Check out "Chess-boxing" online, much more exciting. The players alternate 3 minutes in the ring with 3 minutes speed-chess. You win by knockout or checkmate.
I don't like Rugby. I've watched it a few times and live in a predominantly Rugby town... Northampton. I still don't understand the rules, i.e all the stoppages in a pileon. Ultimately it is just a game of pile on. I don't mind F1, not the greatest of sports but just think that the ties with Northampton means I am a bit proud that it's round the corner every year. Agree with most the others, I don't mind Cricket though.
Agree with most of the sports selected except Ice Hockey. Of the American sports, Ice Hockey gets closest to being a spectator watching football in England. Speed, power, continuity (absence of stupid interruptions), really physical and actually quite intense. Still not quite the same as being at the footy because of absence of away fans (well there are a few but no atmosphere from the banter you get at a footy game), no singing, too much entertainment, no pies (only hot dogs, pretzels, pulled pork sandwiches, ice cream), no crowd ref abuse. As for the other US sports - Basketball is boring until the last 5 mins, Baseball like Cricket but with less runs, and American Football is only tolerable because of cheerleaders.
Bull "fighting" or any other ritualistic killing of the beast dressed up as a sport - for me pretty loathsome.
I have to take issue with the OP - Ice Hockey is brilliant! Maybe not on TV but if you go to watch it live it is far better and probably more exciting than football I used to live in Scotland and the Fife Flyers were the local team, so I used to go to Kirkcaldy in the afternoon to watch Raith Rovers play then go to the ice rink in the evening to watch the Flyers play, I was superb Certainly horsey stuff, bikes and cars going round in circles does nothing for me. If I wanted to see that I would stand next to the A11/A47 roundabout at Thickthorn services for the day
Snooker on the Radio. I find it so difficult to follow. And I don't seem to appreciate the difference in the colours. Tell me where I'm going wrong and I'll try. The Origami Cup on Eurosport hasn't grabbed my attention yet either. England have sent out a weakened side due to injuries. We lost our 1st round match as we were out of our crease!
Have to point out PMY that your grasp on the rules of Tchoukball are not entirely accurate. The idea is not for your team mates to catch the ball. The idea is to get the ball to rebound off the net and land in play without being caught by the opponent (barring the area around the net) That said although I played it a lot at Uni and is actually a good sport to play, like quite a few other 'non mainstream sports' they are never going to be popular within the U.K. Which gets me on to one of my biggest irks and that is the amount of media coverage on Football when other sports within the U.K. are overshadowed... Even after the success of the Olympics And those who mentioned Basketball, I have to agree I worked at the Basketball Arena during the Olympics and watched Basketball for 12 hours a day for 10 days and even the players were clearly too bored to watch any basketball and were seen watch the beach Volleyball instead
I used to play a lot of Tchoukball at school (Flegg High) as our PE teacher was the former British captain and brought it to Norfolk. Absolutely loved playing it, brilliant fun and absolutely knackering! We got to the Euopean Championshipsfinal at under-15 and under-16, hough admittedly only about a dozen schools in England and some from France and Switzerland were really involved back then. Haven't heard anything about the sport at all - or met anyone else who's ever heard of it - for twenty years or so so interesting to hear that other have at least heard of it and played it a bit! As for sport I hate, tricky one because I can watch pretty much anythng but of them all rugby is probably one I get least excited about. Six Nations this weekend - big deal! Never been to much of a fan of cycling either but after all the successes by GB cyclists in the past few years I have taken more interest.
Before last year's olympics I would have said all field sports and athletics. But after the magnificent show we put on I'm converted
I love bsketball; it's great fun, but I'm clearly in a minority. If croquet counts as a sport then I'd say that's pretty pointless. Otherwise F1 and maybe snooker. Men's beach volleyball doesn't quite make sense to me either.
Surprised F1 isn't very popular on here, I love it and find it exciting. America Football I don't get though, feel like they play for 5 seconds then go for a 10 minutes break. (sports I like are Football, Tennis, Snooker (shootout), F1)
I agree with a lot of these, with two notable exceptions: I love American Football (still slightly ashamed of it though) and I really like Handball and have been playing it for around 6 months now. It requires a lot more skill and stamina than you might think.
If we really want to settle this (as per the question in the OP) we should take the most commonly mentioned ones on this thread and have a vote! Get on it mods!
