Once again, a Wiki cut 'n pasted comment from an elderly gent dressed up as original thought (the comment, not the gent).
Now let's apply some common sense and accuracy. A ninety-minute match duration was arbitrarily agreed by two teams in 1866 and has stuck ever since. If we 'left the game as it is' as the old codger suggests, the game would still be played with a pigs bladder and the kit would look like this:
1873.jpg
But I can see why the venerable
dml would be comfortable with this outfit, as he probably religiously wears a wee willie winkie bobble hat to bed every night like some of the guys in the photo.
Do I really have to list the changes and obvious improvements in Football Rules since 1866? There are so many - which seem to have passed by the 'remember the good old days' brigade - but I'll raise just the one. Take the use of substitutes. Do you recall when subs were not allowed and crocked players with hammies and career-ending cruciate knee injuries were forced to play on the left wing for their nuisance value? Due you remember showpiece Cup Finals which were ruined when a team was reduced to ten men early on because no substitutes were allowed? "If it was good enough for 1866, it is good enough today", I hear you cry!
By the way, stoppage time was not introduced in Britain until 1897 - a full thirty-one years after football matches were decreed to last ninety minutes.
So we have breaks in play 'for the fans to react and discuss what is going on'. Thinly veiled, dml needs a few minutes to gently but slowly lever himself back into his seat after an ill-advised but delayed foray onto his feet during an exciting moment which he missed due to being very, very slow. The discuss 'what is going on' bit is code for 'when I make a nuisance of myself asking everyone (yet again) what happened'. Most normal fans (with mates) wait until they get to the pub for these discussions.
Dml once again has clutched the wrong end of the stick in his gnarled arthritic hand when he says that the penalty shoot out format has been changed in 2017 'because they thought the previous system was putting too much pressure on the first taker'. The real facts are that research has proved that the team taking the first penalty have a 60 percent chance of winning, giving them an unfair advantage and also the player taking the second kick in the pair is under greater mental pressure. I totally understand that ageing fans will get confused and disorientated when the new ABBA system is used, but why not visualize the sequence instead of counting sheep after a nice mug of Horlicks when trying to get some shut-eye.
Is it really so that 'most of the major talking points of a match usually occur' during the added time at the end? Have Cardiff scored in added -time this season, for example? So, no major talking points yet on this forum?
"Why fix something that isn't broken?". But that's the point, isn't it? Some parts of the game
are broken. Do you object to the introduction of goal-line technology - only introduced to the Championship in the current season? How many games have been ruined because officials have made the wrong call. Just ask Frank Lampard (that's Frank jnr, to the oxygen thief).