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Post by Topcontender on Nov 18, 2002 1:49:09 GMT -5
Not content to have the better football team and to snatch the Six Nations rugby crown from England last season - the French are now claiming to have invented cricket.
Retired vicars slumbering in deckchairs around village grounds will awaken with a jolt and splutter into their teas when they hear the suggestion that the noble game has a distinctly Gallic accent.
Cricket was born in the north of France and taken across the channel by English soldiers
M Marchois
But the thwack of leather against willow may never sound the same again after the claim from former president of the French Cricket Federation, Didier Marchois.
M Marchois says he has unearthed documents that show cricket was being played across the channel as early as the 13th century.
Off-duty soldiers apparently whiled away the hours before meeting a sticky end on the fields of Agincourt at the hands of the English bowmen with a quick 20-overs bash.
Other documents uncovered by M Marchois reveal that King Louis XI was asked to spare the life of a player who had unsportingly killed an opponent during a match in Calais in 1478.
And cricket was reputedly the favourite sport of The Sun King Louis XIV.
M Marchois also claims that the first recorded modern match is found in the archives of the Paris Cricket Club, dating back to 1864.
"Cricket was born in the north of France and taken across the channel by English soldiers who picked it up from us during truce periods in the Hundred Years War," Marchois told the Sunday Express, with a twinkle in his eye.
Only the French would have the gall to try and steal the most quintessentially English of sports.
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Post by Wycco on Nov 18, 2002 8:38:02 GMT -5
Oh the French football team is highly overrated...
They had a slow boring easy ride to the World Cup in '98...'02 they showed their true abilities...
As for Cricket- I thought the Autralians invented it (or maybe they just invented WINNING at it)
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Post by Henrik on Nov 18, 2002 9:45:07 GMT -5
No offense, but who really cares!!
Then again, the French are specialists at this sort of thing. In the recent years, halloween has become very popular in France, taking on the very commercial American aspect. As many began criticizing them, saying they were adopting what was actually an American celebration, some French guy "discovered" that halloween actually origonates from France...
The French, yawn......
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Post by Danny Boy on Nov 18, 2002 9:50:56 GMT -5
That's great news for the French: Now all the French farmers can fence of a small area of a field and claim a massive subsidy from the EU to preserve the heritage of "their ancient sport". Thereby having even more time to loll about drinking wine and eating cheese and truffles before having a thrilling game of boules  |
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Post by Wycco on Nov 18, 2002 10:04:12 GMT -5
Didn't the French invent Mad Cow disease?
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Post by Topcontender on Nov 18, 2002 10:45:50 GMT -5
I dunno, i was just listening to the BBC world service nad i heard this guy call Cricket french. Personally i have never watched a cricket match and i don't know how to play. However, my buddy took on some guys who said they were really good at it and knocked the ball out of hte feild a few times. I guess it is a easier sport than baseball, or knocking it out of hte feild is not that hard.
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Post by Wycco on Nov 18, 2002 13:10:35 GMT -5
Cricket- like Baseball or American Football (or just about any turn based sport where the action is stopped more than it is going)- is tonnes of fun to play- but boring as crud to watch.
Despite the fact it has a bat and ball- it really is completely different to Baseball: your friend was either pretty good- and a quick learner... or the people he was playing with were not as good as they said they were...
That said, it is easier to knock the ball out of bounds than in Baseball...
... oh and the fielders don't wear sissy catching gloves like they do in Baseball... *hehehehe
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Post by raptor22 on Dec 2, 2002 18:58:57 GMT -5
played both and cricket is definately harder than baseball.
firtsly you stand around all day in white pants and shirts, whit socks and shoes and wait for a little red to come your way. If it does you haveit stop it, risking life and limb in the process.
Now the batsman is usually a brave man. When the ball is released from the the bowlers hand it is only 19m away and travelling at around 160km/hr!!!
A skilled batsman will usually redirect this kinetic energy toward a space on the very large playing field that will make it very difficult for a fielder to risk life and limb stopping it. Very considerate, Very english.
To be sociable, the two teams usually kidknapp a geaser from a nearby oldage home, force him to wear a white lab coat and a hat and hen insist that he play the role of umpire.
Now the umpire usually has bad eyesight so the players have to run at him and hurl abuse to ensure they get the decision of dismissing the offending batsman. shrewd team usually elect a deaf umpire so that you can hurl all the abuse necessary without actually being heard. This leave the unpire undistracted in making the important decision he is employed to make.
The reward is always a free roundof drinks back at the club house.
Now baseball is something else entirely.
Here we have a group of heavily padded pansies wearign gloves and full boy protection awaiting a ball to be thrown at then in anger. If a bat happens to be in the way somewhere around a metre (which is entirely different to a meter), thenn something scientific hapens and the ball changes direction. The bat is a powerful device. It is able to transfer energy as well as create it.
when the ball changes direction around 130000 people all jump up and down at once, people all over th uSA move up and down in unison, transfering this release of energy to the earths crust. If this energy could be harnessed we could solve 3rd world poverty, but judging by the increase of sales of SUV's in the goodol USofA I guess thisis'nt a high priority.
back to the pansies...
The ball now on a different trajectory since it's motion form rest was impeded by an immovable force is now being chased down by a least 3 pansies wearing tight pants, tight shirts and a device which looks lik a personal fluffing glove. The inevitable usually occurs. These 3 bodies collide absorbing all the energy in the ball which then falls gracefully to earth unhindered in it's path to eternal peace. But wait! Thats not all.
One of teh pansies has now arisen from his temporal slumber an has proceded to wrench the ball from it's peaceful state and is desparately trying to find a new home.
As an act of peace, a sort of peace dance if you will, the holder of the immovable force runs around a perfect diaond shape course in anact of offering to the keepers of the ball.
both games are so crazy they must have been invented in France!
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