The Anti-Rugby Football Thread

Good point, well made.

Yourself and Nembo do some great pivoting.

Strange post. The International Championship was first competed for in 1883. The British Lions first toured New Zealand in 1888. It was the spring of 1889 before Preston North End were crowned the inaugural English football league champions.

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My initial point, and it stands, is that comparing the 1960s European Cup Finals to today’s rugby equivalent was farcical.

That’s your initial point, not mine, well done on catching up Mike.

Go way - It was hardly only 70 notes for the rugger?

:eek:

controversial but so so true when you think about it

whilst i understand why the admins deleted @Nembo_Kid’s post (given that a serving member of the upper echelons of the IRFU is heavily implicated in same,) the FAI board of management who i have had dealings with were made aware of this a long time ago and actually considered not to ground share with the IRFU as a result) .
one cannot deny that everything mentioned there no matter how scandalous is true and is rugby football’s shame.

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Christ on a bike. You’re at it again.

At what?

Posting misleading stats.

The second biggest competition in European football is a 50k sell out on Wednesday week, in an expensive Scandinavian country.

How many were at rugby footballs second biggest ‘European’ competition - the Challenge Cup - last Friday night…?

That’s the lure of Man U and the Special One for you. When Sir Alex’s Aberdeen faced Real Madrid in the final of what was then the second biggest competition in European football in 1983 in Sweden, only 17,000 showed up for it.

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Incorrect, the Cup Winners Cup was the 3rd biggest competition after the European Cup and old UEFA Cup. The UEFA Cup final was played over 2 matches with an average attendance of over 65,000 between Anderlecht and Benfica.

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What’s misleading about that stat?

Incorrect. If a side won their domestic Cup but also qualified for the old UEFA Cup, the Cup Winners Cup assumed preeminent status over the UEFA Cup and the domestic Cup winners competed in the Cup Winners Cup and not the UEFA Cup.

correct

Hmm, the CWC was arguably bigger. For one you got in for winning a trophy and the domestic cup comps like the FA Cup were quite a bit bigger a deal than now. Secondly if you qualified for both the UEFA Cup and CWC, you automatically went into the CWC.

Though that is a point of debate as the UEFA Cup was a larger comp.

And this was in the days before 3 or 4 sides getting to the CL from one country. It was a rather big comp.