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What is “agricultural football”?

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    What is “agricultural football”?

    Yank here. I get much of my football information from the Guardian’s football page and its discussion threads. From time to time, mostly in the comments rather than articles, I see the term “agricultural football” used, usually describing play during a given game. It’s always used in a pejorative sense, and I infer that it has to do with an older style of British football (?). I find the term colorful and wonderfully descriptive (if only I could know what it actually meant), and it amuses me because I grew up on a farm.

    I’ve done Internet searches of the term and get instances of use but no outright definition. Does agricultural football refer to a team’s outdated strategy/tactics, such as long ball, kick and rush, trying to lob the ball to the classic big bloke in the box? Those strategies can be deemed “agricultural” in that they’re antiquated, “pre-modern,” brutish, something from the past. Or does it have to do with a rough, physical, possibly dirty, style of play on the part of individual players on the field: hacking, chopping down, plowing (into opposing players), clipping, scything - all farming actions. Or maybe it’s both?

    So, now that it's the "offseason," I’m asking the OTF cognoscenti to educate me about "agricultural football."

    #2
    I don't think there's a set definition. I'd use it to describe a team when:
    1) players are selected on the basis of size not skill
    2) there is a lot of "robust tackling", with players deliberately going in hard to try and intimidate or hurt the other player
    3) a direct style of play - long balls down the field with very little midfield play
    4) defenders clear the ball by booting it hard, usually out of play, with no attempt to pass the ball to a team mate

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      #3
      As a Brit in Germany, with an annoying habit of literally translating things, I once said: "Seine Grätsche war ein bisschen Landwirtschaftlich" (his tackle was a bit agricultural).

      Of course, no one knew what I was talking about.

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        #4
        Pretty much what Patrick said. See also "Banging it to the big man up front". A certain, unsophisticated, non-cerebral style of play, relying on speed, tackling and creating chaos rather than thought and patience. There is some subtle differences though, because Ben Mee smashing the ball 60 yards down the wing for someone to run onto is agricultural football, but Steven Gerrard doing it is merely "a long pass to unlock the counter attack".

        What we could consider "Agricultural football" is dying out. Even teams that rely on organisation and a degree of physicality still ping the ball around like on SWOS. Agricultural football can be seen most often when any side outside the top six of the Premier League takes points off Arsenal.

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          #5
          Wimbledon 1980s.

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            #6
            Some teams are so agricultural that they play on a 'ploughed pitch'.
            https://www.theguardian.com/football...oltonwanderers

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              #7
              John Beck's Cambridge United were the template.

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                #8
                Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
                Some teams are so agricultural that they play on a 'ploughed pitch'.
                https://www.theguardian.com/football...oltonwanderers
                Plough Lane?

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                  I don't think there's a set definition. I'd use it to describe a team when:
                  1) players are selected on the basis of size not skill
                  2) there is a lot of "robust tackling", with players deliberately going in hard to try and intimidate or hurt the other player
                  3) a direct style of play - long balls down the field with very little midfield play
                  4) defenders clear the ball by booting it hard, usually out of play, with no attempt to pass the ball to a team mate
                  I've always read the expression as something akin to #2 here: #3 and #4 are just 'route one' football to me.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
                    There is some subtle differences though, because Ben Mee smashing the ball 60 yards down the wing for someone to run onto is agricultural football, but Steven Gerrard doing it is merely "a long pass to unlock the counter attack".
                    Funny how often that sort of thing happens. Like Ben Mee breaking someone's leg in the street = assault. Ben Mee breaking someone's leg on a football pitch = "a perfectly acceptable and robust challenge."

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                      #11
                      I think Thatcher is the correct Ben to use for that comparison.

                      I usually think of an 'agricultural tackle/challenge' rather than 'agricultural football'. As hobbes says, it is robust and acceptable to the extent that the Thatcher is "just going for the ball" in the manner of a large excited dog, and paying about as much heed to the welfare of the player challenged. Shawcross on Ramsey is a great example. I'm happy to believe Shawcross didn't necessarily intend to maim Ramsey but that's little to no consolation when he's lying there afterwards. So yeah, hacking away with a scythe and cutting down everything in your path.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                        I don't think there's a set definition. I'd use it to describe a team when:
                        1) players are selected on the basis of size not skill
                        2) there is a lot of "robust tackling", with players deliberately going in hard to try and intimidate or hurt the other player
                        3) a direct style of play - long balls down the field with very little midfield play
                        4) defenders clear the ball by booting it hard, usually out of play, with no attempt to pass the ball to a team mate
                        This was how the game was taught to me in the US in the 80s and, I suspect, a lot of youth soccer and high school soccer is still like this. Thus, you can see why the US has a long way to go.

