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Cheers to All, New From Annapolis Maryland USA!

BlueAnnapolisUSA

By BlueAnnapolisUSA
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BlueAnnapolisUSA Newbie

BlueAnnapolisUSA

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Fellow Blues,

 

My name is Austin, and I have quite the story on becoming an Everton Fan. Born and raised in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania (USA), and was always into American Football, hockey, and amateur wrestling (was decent enough to compete in college at a high NCAA level).

 

After college, I moved to Chicago, Illinois where I met an Everton supporter at a bar by chance (not shockingly, he was drinking beer watching Saturday morning Premier League football muttering to himself). Heard his accent and asked the 'best way to get into the beautiful game as an American'. His advice was to "pick a team, support them, and soon I would gain a vested interest in their success and pageantry.

 

He surely wasn't wrong; so we more or less decided that we would support each other's favorite teams. So he became a Pittsburgh Penguins hockey fan, and I became an Everton supporter. Last season was my first full season as a fan, and I must say it was awesome. It really was fantastic to be able to get up Saturday morning and try to continue to learn more and more about the game. Understanding and beginning to learn the nuances of Premier League football (fuck the Koppites), was quite an experience.

 

I now have both of this year's kits, just the tops; I've been told if I ever wear the shorts and the jersey I would be quite the wanker. But just wanted to reach out to all and say the Blues have a life-long supporter in Maryland United States!

 

Go Blues! NSNO!

 

Cheers,

 

Austin

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BlueAnnapolisUSA Newbie

BlueAnnapolisUSA

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Austin, you do realise that its a lifetime commitment? I saw my first game in 1946, don't get to the games now as I live just outside London, but I still think Kopites are wankers.

 

 

I've been told, by my friend Gethin, that if I ever give up rooting for the blue crest that I am a wanker bulldog chewing on a pissed on thistle. His quotes are hilarious. Once describing an unattractive female as a "bulldog chewing up a wasp". Impressive analogy!

 

Excited about the new stadium on the docks, and already have plans for seeing a mid-week game and saturday premiership game in the same week in October.

 

Cheers!

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BlueAnnapolisUSA Newbie

BlueAnnapolisUSA

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Good to have you on board Austin, I played American football for 4 years for a team in the British NFL called Swindon Steelers, loved the game played end, are you still involved with football, or have you ditched the pads.

 

 

Life-long Green Bay Packers fan... Can't get enough NFL and Premiership talk! Fantastic combination for Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons!

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BlueAnnapolisUSA Newbie

BlueAnnapolisUSA

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MD and you root for the packers? what about skins or ravens?

 

Very long story. Born and raised in Pittsburgh. My dad was born and raised in Philadelphia, his parents were too poor to buy an Eagles jersey for him. Grandfather went to a thrift shop and they had a Bart Starr jersey on sale for $0.50 and that was all my grandfather could afford, so he got him that jersey and the rest is history!

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rubecula Newbie

rubecula

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and outside of football I follow rugby.

 

League I follow the mighty Saints (St Helens)

Union I follow Leinster from Ireland.

 

Grid iron not a great fan as it takes too long and it is just grunt, throw and kick to the uninitiated person like me. However I do like the first team I ever heard of who I later found out are as popular as herpes over there. Dallas Cowboys. can not say I follow them much though.

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  • 9 months later...
Ghoat Collaborator

Ghoat

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On 11/08/2017 at 06:39, tonkaroost said:

Welcome to the forum. I'm a Packers fan as well but it has more to do with Brett Favre being from close to my area.

We (Meridian High School) got upset in the first round my senior year. Had we won, we would have played against Favre, who was also a senior. Sat in Jordan-Hare and watched him lead USM to wins over Auburn both his Jr and Sr year, then wen't down to the locker rooms and ate crow from the 3-4 old HS teammates  who were at USM. Not a huge NFL fan anymore, but I like the Pack, thanks to the Mississippi boy.

