Dear Guest Gilzean etc

1) See McGrath's post 25.2.

"i This is not a matter of definition, but of understanding."

I think you mean, tho' I could be wrong, that some people - no, actually, i don't understand what you're saying.

In my world, people have used 'soccer' as obviously meaning football (association) since at least the 50s. And I have on my lap a copy of Arthur Appleton's 'Story of football in the north-east' entitled "Hotbed of Soccer". This Sportsman's Book Club edition is dated 1960.

As I understand it, once football began being taken up in earnest in the US, the Americans called it 'soccer', to distinguish the game from US football. Fair enough. And then some in the UK thought that 'soccer' was not the right name any more and that the correct name is 'football'. I know th't that group have made a mistake, mostly thru not knowing their soccer history.

Just one addition to McGrath's post.

The word 'soccer' is derived specifically from the highlighted bit of asSOCiation football.


2) I sit corrected. My apologies to all St.Johnstone fans. A dreadful, lazy and ignorant error.

3)I've had prawns very approx. 3 times in the last 35 years, all in prawn cocktails plus, if I remember aright, 1 sandwich. I can't say I feel like returning to it.

Ivor