Football (By Any Name) Is Still What We Make It

That’s because fans have this nasty tendency to prattle on about the superiority of their chosen football code like it’s their team. “Our football is the real football!”, they shout as loudly as possible, as if extra decibels can win them the argument.

Of course, they’re all ignoramuses. All those people spouting off about “real football” are completely oblivious to the fact that all football codes share a common ancestry, and that all our modern football games are merely products of their environment. Soccer and rugby both exist because some English schools had wide open fields and others didn’t. Rugby union and rugby league both exist largely because of a dispute between northern and southern Englishmen. The forward pass exists in the gridiron game in part because of one terrified Tar Heel punter. Walter Camp, the father of the gridiron game, thought the forward pass was stupid, but the Yale man’s plan to widen the field instead of adopting the forward pass was trumped by the already-built Harvard Stadium.

We fallible humans made the rules to all these games, and we can adjust those rules to suit their needs — something we do quite frequently. Is the offside rule stifling goal scoring? Let’s loosen it up a bit. Are teams clobbering wide receivers to gain an advantage? Write in an illegal contact rule. The Aussie Rules are rarely ever the same from one year to the next. This all but invalidates the notion that any particular type of football code is “real football.” It’s all just different ways of playing the game.

And people come up with new ways to play football all the time.

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You Can Run Your Football Group
(By Any Name)
on Zenergo!

We’re an activities network — so of course we have Football as one of our Activities! As well as Rugby, and Soccer, and Gaelic Football.

Not to mention Flag/Touch Football, Fantasy Football, High School, College, and Professional Football — even Football Videogaming!

Zenergo is a great place to host your group — whatever kind of foot-oriented ball you prefer. Zenergo is free to join, and lets you quickly and easily set up a group for your team/club/association/casual bunch, then post pictures and documents and maintain a calendar — and set up Events and invite others to them. Recruit more players/fans/enthusiasts! It’s fast, it’s easy — give it a try at http://www.Zenergo.com .

(Yes, we also have Squash and Kickball — and Footbag and 4Square too!)