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Sibdane Mentor

Sibdane

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6 minutes ago, Ghoat said:

We (Meridian High School) got upset in the first round my senior year. Had we won, we would have played against Favre, who was also a senior. Sat in Jordan-Hare and watched him lead USM to wins over Auburn both his Jr and Sr year, then wen't down to the locker rooms and ate crow from the 3-4 old HS teammates  who were at USM. Not a huge NFL fan anymore, but I like the Pack, thanks to the Mississippi boy.

I know Meridian well. I pass through it on my way from Hattiesburg to Columbus and have a couple of friends that live there.

One of the guys I work with cycles with Brett Favre on the weekends -- I'm hoping I get a chance to meet him eventually. I also used to live pretty close to him, but all you see when you pass his house is a big iron gate with a big "F" on it. He's pretty far off of the road.

Did you go to college in MS?

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Ghoat Collaborator

Ghoat

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1 minute ago, tonkaroost said:

I know Meridian well. I pass through it on my way from Hattiesburg to Columbus and have a couple of friends that live there.

One of the guys I work with cycles with Brett Favre on the weekends -- I'm hoping I get a chance to meet him eventually. I also used to live pretty close to him, but all you see when you pass his house is a big iron gate with a big "F" on it. He's pretty far off of the road.

I left Meridian after HS, but still go back to see family. My youngest daughter will graduate next year and is looking at USM and Troy. One of my "soccer daughters" just graduated and has a full academic ride to USM. I have helped the coaches work with her for the last few years, she has been are starting GK since 9th grade. 6' tall and grouchy, invited to tryout at USM, but doesn't want to keep playing :(  Her Dad has been asking me soccer questions for years, and 2 years ago started following the EPL watching Hull because that's where family traces back to. He didn't know who to follow after they got relegated, so I recruited him, now he's hooked. Many a Sunday morning drinking bloody marys at 8am, with him cussing Fat Sam. 

I am creating my own local EFC fanbase. We're up to three now lol

 

Sorry about the thread hijack AnnapolisBlue!

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Sibdane Mentor

Sibdane

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37 minutes ago, Ghoat said:

I left Meridian after HS, but still go back to see family. My youngest daughter will graduate next year and is looking at USM and Troy. One of my "soccer daughters" just graduated and has a full academic ride to USM. I have helped the coaches work with her for the last few years, she has been are starting GK since 9th grade. 6' tall and grouchy, invited to tryout at USM, but doesn't want to keep playing :(  Her Dad has been asking me soccer questions for years, and 2 years ago started following the EPL watching Hull because that's where family traces back to. He didn't know who to follow after they got relegated, so I recruited him, now he's hooked. Many a Sunday morning drinking bloody marys at 8am, with him cussing Fat Sam. 

I am creating my own local EFC fanbase. We're up to three now lol

 

Sorry about the thread hijack AnnapolisBlue!

Excellent! USM is a good school. I live about 5 minutes away from campus and it's really nice. My mom went to USM also and loved it. I went further up north to MSU. 

So far I haven't been able to convert any to the Everton cause, but there is a good soccer (whoops, football) culture here. They have a ton of leagues outside of the colleges, including an adult league that's fun to play in. 

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Palfy Grand Master

Palfy

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Is football big in the College's, I have a couple friends who's children have been given scholarships in U.S. one a girl football and one a boy golf, but I haven't heard of any boy who's  had a football scholarship from this country, is it bigger for females because U.S. women's team are ranked number one.

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Sibdane Mentor

Sibdane

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11 minutes ago, Palfy said:

Is football big in the College's, I have a couple friends who's children have been given scholarships in U.S. one a girl football and one a boy golf, but I haven't heard of any boy who's  had a football scholarship from this country, is it bigger for females because U.S. women's team are ranked number one.

