Cricket and Football? | Vital Football

Cricket and Football?

A

alphabet_king

Vital 1st Team Regular
Watching the Ashes, I am always confused about the number of England flags with football teams on them. It seems a bit odd. In what other sport would this be seen as normal, to show your support for a different sport and team while watching another?

Rarely do they have their County Cricket Club, or even their Local Club?s name on the flag. It?s almost always the football team they support. Another sport entirely. Would you go to a Rugby Game with a flag that says ?Gillingham FC Barmy Army?? Probably not.

I find it interesting, particularly since Cricket is a game played predominantly by public school boys as well isn?t it? Not solely, but you?ll find a massively disproportionate number of Private school boys in the England Team compared to the number of kids going to Independent Schools and they typically don?t even play football at private schools, usually focusing on Rugby in the Winter term and Hockey and Cricket in the other terms (partially explaining why private school children make up the majority of these international teams)

Have yet to see a Gills flag there this year though!
 
The football supporter touring cricket thing all started in the 90s when the Barmy Army started up in full and went on tours to Australia and South Africa and the like.

I've read a book by one of the founders, and they just started attracting people that liked to have a beer and a holiday basically. They were originally accused of being "football hoolies" who were bad for the game, but they brought songs, jokes and a good atmosphere, and plenty of them got to know the players of the era rather well given that some tours can last six weeks, and ended up winning over (most) of their detractors. The football shirt and flag thing started because everyone well knew that they were Barmy Armies, and they wanted to basically show where they were from, and this has carried on to this day. There was definitely a Gills flag in one of the recent tours I saw on TV (possibly the West Indies).

As for the class thing, undoubtedly cricket is well liked by the upper and middle classes, and is played heavily in private schools and the like. But having played it a fair bit in the Kent league now, the majority of players are just normal blokes. In my club for instance we've got accountants, bankers, stock brokers, posties, teachers, builders, electricians, plumbers, policemen, shop workers - which is a mix you tend to see in the opposition most weekends too. That said it might just be the fairly average standard that I play, as given the support the private school kids do get when they're younger, they're probably higher up the leagues dominating teams.

As for the support, if you ever watch an England game outside of the Oval or Lord's, you'd be surprised how much of an everyman game it is. By contrast, I'd have had rugby in England as being the poshest sport going (outside of ridiculous things like polo).




 
Ian Botham has been appointed Scunthorpe's president, so it connects the other way too.
 
When I used to live in England, the seriously good public schools played soccer (and called it that too). It was the drearily aspirational lower middle class outfits like GGS (nod to 58) who played rugby (and called it football).

I think in most of Lancs, Yorks, Notts and environs you'd be hard put to identify cricket as an upper crust pursuit.
 
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