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You can love ballet AND football.....


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I love the typical dancers pose on the floor!!

My dad used to play football for Woking ( he did have a trial for Chelsea when the wages were still peanuts in amateur days) so being a bit sporty was fine in our house. Though I have to say he wasn't so sure about the "ballet thing" and thought I'd lose interest by age of 10.

He used to wind me up saying I had legs like Billy Wright .....I had no idea who Billy Wright was other than he was a footballer but it didn't seem like a desirable thing somehow!! 

In the 1966 World Cup I had just been to Germany for the first time to stay with my pen friend and was in love with everything German! I was really torn in that cup who to support.....unbelievable ....but the naivety of youth and all 😳🙃

I got further dragged into football when I started teaching up in Liverpool and I had to take the class to Sefton Park to play football and talk about managing egos!! Every boy in that class wanted to play for Liverpool to a man and so of course since then ( 1970) Liverpool has been "My team" 

In London I  taught  for many years very close to the Arsenal stadium and so enjoyed winding some of the kids  up when Arsenal were playing Liverpool!! 

I do love watching a good game of football and thought the Belgium/ Brazil game was pretty good yesterday though haven't seen all the matches. 

Yes come on England (and sorry this has turned out to be so long!!) 

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I'm not a football fan; probably helps if your family is into it when you are young, which mine was not. I tried watching the last England game - there was a big outdoor screen near our place in London with a huge and, er, lively crowd.  Must say the game itself left me completely cold, but the atmosphere was great and very infectious.  So, "sealions on the shirt" or whatever, and good luck!

 

 

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10 minutes ago, LinMM said:

I got further dragged into football when I started teaching up in Liverpool and I had to take the class to Sefton Park to play football and talk about managing egos!! Every boy in that class wanted to play for Liverpool to a man and so of course since then ( 1970) Liverpool has been "My team" 

 

My team too, since birth (1960)! My Dad (born 1915) was from Belfast but supported Liverpool, and he moved there in 1929 to live with an aunt when his parents died. So my blood is Liverpudlian red. Not sure where the ballet comes from!

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21 minutes ago, Tony Newcombe said:

Me too

 

Thanks to intervals we can still listen to the first twenty minutes of the first half and about the first 15 minutes of the second :P

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I don't really like football, but I think there is a similarity between serious football fans and ballet fans, I often smile whilst travelling back on the train on a football night, they are discussing the performance of their team as we would discuss a ballet performance :)

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Yeah a very well behaved audience except for the person that got told off by the stewardess for taking this shot at the end :lol:

 

It would've been a pic of the dancers taking applause if I hadn't waited for people beside me to depart just before this one was taken

 

 

 

41451040600_c6d59baa25_o.jpgla fille by Rob Sallnow, on Flickr

Edited by Rob S
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On 07/07/2018 at 10:02, bridiem said:

 

My team too, since birth (1960)! My Dad (born 1915) was from Belfast but supported Liverpool, and he moved there in 1929 to live with an aunt when his parents died. So my blood is Liverpudlian red. Not sure where the ballet comes from!

I knew there was another reason why I liked you! 👍

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and this is what the theatre memes dept came up with (sent to me by Oscar, who said that when Russia scored you could hear the roar on stage- edited to add - the roar of the crowd outside, rather than anyone actually ON stage hehe)

36664409_2192806744067401_3911730508093980672_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=ae0bb0d5b9013b0e1289807a3396b960&oe=5BE81040

Edited by CeliB
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only in the local pub- he has been performing so relentlessly that he wouldn't have been able to go even if he'd had tickets- but he did get to see most of the Russia quarter as he was only in Act 1 of R&J - and he had his sister and brother with him (as well as lots of the Bolshoi soloists - it was quite an evening). 

DD says that there was hardly anyone left to take the curtain call after the performance (she and DS2 had free second row seats courtesy of their brother) as they had all rushed off to watch the footie!

I think he was slightly relieved that Russia didn't win- would have been pretty tough to be watching a Russia England match - talk about divided loyalties!

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I must admit I agree about that as there is just such a sensitive political situation between UK Government and Russian Government at the moment and I've been hearing the media over there is bit hyped up over it all too and a bit anti Brit ......so as the Tournament has all been running so smoothly so far best that England and Russia won't be playing each other just at the moment  I think. 

Some of the comments of the football supporters who have been in Russia have been great as they've been able to separate the people from the Government and see that Russia is an okay place to visit!! 

There are often torn loyalties in World Cup events! My partner has been going to the same Italian hairdresser in Hackney for about forty years now!! He has lived most of his adult life in UK. But when World Cup is on he supports  Italy first ( of course) but if they are knocked out he supports UK!!

I'm sure one year England were playing Italy directly when he went up for his hair cut in either the World or Euros  so lots of ribbing went on that day!! 

Glad to know that Oscar is getting so much performing though!! I saw a couple of recent videos and his dancing is just fantastic. 

Must have been lovely having brother and sister support in the audience too. 

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Not surprised by tonight's result. England should have moved hell and earth to score a second goal in the first half, and it would effectively have killed it off. I remember thinking when they were still only 1 nil up; watch Croatia go on to win this match.

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Oh dear..... I think you've said it all Lisa!! 

Mind you after the group stages I still didn't think England had a chance to actually win this thing!

I had five teams back then .....Uruguay Brazil Belgium France and Croatia!! ( I tend to predict teams which don't actually lose any games in the group stages) 

Perhaps I should have placed a few bets! 

Anyway let's hope we can now show a bit of flair and beat Belgium in some sort of thrilling match for third place now we have got this far......and it has been fun up till now a great atmosphere everywhere but perhaps wise not to sing that "it's coming home" song till we actually make it to a final!!   I think  France will win the cup but would be great for a tiny country like Croatia to win it....they have won more games than France in this tournament ( France drew a game in the group stages) but apparently have never beaten France when played against them before .....but you never really do know in football!!

 

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Well... I don’t know.

I mean, I’m well versed in watching contemporary dance, and I know about  Merce Cunningham’s opinion that it’s not necessarily  always centre stage where the important things happen… but I thought the choreography was really confusing and haphazardly interrupted by sudden stops and I couldn’t find any connection at all to the music. It was as if the performers were just reacting to random sounds, I mean, I quite like a bit of spontaneity, but this was so confusing sometimes! Also, I’d have appreciated some slower or more sustained movements here and there.

 

I also didn’t understand why sequences performed on the ground had to be repeated so often, I found that quite boring. Also too many abrupt changes from locally very restricted solos and duets to wide spread actions with many participants which were very difficult to observe.

I rather enjoyed some quirky moments, when performers were tugging at each other’s costumes or “arguing” with a soloist (who, by the way, impressed by his ability of showing clear and directional gestures).

 

All in all, I thought this was very long (didn’t change much after the interval) and the encores were not as captivating as I has hoped. The audience loved the performance and the atmosphere was sometimes exhilarating. I have to praise the performers for their enthusiasm, their skills and their stamina, but the lack of concise choreography was too big a challenge, and personally, I couldn’t watch this kind of performance very often.

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  • 1 month later...

I used to go to the football when I was feeling depressed. It was years before I realised that it was the football that was depressing me. Now I go to the ballet instead and always remain bright, cheerful and positive. I still occasionally risk a football match. I think the message should be, 'if you are a bad loser and English', stay away from the football.

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