Soccer is a game in which everyone does a lot of running around. Twenty-one guys stand around and one guy does a tap dance with the ball. – Jim Murray, 1967

A sport where the players actually enjoy getting hit in the head by a ball. – Soccer advertisement, published for the MetroStars Major League Soccer team, 199

Concerning football playing, I protest to you it may rather be called a friendly kind of fighting, rather than recreation. – Author Unknown

I loathed the game, and since I could see no pleasure or usefulness in it, it was very difficult for me to show courage at it. Football, it seemed to me, is not really played for the pleasure of kicking a ball about, but is a species of fighting. – George Orwell, Such, Such Were the Joys