So What Have We Learnt?

LeginLegin Posts: 1,067
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The London Games have been a tremendous boost for the entire United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We have shown that we are punching well above our weight……or at least that is what the medals table tells us. What is really showing up is some clear indications of where we as a United Kingdom are falling short and it really is no surprise.

With sports that require the fine honing of a particular single skill we seem to excel, cycling, rowing, fighting immediately spring to mind. Women’s sports are also doing tremendously well with many almost unknowns stepping up as well as favourites like Jess Ennis delivering in spectacular style. We also see that as expected, we can’t run fast enough, throw far enough or swim fast enough, despite raised expectations before the games (OK Mo Farrah is an exception).

The shortfall is exactly where you would expect it to be and it doesn’t seem to matter which sport you look at, the problem is Men’s Team Sports. Once again our footballers let us down in a penalty shoot out after a lack lustre performance. The Hockey team took a real pasting when they came up against proper opponents and our relay runners can’t even pass a baton from one to the other FFS.

I’ve been trying to work out why this might be and I have a theory, it is over reliance on the alpha male and the consequential impact of low intelligence. When placed in a stressful situation our Men’s teams immediately forget all their training and resort to their default character type of believing they are superior and this will be enough to win through, which it isn’t.

Our women on the other hand, rather like girls in the school classrooms and women in the work place have a tendency to try to remember and apply what they have been taught by their coaches and when the situation calls for it, they apply what they have learned to raise their performance and don’t revert to some in-built belief that they are somehow superior without using anything that they have been taught.

In short, our Mens sports teams do not have the right mental make up for performing at the highest level as they are over confident and insufficiently trained or more to the point are incapable of being sufficiently trained as they do not have the required basic intelligence. If you look at our star players within the English Premier League the evidence is there for all to see, a bunch of overpaid, thick as s**t, alpha males all hyped up on their own in-built belief that they are the man. None of them seem to understand that the real stars of football are the foreign players who have dedicated themselves to being the best footballer they can be. How many British players have carved out a fruitful and successful career abroad? Not many is the short answer and most foreign clubs wouldn’t want the British players as they simply are not good enough, conversely the British clubs do want the foreign players as they are better and cheaper than the British players.

I hope that somehow, but I don’t know how, these Olympic games will trigger a step change for Mens Team Sports in the UK and obviously football in particular. Football has a lot to learn about sport and very little to give at the moment. I know I’m being very optimistic but I worry that the legacy of the games will not be sufficient to stop the rot.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end.

Rant over.

Comments

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 264
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    Legin wrote: »
    Our women on the other hand, rather like girls in the school classrooms and women in the work place have a tendency to try to remember and apply what they have been taught by their coaches and when the situation calls for it, they apply what they have learned to raise their performance and don’t revert to some in-built belief that they are somehow superior without using anything that they have been taught.
    r.

    sorry, stopped reading after this bit because it's utter crap. Beach Volleyball didn't reach the final, neither did the hockey, or the football. 4x100 relay didn't even qualify for the Olympics. Don't remember seeing our women in too many other team finals either.

    Yeah, women's team sports have ruled these games.
  • LeginLegin Posts: 1,067
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    sorry, stopped reading after this bit because it's utter crap.

    Well maybe you should have read the rest before you made a comment.

    Do you play mens team sports?:rolleyes:
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 264
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    I didn't need to read the rest. You claim women's sports have this all conquering philosophy of being able to apply their coaching and raise their performance when the time calls for it.

    I'm saying that is absolute rubbish. How many gold medals have been won by women's team sports? Even better, how many golds were won by female swimmers? or athletes? Jessica Ennis, that's 1. How many others were actually capable of using what they'd been taught to raise their performance? Womens hockey team? No. Beach Volleyball? No. Dobriskey? No. Halsall? No. Gandy? No. Miley? No. Payne? No.

    See where your paragraph becomes a bit foolish?

    Look at the teenage weightlifter (Zoe Smith?), she came 12th or something like that, but broke the British record. You can't ask for more than that. Adlington swam faster than her gold medal race in Beijing and it was good enough for bronze this year, can't argue with that.
  • LeginLegin Posts: 1,067
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    The woman have contributed well beyond expectation, quite often from surprising quarters. I don't believe I was ever trying to make a point about womans team sports - I've just re-read my whole post and I never mentioned them once.

    If my actual point was too obtuse for you it was related to what is generally considered to be the national sport of football in particular and mens team sports as competed in the olympics in general.

    Yes you are correct the womens sports you mention did not perform well, were they actually expected too?

    If I'm honest I didn't expect Team GB to put up much of fight in the football as I am used to unknown foreign players outperforming our domestic superstars and that is my point.

    Are you sure you should be up at this hour?
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 264
    Forum Member
    Legin wrote: »
    The woman have contributed well beyond expectation, quite often from surprising quarters. I don't believe I was ever trying to make a point about womans team sports - I've just re-read my whole post and I never mentioned them once.

    you're opening point was that mens team sports underperformed on the whole at the olympics, then you went on to speak about womens achievements, then switched back to mens sports, I'm so sorry for assuming you were following a single train of thought and the three paragraphs were talking about the same thing.

    If not, then why are you comparing all of womens Olympics sports to just mens teams sports?
    If my actual point was too obtuse for you it was related to what is generally considered to be the national sport of football in particular and mens team sports as competed in the olympics in general.

    But you'e so unclear I don't know what your actual point is. footballers are arrogant? They believe their own press too much? Not particularly humble or gracious? I don't think many would argue with you there. but it makes no sense to compare them to mens team sports in the Olympics. Compare it to Olympic football and, yeah you've got a point. It makes even less sense when you then compare it to womens sports and make such a wide-sweeping, evidently misinformed opinion about mental toughness and being able to remember and put in place what has been coached.

    You mention football - did the women reach the final? You mention hockey - did the women reach the final? You mention the relay - were the women even at the Olympics?
    Yes you are correct the womens sports you mention did not perform well, were they actually expected too?

    Yes, that's my point. Swimming in particular. A great bunch of the swimmers were world/European/Commonwealth medallists, or record holders. And how many made a final? Adlington and maybe one or two others. Who won a medal? Only Adlington

    I'm not belittling the womens achievements at all, they've done fantastically well, but they've also come way short in other areas, so your attempt to provide the psychological reasons for mens football being so shit look a bit daft.
    If I'm honest I didn't expect Team GB to put up much of fight in the football as I am used to unknown foreign players outperforming our domestic superstars and that is my point.

    Again I don't think anyone would argue with that, you just picked a very strange comparison to make.

    [/quote]Are you sure you should be up at this hour?[/QUOTE]

    it was quite late, I have to admit.
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