It's not necessarily big, but it is growing. The most common route to become a professional football player in the USA is the college route. It's both a good and a bad thing. You can get a scholarship for college and go on to play football with the hope of becoming a pro, and if that fails you have a degree to fall back on; however, there's a big gap between college football and the MLS. They don't play nearly as many games, and it's the USA, and it's so vast that most college teams are limited to the teams in their region, which also really limits the ability to grow as a player(the best way to get better is to play against those who are better than you). There's been a push recently to model the youth academy system and lately that has paid dividends (Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Christian Roldan, etc.), but we're still a ways off. The main problem is coaching. We don't have enough quality coaches that focus on technical ability at a young age.

In regards to the women's system, it's the same route... but I honestly have no idea why we constantly dominate. Maybe because there's not an American football culture here for women? Generally, our best  male athletes play American football.

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Ghoat Collaborator

Ghoat

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16 minutes ago, Palfy said:

Is football big in the College's, I have a couple friends who's children have been given scholarships in U.S. one a girl football and one a boy golf, but I haven't heard of any boy who's  had a football scholarship from this country, is it bigger for females because U.S. women's team are ranked number one.

Years ago, the NCAA (gov board of all college athletics) passed legislation called Title IX. In a nutshell, it says that a college must offer then same number of athletic scholarships to female students as male students. Colleges that compete at the top level (I think was 129 last year) have 85 scholarships to give for (American) football. So that means, they have to make 85 available to females. As a result, the "secondary" women sports at these schools benefit. Archery, swimming and diving soccer/football, track and field etc... And on the other hand, that means they aren't available to males. As a result, you have less colleges that even HAVE male soccer teams. College soccer is a MUCH bigger sport in the US for females, simply because there are many many more scholarships available.

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Palfy Grand Master

Palfy

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39 minutes ago, tonkaroost said:

It's not necessarily big, but it is growing. The most common route to become a professional football player in the USA is the college route. It's both a good and a bad thing. You can get a scholarship for college and go on to play football with the hope of becoming a pro, and if that fails you have a degree to fall back on; however, there's a big gap between college football and the MLS. They don't play nearly as many games, and it's the USA, and it's so vast that most college teams are limited to the teams in their region, which also really limits the ability to grow as a player(the best way to get better is to play against those who are better than you). There's been a push recently to model the youth academy system and lately that has paid dividends (Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Christian Roldan, etc.), but we're still a ways off. The main problem is coaching. We don't have enough quality coaches that focus on technical ability at a young age.

In regards to the women's system, it's the same route... but I honestly have no idea why we constantly dominate. Maybe because there's not an American football culture here for women? Generally, our best  male athletes play American football.

That’s an interesting point you made on the quality of coaching, wouldn’t you think that teams in the MLS would start to focus more on attracting good coaches from over seas for youth development, they surly have the financial clout when you see what they are paying players in twilight of there careers, there most be hundreds of good players waiting to be discovered by good coaches. 

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Ghoat Collaborator

Ghoat

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Title IX was enacted in 1972 :)

 

 

MLS is reaching out more overseas, they have to. The problem is that there just aren't enough coaches being "produced" stateside. Part of it is lack of culture/history - not having generation after generation growing up loving the sport - playing, reffing and eventually coaching. Soccer was invented sometime in the 70's. Y'all have been playing football since the 80's. 1880's... Pulisic is a good example -of a second generation player - both his parents played in college and were around good coaching and playing, and so their son grew up around it, playing it, watching it and the parents recognized his abilities and knew where to direct him. We HAVE to have more domestic growth and it takes time to develop that culture from within. It's started, but we're still 100 years behind

The US development problems are complex, but beyond culture and player development /coaching are far and away the core of it, IMO. Geography doesn't help, with the sheer size of the US...the nearest place for me to send a child for quality coaching or in a quality league is 150 miles away or so, which makes it unavailable financially for lots to even GET the coaching to GET "discovered" to GET to an academy! I would venture to guess you have more professional academies within 75 miles of London than we have in the entire country.

