Questions for our British friends

[henryf]

Originally Posted by teaktop

St Stephens Day ,why is it called Boxing Day in the UK ? and is it called Boxing Day outside the U.K.?

Boxing Day is traditionally the day following Christmas Day, when servants and tradesmen would receive gifts, known as a "Christmas box", from their bosses or employers

[Greenman]

Another tradition is for the master to treat the servants at Christmas time. This dates back to Tudor times when servants who had worked so hard the whole year were treated to lunch or some other treat by their master(s)

On the subject of 'boxes', milkmen, refuse collectors and postman amongst others regularly received christmas boxes or gifts of money for services rendered throughout the year. When I was a milkman's helper in my teens, one Christmas we were invited in for a cup of tea and I received £2 for a christmas box - a lot back then, and some other gratutites from customers. I suppose it shows you did a good jiob the rest of the year. I remember, before it was given out to private companies, the dustbin men used to send someone round in the evening near to Christmas (usually the burliest and scariest) to collect their Christmas 'box' and god help you if you didn't give them something Doesn't happen nowadays, at least not round our way.

[richardoe]

In the British armed forces the officers and senior NCOs traditonally serve the troops with their dinner on xmas day.

By the way metrication is not all the fault of Brussels. Brussels have said that trade within the EU must be in metric, but internal trade is nothing to do with them. And as for football the pitch measurements are in Imperial and in metric countries they just change them to metric. Youll notice the ref in european countries pacing out 10 paces for the wall at a free kick.

[sammyshirt]

Originally Posted by knobby109

played at the Oval!)
Cricket remained the major British sport until well after WW2 , football was just something you played while waiting for the cricket season.It was after that that the middle classes became interested in football (at school it was never even discussed among ourselves, rugby was the proper winter game)and the present popularity only goes back that far.
Perhaps one day cricket will regain its rightful place.

Football became the major sport in this country far earlier than WWII. Attendance records shows the boom happening post 1895.

Take as a snapshot the 1904-05 season average gates:
Newcastle 21,605
Woolwich Arsenal 19,980
Everton 19,155
Man City 18,715
Villa 18,390
Man Utd 15,205
Small Heath 14,540
Sunderland 14,510
Sheff Utd 14,450
Liverpool 14,315
Sheff Wed 12,880

No cricket club or Rugby club would have competed with that week in week out.

The 1919-20 season (first after WWI) saw 15 clubs average over 20,000 with 3 averaging over 30,000. 35 averaged at least 10,000. Two seasons later Div 3 N & S were introduced and gates never looked back until the 60's and the hooligan impact of the 70s and 80s.

You only have to look at our major football grounds pre-Hillsborough to see most were laid out between 1890 and 1910 with most taking the form they found themselves in in 1989 by the time WWII came along. This was for the simple reason the booming gates resulted in ever increasing grounds.

Yes football's real boom gates occurred in the few years after WWII, but it had been building to that for almost 40 years.

As for schools playing rugby, that was probably down to your school and 'class' - certainly not the case for inner city working class schools where the simplicity of football in the playground was never going to be challenged by the more complex rules of rugby.

[Greenman]

Just on a final point about football, and forgive me if I am wrong about the date, but I am pretty sure that I read that they intend to recreate, possibly this Christmas Day 2014, the football match between German and British/Allied Troops played in No Man's Land during the First World War, where soldiers also exchanged photographs and reportedly sang Christmas carols. I can't remember if it was last year or this year but I would hope it would be shown on television. Of course Paul McCartney made that his central theme in the video for his Christmas song 'Pipes of Peace back in 1983 where he played both a British and German soldier.

And finally final it was also used on Blackadder Goes Forth when Captain Edmund Blackadder(Rowan Aktinson) and Baldrick (Tony Robinson) recalls the football match. "Remember it? - how could I forget it - I was never offside! I could not believe that decision."

[seany65]

Originally Posted by richardoe

Youll notice the ref in european countries pacing out 10 paces for the wall at a free kick.

But is a metric pace the same length as an imperial pace?

[mizlaplan]

Ah!!
Well done.
Superb piss-taking.
Sublime sarcasm.
Hopefully you are real and do actually exist?

[knobby109]

Originally Posted by sammyshirt

Football became the major sport in this country far earlier than WWII. Attendance records shows the boom happening post 1895.

Take as a snapshot the 1904-05 season average gates:
Newcastle 21,605
Woolwich Arsenal 19,980
Everton 19,155
Man City 18,715
Villa 18,390
Man Utd 15,205
Small Heath 14,540
Sunderland 14,510
Sheff Utd 14,450
Liverpool 14,315
Sheff Wed 12,880

No cricket club or Rugby club would have competed with that week in week out.

The 1919-20 season (first after WWI) saw 15 clubs average over 20,000 with 3 averaging over 30,000. 35 averaged at least 10,000. Two seasons later Div 3 N & S were introduced and gates never looked back until the 60's and the hooligan impact of the 70s and 80s.

You only have to look at our major football grounds pre-Hillsborough to see most were laid out between 1890 and 1910 with most taking the form they found themselves in in 1989 by the time WWII came along. This was for the simple reason the booming gates resulted in ever increasing grounds.

Yes football's real boom gates occurred in the few years after WWII, but it had been building to that for almost 40 years.

As for schools playing rugby, that was probably down to your school and 'class' - certainly not the case for inner city working class schools where the simplicity of football in the playground was never going to be challenged by the more complex rules of rugby.

Cricket gates before and after WW1 were about double those of football.Even I can remember county midweek games at Trent Bridge when the ground was pretty full. 20 000 spectators was quite a common occurrence.Trent Bridge in those days could hold around 35000 , we sometimes sat on the grass
Remember that cricket matches weren't just on one or two days a week or for just a couple of hours at a time.

[haroldeye]

The word Mile comes from the Roman for one thousand 'millia' and is based on the Roman 1000 paces or 'mille passum'.

So paces are both Imperial and metric. Doubtless they are different if one is paced out by a greasey little French type referee and one is paced out by an upstanding referee of good British stock.

[henryf]

Originally Posted by haroldeye

The word Mile comes from the Roman for one thousand 'millia' and is based on the Roman 1000 paces or 'mille passum'.

So paces are both Imperial and metric. Doubtless they are different if one is paced out by a greasey little French type referee and one is paced out by an upstanding referee of good British stock.

What is different about a Roman pace is that it is, in fact, two steps. When marching through uncharted territory, they would often push a carved stick in the ground after each 1000 paces. Well fed and harshly driven Roman battalions in good weather thus created longer miles. After attempts to standardize, it denoted a distance of 1,000 average paces or 5,000 Roman feet, and is estimated to be about 1,479 metres (4,851 feet or 1,617 yards).