> Heathen, know ye not there is but One True Football. Lucky for you
> footy is not a jealous God.
Oh I'm well aware that there is only one football code -- the question was about which only-one-football-code you were referring. I always thought Tasmania had both 'rugby' and the AFL, but I guess not.
> Australians have found room in their
> great big hearts to worship strange sports from every corner of
> the globe, even the quaint "rugby" code practiced by some natives
> of NSW and Queensland.
Personally I have my limits, and league is outside some of them. I can listen to people talk about sport, it doesn't offend me or anything. I even know all of the main cricket bowling styles, and various other necessary social ephemera, but rugby league I cannot bear. This, of course, because I was raised on it. Nothing but family inspires such intolerance. OK, family or John Howard.
> Since there are seven days in every week
> and 24 hours in every day and barely enough sports to fill the
> whole schedule (especially with all the extra PayTV slots)
> sectarianism doesn't get a look into the Australian psyche. In
> fact it has been found necessary to invent entirely new sports,
> such as sports lifesaving, to take up the slack.
Competitive supermarket trolley racing is my alltime all-Australian favourite. And surfing... televised surfing. I mean, please.
> Australia is, by this measure, a tolerant multicultural society,
> its people always willing to tolerate, yea even embrace, alien
> sports.
Actually, alien sports take a while. And some are too arcane and/or stupid. Synchronised swimming is one thing, but nobody watches American football.
>(Mind you, some of the actual people are a different
> question. Camel racing gets a guernsey, of course, but middle-east
> refugees can expect a red card from the umpire and to be thrown
> back out to sea like an undersize catch.)
The size of the fish is not important. In fact, baby ones make a colourful and appealling display in an A-Current-Affair-style tank... what matters is culture, race, religion, and ideological function. Oh, yeah, maybe money too.
Catherine