly down to (a) Names, (b) Accent, and (c) Where one spent the weekend. (It is a well known fact that up to 1936 the English upper classes went to country houses where a crime occurred, generally to be solved by either a surprisingly sharp minded spinster or some Johnny Belgian).
 
How this country could POSSIBLY be given such a hard time by the Nipponese is beyond me - in an all out fight it stands to reason that the guy whacking you with a rose bush is going to beat seven bells out ofa 5ft tall chap with thick glasses wielding a Chrysanthemum). Bring back Capt Hurricane, that's what I say....
 
(Exits to sound of faint Huzzahs) 
 
Now back to trying to persuade the Empire to bypass Singapore....

[Alfred]

Feinder,
 
Back to your original post.
 
The 11 a side, round ball game, called football in continental Europe and South America, used to be called soccer in Australia.  As a result, the male international team is called the "Socceroos" (= soccer + roo from kangaroo) and the male olympic team is called the "Olyroos".  The national body governing the game was called, IIRC, the Australian Soccer Federation.
 
However, about 2-3 years ago, soccer in Australia underwent a major restructuring both at the management and national competition level.  The national governing body is now called the Australian Football Federation.  The changes were made both to improve the domestic standard of the game and as a marketing ploy as one of the objectives was to leave the Oceania Football Federation and join the stronger (and in theory easier route to reach the finals of the Word Cup) Asian football federation.
 
Technically, the term soccer should no longer be used in Australia and the officials try to insist that the game be referred to only as football.  In practice this however is very confusing as the 3 other main team ball handling games;
 
(a)  Rugby Union
(b)  Rugby League
(c)  Australian Rules Football (nowadays officially called by its administrators "Australian Football")
 
are commonly also referred to as football by their respective supporters and commentators.  These 3 codes all use an oval ball (similar in shape to, but larger in size, than a gridiron ball) and allow the ball to be handled.
 
Alfred 

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: DaveB

Of course we also invented TV....

i assume you are being as satyrical here as you are in the rest of your post... [:'(]

AFAIK and as far as i can find - first public demos (where press and the general public had access) of TV were given in the US... looking up the names of the pioneers in the technology gives us this list:

EFW (Ernest Frederik Werner) Alexanderson (American)

Belin and Barthelemy (French)

Hollis Semple Baird (American)

John Logie Baird (Scottish)

Philo T. Farnsworth (American)

Leslie E. Flory (American)

Dénes von Mihaly (Hungarian)

Charles Francis Jenkins (American)

Karolus (German)

Boris Rosing (Russian)

Ulises Armand Sanabria (American)

Kalman Tihanyi (Hungarian)

Kenjiro Takayanagi (Japanese)

Vladimir Kosma Zworykin (American)


Well, one oout of 14 isn't too bad...

EDIT: Baird did give a semi-private demo of TV to the Royal Academy 1 year before the more public one given by Bell Labs (also a "mechanical" system rather than electronic). (40 people got to see the Baird demo.)

The Baird TV was called "mechanical" by electronic historians. Farnsworth gets the credit for first electronic TV.

[DaveB]

Not really,
although there were a lot of forerunner technologies, I'd accept Zworkin as POSSIBLY having a system as he developed a camera (his iconoscope) is 1923 and a receiver (his kinescope) in 1929, Baird and Jenkin did a silhouette version around 1925, Baird however managed a 30 line system running at 5 fps in 1926... to me that's a recognisable TV system. Inside a year Bell demoed a long distance system from DC to NY, so it's a technology that is determined to be invented and 'who did it first' becomes a bit of a scramble I guess.
 
Naturally over here in the UK I was taught in my early years about how John Logie Baird invented TV, becoming that extra special sort of Englishman - the sort we like to claim ownership of, despite not actually being noticeably English. (English history is full of Scotsmen who became the pride of England by inventing good stuff. Some famous Englishmen have come from as far afield as New Zealand, which is stretching things quite far even by our standards).
 
Dave