RUGBY or DINNER? I KNOW WHICH IS THE WINNER

I suspect that dinner will be the winner tonight. Scotland's rugby XV who have barely scored a try at home against England in the past 14 years, are entertaining their closest rivals at Murrayfield this evening. The TV schedule demands an early evening kick off and although most of the crowd will have been drinking all day, that matters nothing to the rugby fraternity, who will pocket the dosh paid out by the television companies and let the drunks have fun. 

On the subject of drunks, I have a pre-drinks' dinner date at 6.30, so my better half will not be impressed if go missing around that time of the evening. The rugby is 40 minutes a half, so there is not chance of watching it through to the bitter end. By the time the match is wrapped up, I shall be onto the puddings.

Football matches (soccer) are 45 minutes per half. Why the difference? When Ebenezer Cobb Morley published the first set of FA laws on December 5th 1863, there was no mention of timings or numbers of players. The officials at the first ever FA meeting used the model of the Sheffield Rules as a guide line, although Sheffield also had no reference to timings or size of teams.

The first known match of 90 minutes duration was an inter city challenge between Sheffield and London, at Battersea Park on March 31st 1866. Nobody can explain why 45 minutes each half was decided, but it may have been due to the departure of the next convenient train north.

By 1871 the laws stipulated that FA Cup matches should be an hour and a half long and since then it has been set in stone.

Peter Seddon in "Football Talk", suggests that the clock face has a lot to do with selecting multiples in sport, as in tennis, 15,30,40 (errr should be 45 of course, but laziness might have changed this?) Convinced?

Arsene Wenger notes that matches have key periods and certainly the first 15 and last 15 minutes of a game are crucial. 8 European Cup Finals have been won in the final 15 minutes and two more have seen decisive equalisers scored with less than 15 to go, setting up extra time.

As many will note, football is a game of six sixths. The famous clock end, Highbury c. 1966. The match v Leeds was called off! Have a look at this www.whoateallthepies.tv › arsenal › the-...