It's generally a white middle to upper-middle class suburban sport as far the availability of quality coaching and competition.. Nothing against white kids in the 'burbs, but that's a pretty small percentage of our population. Trying to build a sport from 10-15% of your "pool" is an uphill battle. The rest are going to gravitate towards American football, baseball and basketball. Those sports have the 100 years of culture, which means generations of quality coaching, and locally available developmental systems regardless of income level. Actually baseball is in decline as a youth sport, and is becoming less available and popular, especially among blacks and Major League Baseball is worried. I think I read recently that blacks make up less than 8% of MLB rosters now when it used to be 20-30% .

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Palfy Grand Master

Palfy

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31 minutes ago, Ghoat said:

Title IX was enacted in 1972 :)

 

 

MLS is reaching out more overseas, they have to. The problem is that there just aren't enough coaches being "produced" stateside. Part of it is lack of culture/history - not having generation after generation growing up loving the sport - playing, reffing and eventually coaching. Soccer was invented sometime in the 70's. Y'all have been playing football since the 80's. 1880's... Pulisic is a good example -of a second generation player - both his parents played in college and were around good coaching and playing, and so their son grew up around it, playing it, watching it and the parents recognized his abilities and knew where to direct him. We HAVE to have more domestic growth and it takes time to develop that culture from within. It's started, but we're still 100 years behind

The US development problems are complex, but beyond culture and player development /coaching are far and away the core of it, IMO. Geography doesn't help, with the sheer size of the US...the nearest place for me to send a child for quality coaching or in a quality league is 150 miles away or so, which makes it unavailable financially for lots to even GET the coaching to GET "discovered" to GET to an academy! I would venture to guess you have more professional academies within 75 miles of London than we have in the entire country.

It's generally a white middle to upper-middle class suburban sport as far the availability of quality coaching and competition.. Nothing against white kids in the 'burbs, but that's a pretty small percentage of our population. Trying to build a sport from 10-15% of your "pool" is an uphill battle. The rest are going to gravitate towards American football, baseball and basketball. Those sports have the 100 years of culture, which means generations of quality coaching, and locally available developmental systems regardless of income level. Actually baseball is in decline as a youth sport, and is becoming less available and popular, especially among blacks and Major League Baseball is worried. I think I read recently that blacks make up less than 8% of MLB rosters now when it used to be 20-30% .

Really interesting post thanks.

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Sibdane Mentor

Sibdane

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3 hours ago, Ghoat said:

Title IX was enacted in 1972 :)

 

 

MLS is reaching out more overseas, they have to. The problem is that there just aren't enough coaches being "produced" stateside. Part of it is lack of culture/history - not having generation after generation growing up loving the sport - playing, reffing and eventually coaching. Soccer was invented sometime in the 70's. Y'all have been playing football since the 80's. 1880's... Pulisic is a good example -of a second generation player - both his parents played in college and were around good coaching and playing, and so their son grew up around it, playing it, watching it and the parents recognized his abilities and knew where to direct him. We HAVE to have more domestic growth and it takes time to develop that culture from within. It's started, but we're still 100 years behind

The US development problems are complex, but beyond culture and player development /coaching are far and away the core of it, IMO. Geography doesn't help, with the sheer size of the US...the nearest place for me to send a child for quality coaching or in a quality league is 150 miles away or so, which makes it unavailable financially for lots to even GET the coaching to GET "discovered" to GET to an academy! I would venture to guess you have more professional academies within 75 miles of London than we have in the entire country.

It's generally a white middle to upper-middle class suburban sport as far the availability of quality coaching and competition.. Nothing against white kids in the 'burbs, but that's a pretty small percentage of our population. Trying to build a sport from 10-15% of your "pool" is an uphill battle. The rest are going to gravitate towards American football, baseball and basketball. Those sports have the 100 years of culture, which means generations of quality coaching, and locally available developmental systems regardless of income level. Actually baseball is in decline as a youth sport, and is becoming less available and popular, especially among blacks and Major League Baseball is worried. I think I read recently that blacks make up less than 8% of MLB rosters now when it used to be 20-30% .

Excellent post, and I agree 100%. I didn't realize Title XI had been around that long, but you're exactly right on every point. The "pay-to-play" system is what makes up the difference between the USA and pretty much every other country. 

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