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                          #13
                          Thanks to all who responded. Collectively, you guys really covered it. “Agricultural football” is pretty much what I suspected, and I can go to my grave happy now that it’s been confirmed by experts.

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by Reginald Christ
                            To add to what PT and Snake have said, I'd say that the etymology of the term is based in the stereotype of agricultural people representing a certain lack of culture, sophistication and exhibiting backwardness. Applied to football that would imply a way of playing that resembles the game as it is played in its most basic, unskillful incarnation. It could also be used to describe the kind of football that teams would use if they weren't playing on smooth, flat grass but a muddy, uneven pasture like you'd find in agriculture.
                            Is it really that complicated? I thought it was just a Guardian-fancy way of saying a particular team are reliant on "hoof"ing it.

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                              #15


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                                #16
                                Originally posted by Reginald Christ
                                Yeah, but why is "hoofing it" regarded as "agricultural"? There's a reason that word was chosen and I think (just a personal view) that it's because of what I described.
                                Perhaps. I'd associated it with muddy pitches = ploughed fields and the necessity of hoofing the ball to get it to go anywhere.

                                I've occasionally used "industrial", to describe a team who run around a lot, but don't necessarily achieve very much. Usually composed of the kind of players traditionally beloved by English fans for their "commitment" and "energy." I'd assumed "agricultural" was an similar kind of metaphor.

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                                  #17
                                  German teams often get labelled "efficient" for being clinical and not wasting effort on flair and showboating skillz. Industrial would be a good word for that. Producing results with regularity.

                                  I'm inclined towards Reg's etymology of 'agricultural' meaning lacking in cultural grace and sophistication. Rural places often are.

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                                    German teams often get labelled "efficient" for being clinical and not wasting effort on flair and showboating skillz. Industrial would be a good word for that. Producing results with regularity.

                                    I'm inclined towards Reg's etymology of 'agricultural' meaning lacking in cultural grace and sophistication. Rural places often are.
                                    The self same rural places that gave us Laurie Lee and John Constable?

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                                      #19
                                      Laurie Lee who got the fuck out as soon as he was old enough to walk out one summer morn? Yup.

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                                        #20
                                        Cricket: an "agricultural" shot is one without finesse. Like a footballer, you boot it into the stand, but with a bat ... or you miss completely.
                                        Similarly, a boxer's "haymaker" will either knock you out or miss the target.

                                        I think this should be extended. "Agricultural cooking" - getting pissed and chucking any old rubbish into a pan. Might get lucky and deliver a treat, but probably won't. As performed by students in Cirencester.

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                                          #21
                                          Originally posted by tee rex View Post
                                          Cricket: an "agricultural" shot is one without finesse. Like a footballer, you boot it into the stand, but with a bat ... or you miss completely.
                                          Similarly, a boxer's "haymaker" will either knock you out or miss the target.
                                          Also in cricket - cow corner. The area of the pitch (~45° in front of the wicket on the deep leg side) that a player without technique and not playing conventional cricket strokes may be able to get the ball to using sheer brute strength. The shot in question not being classed as a pull or drive but instead often termed a 'heave'.

                                          A skipper who doesn't station a fielder at cow corner in village cricket will get some serious questions on what she's up to.

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                                            #22
                                            Oh, and to get a sense of what agricultural football means, try wingco's various match report references to Phil Jones with rustic country bumpkin stereotypes ('pursuing the ball in a shambolic manner that calls to mind a farm boy chasing the goat that has just stolen his hat', that sort of thing). And also others comparing Jones to this:-

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                                              #23
                                              I see this thread has taken a lighthearted turn.

                                              No doubt Ipswich Town ("The Tractor Boys") and the successor club to Traktor Volgograd are the main proponents of this variant of agricultural football:
                                               
                                              Last edited by KyleRoteJr.; 11-06-2019, 11:31.

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                                                #24
                                                Not really. If anything the Ipswich side when that name was coined (early 90s) played the opposite sort of style - a decently sophisticated passing game. It was something like the same style as the great Ipswich sides of the late 70s/early 80s (Ramsey's league champions of the 60s were a different case). The nickname was simply a self-deprecating reference to how the town was inaccurately perceived in the rest of the country, i.e. as somewhere pretty rural.

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                                                  #25
                                                  I wasn't implying that Ipswich played agricultural football as discussed in this thread. I was merely making a tongue-in-cheek association (perhaps not well enough) between clubs with "tractor" in their name or nickname and actual "tractor football" -- with men on tractors pushing a ball around -- reinforced by the attached video of tractor football.

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