MonTemplar's Journal: Football - it's in the blood

Football - it's in the blood

A Manchester City fan received a life-saving transplant from his brother - but only after he promised to support rivals United instead.

Martin Warburton, 50, made brother Paul sign a contract - under a red seal, naturally - to the effect that he would change allegiance.

Paul, 59, who is fighting leukaemia, had the stem-cell transplant in Belfast - but admits he has mixed feelings after agreeing to the unusual conditions.

"I was really lucky that Martin's cells matched, as some people can have seven or eight siblings and find that none of them matches up," he told the Daily Telegraph.

"But he had to be a Reds supporter, didn't he?!"

As part of the contract, Paul now has to chortle if Manchester City are relegated and join the MUFC supporters' association.

He also has to trip up legendary City "diver" Francis Lee so that - in Martin's words - "you can, for the first time, see him fall over fairly".

Mischievous Martin said he could barely suppress his mirth at the piece of paper he made his brother sign.

"This was the perfect chance for me to get Paul to stop backing the Blues," he said.

"We made a great joke of the contract but he still agreed to sign it."

EXTRACTS FROM THE CONTRACT

To ensure all blue blood will be replaced with RED
All outer clothing to be RED - with hints of white
Interior and exterior decoration of home to be changed to RED
All blue coloured materials to be used as rags to clean up dirt
Contract to be signed and witnessed under RED seal

What a cruel bastard!

[sebi]

That is really really low. How two brothers end up supporting different teams is beyond comprehension anyway. Supporting United might be better for your mental health (except the one time last season when they lost to City, naturally), but football allegiances should not be forced on anyone. That is the one form of free speech that Europe really should have. With the notable exception of Bayern Muenchen supporters that aren't from Munich.

Heh?

[RevMike]

Oh! You are really talking about soccer! You should try to make that clear.

Re:Heh?

[sebi]

Soccer? Whatever are you talking about? Football: A sport where a ball (spherical object filled with air) is kicked by about 44 feet belonging to 22 people and sometimes blocked or caught by four hands belonging to two. Perfectly straightforward and the most beautiful sport ever.

Soccer, on the other hand, is a strange word some people seem to have invented after they noticed that they seriously messed up the naming process of their favourite past-time. That other kind of football should be called "rugby in

Re:Heh?

[turg]

Actually, I think football (along with baseball, basketball) is a bad/boring name for any sport. Soccer is a great name, it's fast and catchy and sounds like a ball being kicked. It has a "feel" to it that communicates much more about the sport than the (very limited) literal description of "foot ball."

Names like soccer, hockey, tennis, golf, cricket have character (whether the sports they describe are of interest to you is a separate question). Overly literal names like football, basketball, volleyball or

Re:Heh?

[leviramsey]

Actually, soccer is an English invention to distinguish "association rules" football from "rugby rules" football. All the sports that claim to be football are in fact descended from the same basic primeval game.

Re:Heh?

[RevMike]

That other kind of football should be called "rugby in armour" or "stop and go ball", but not football.

Rugby in armour - that is a pretty good description.

One of the interesting facets in comparing American Football with the other major team sports - un-American football :), baseball, hockey, basketball, etc., is that most of those other sports are interesting in person but lose much of their appeal on TV. American Football holds up incredibly well on TV.

The YES network (The NY Yankees cable stati