I recall going for a Sunday kick-about in a park in Brooklyn, and there must have been 5 to 10 real football games going on.

From appearances and strips, predominately South Americans and Africans.

It must be a credit to American sports, that, after the US accepting millions of migrants from real football playing nations across the world, that it should be such a minor sport.

With just the Irish and Italians in New York, you would think the city would have a league of its own.

"Soccer" is a perfectly good word, an English word invented in England by the English. Stands for association football.

We do have a league, two of them in fact. They're not hugely successful but they carry on.

The Irish in the states mostly came over before football was around, and if they follow it they follow the Premiership (I can't stand to say "Eee Pee Ell", like an American-style league, it's just wrong). Baseball was the big sports outlet for the Irish in America.

The Italians follow football avidly: Italian football. One of the problems with the American soccer leagues, especially in this day of satellite TV, is that it's hard to justify supporting a small local club, with virtually no history, when there's top-flight soccer on TV all the time. Why would I want to go stand with 1500 people watching the semi-pro Sounders, when I can watch Liverpool or Juventus or Barcelona on TV? If you want to see the best players, you watch the best leagues.

Sadly, AAFrequentFlyer, unless you get a different FSN than I do, you don't get all the Premiership games. There's only three a week, repeated many times, along with a few random Italian, French, Argentinian, Mexican, and American games. My team, Spurs, have only been on something like four or five times this season, including various cup ties, which is typical. You can get more games on Setanta, if you have a dish (I don't).

The pay-per-view has gotten out of hand lately; they're charging crazy prices, and they're enforcing an equivalent cover charge at bars that show the match. The local English pub was asking $20 a head to get in the door for England v. Israel a while back; no thanks. For $40 plus food and drink it had better damn well be the FA Cup! Speaking of which, they'll probably want $50 for that. Sigh. We used to watch for free....

London is all about the FA Cup final (ok, Tony Blair's visit to Iraq and the bombing of the Green Zone is right there as well), but the match is on everybody's mind.

I was talking to the Hilton Metropole Concierge yesterday evening when a ticket broker dropped off 2 tickets for a hotel guest at a price of 1000BPs. I'm very tempted to sell my 1 ticket.....:-D

Go ManU!!!!!

That's 1000BPs EACH!!!

My team, Spurs, have only been on something like four or five times this season, including various cup ties, which is typical.>>>>

I too am a spurs fan (as the screen name will tell you). I belong to the spurs list email group which has a passell of yanks on it - and they see all the games by a bit of clever hunting around (chinese channels on t'internet etc).

I'd be happy to put you in touch if you want.

Yanks (not Yanks) on Spurs fan list - these have gotta be transplanted Brits or why the hell would any real Yank have even heard of the Spurs let alone root for such a loser.

Go ManU - one real Yank who once was a Spurs fan before the bandwagon broke down.

Bob - Get help.

It's going to be hard for us footie fans to make the case that the old calcio is exciting after Man Utd and Chelsea stank Wembley out yesterday.

One good chant - Chelsea to Man Utd "you only live round the corner"

Tickets are apparently going for several hundred quid on ebay

England: note that the ultimately successful invasion of England by true football will date from Oct 28, 2007

Is that the game with the sticks?

good question waring, i note your interest in learning nuances of real football:

yes the sticks are ten yards apart - when the ball advances beyond the first stick they get a first down and four more attempts get another - then they move the sticks up to where the ball ends up if a first down and start all over.

any other questions so Brits, if possible, can understand a game more complex than soccer?

Frankly no one understands it.

In any case I doubt if we could muster enough obese people to create a league.

There was a European NFL, but nobody knew or cared about it. It shut up shop just a few months ago.

90% of the players were American and five of the six teams were in Germany.

Anyway, what is that all about? Dressing fat people up in riot gear and getting them to body check each other is in the same category as bum-fights and dwarf throwing.

Wellie-Throwing, Cheese-Rolling and Bog-Snorkelling have larger followings.

Well, more's to the point, when they last showed Big Girls' Blouseball on TV, it got lower audiences than sheepdog trials.

And it wasn't me that said that's because both the sheep and the dogs displayed higher IQ, cleverer tactics and better physical shape than the Blouseball players.

do those smart, presumably English sheep and dogs or English sheep dogs sell out Wembley Stadium?

They probably would, however you need trees, hills, fences etc.

Used to pull in 8 million TV viewers in its prime.

Course not. Unlike football or Blouseball players, they're far too smart to put up with a dungheap like Wembley.

But every week throughout late summer and early autumn, far more people than the capacity of Wembley pay real money to go to far more remote places to watch the sheep and dogs perform.

8 million to watch sheepdog trials every week?

i don't even have to comment on that! Says it all itself. England really is going to the dogs.

You have to consider that the Taffs and the Jocks watch it for purposes of sexual gratification.

waring - you obviously are referring to Brit Taffs and Jocks watching the sheepdog stuff for sexual gratification?

Like they said in Montana and now perhaps in north of England - men are men and sheep are scaaaaaared!

>>yes the sticks are ten yards apart - when the ball advances beyond the first stick they get a first down and four more attempts get another - then they move the sticks up to where the ball ends up if a first down and start all over.<<

You mean, it's like Poohsticks for people who are scared of water?

Patty - i think you're catching on - a smart Brit i guess