Question . . .

The stupid thing is that I too am left footed.

 

Rugby (union) and athletics to county level until leaving sixth form, however my main game was always football - got as far as a very brief dalliance with the intermediates at Oakwell (under Winstanley) before settling into the amateur local/regional leagues and 5/6 a side etc. Sadly the twin distractions of booze and women meant the death knell for my weekend football career, however I kept up with the short game until a few years ago. Any BBSers have a 5/6 a side team that needs an extra man who can still play a bit but is now 41 and desperately needs fat camp?

 

Football is an emotional game, especially for watchers with a vested interest in the result. Organisation and management of a team has to be done with the head and not with the heart. Most observers make comments from the heart and not from the head. As one of the older posters on here, I have learned the difference between the two and how to stop the heart dominating the head whilst watching a game. Consequently, my comments on here are often more logical than most. Watching a game from the side helps as well, because I do not think that you can tell what is going on from an end on view. But this board allows all opinions, from whatever aspect both visually and emotionally, and that is just how it should be.

Women's football is not a joke, but it is different from men's football because the participants are different. Those differences do not invalidate it as a sport, but watchers need to be aware that participants in the women's game are not as strong or as quick as participants in the men's game, but that they can still achieve high standards in their game. I watch the women's game on TV when I can, and can enjoy the game, notwithstanding it differences from the men's game. Should women play in the men's game? No because they could not compete with a man's strength, and there is a danger that bad injuries could result.

 

I disagree with that. I feel that some women are a lot faster than some men. Toni Duggan for example would leave someone like Marlon Harewood for dead.
Then you say that they cannot compete with a man's strength meaning they could get injured. Have you not seen Danny Rose?

SOME women are weaker than SOME men but also SOME men are weaker than SOME men. Everyone plays to their strengths, be that a woman or a man. Michael Owen was only a little lad so he played to his strengths, Emile Heskey is the opposite so plays to his instead. If we are banning women because they are not as strong as men then for me we have to install a minimum strength test before we allow anyone to play football. If you can't achieve a certain strength level then you are banned on safety grounds. Of course that will never happen for men so why should women be excluded with the same excuse?

Women should be allowed to play in the same team as men if they are good enough as far as i'm concerned. That doesn't however mean that I think they are or aren't good enough.

 

Of course, my point about strength and speed was a generalisation based upon the fact that the world record for the 100m is 0.91 seconds lower for men than is is for women and that the world record for the snatch is 63kg lower for men. Of course, there will be some exceptions, but comparing professional football for men and women, not many. Danny Rose is still a boy, but even so, I doubt he your reasoning that he is less strong than a woman. This does not mean than he does not need to bulk up so that he is better able to withstand challenges by other men. My worry on the strength front is that body strength is used in the men's game to shoulder others off the ball and to protect the ball when challenged. When used against other men, players are used to using a level of strength that some women would be hurt by. The player would often not be aware whether he was being challenged by another man or a woman. This is the reason that I was thinking about when I raised the possibility of women being badly hurt. One badly hurt woman in a game of mixed football would raise an outcry.

 

I still don't buy it at all. The average footballer, male or female, is not a world record holding weight lifter nor a world record holding 100m sprinter. Players come in all different shapes and sizes from your Parkin's and Mido's to your Owen's and Rose's. If, as you say, the players don't know who they are tackling (I'd be amazed by that actually) then surely they don't know if they're about to challenge Owen or Mido so there is still a very real risk of injuring the smaller players. In fact Michael Owen was often injured due to his size but he was still allowed to play and that is why Women should be allowed to as well.

 

With your logic the only people in the world entitled to an opinion on football

Are arguably Pele, Maradona and Messi as they are better than everyone else and as such are the only individuals entitled to an opinion.

Thus rendering the likes of Mourinho and Wenger as jobless feckwits.

 

If we assume that football is played by the elite of both sexes, then the elite male should be 10% faster and 25% stronger than his female opponent. That would mean that the elite woman would have to play against a male opponent who is well below the elite level, that is a male opponent who is 10% slower and 25% less strong. The game at the lower levels of football tends to be marred by physical and mistimed challenges. Should an elite woman risk serious injury at a level of football which is some way below that that she would achieve in a woman v woman sport, all for a chance of acquiring a serious injury. I doubt it and I do not think you would get many elite women interested in turning out at the sort of level that those figures indicate. The only sports that you get mixed participation are the non contact sports (Tennis, Badminton etc). Even in these sports, the woman is seen as the weak link and is targeted by the male opponent.

 

top and bottom of it red rain,is that women should stick to the ironing and weshin the pots..like it

 

That is not what I said.... AT ALL