Dear John,
Here is an extract from the report, Metrication in Australia by Kevin
Wilks:
Sport And Recreation
The conversion of sport and recreation was planned by the Health and
Recreation Advisory Committee with individual members reporting on
progress in recreational activities such as shows, clubs, galleries
and studios, professional sport, amateur sport, youth activities and
safety.
Because of its expected impact on the ordinary citizen, conversion of
sporting activities was seen as an important factor in the
subconscious education of the public in metric units. For this reason
horse racing, a highly traditional sport, was converted, with the
support and cooperation of media commentators, in August 1972.
Greyhound racing converted in January 1973 and trotting converted in
August 1973. All football codes were converted by 1974. Conversion
consisted largely of "soft" conversion of distances in rules and
dimensions of playing fields and all commentaries were provided in
metric.
In most cases the dimensions of cricket pitches and tennis courts
could not be varied and were sensible conversions of previous
measurements.
All swimming and athletic events, including Olympic Games and
Commonwealth Games, had been metric for years although, strangely,
this did little to condition the public for metrication in other sports.
Where the sports controlling body was in the United States of America
and conversion had not yet been considered, the rules remained
essentially imperial. These sports included ten pin bowling, baseball,
drag racing and quarter horse racing.
In certain sports in which a measurement was part of the title, such
as the 16 footer and 18 footer sailing clubs, the rules were
metricated but the names were retained. However, where practicable,
motor races like the "Bathurst 500" (miles) have been varied to become
the "Bathurst 1000" (km).
On occasions when international sporting events were held, the
commentaries were recorded in old measurements for the benefit of the
visitor countries.
By 1982, the various city and provincial Agricultural Shows had almost
completed their metrication programs with the notable exception of the
height of horses. Horse categories in hands and quarters of a hand (a
hand is exactly four inches) had been used in British countries for
many years and the practice was deeply entrenched. Most show societies
required the height to be stated in centimetres in addition to hands
but it was expected to be a long time before this "unit' disappeared.
Height categories in centimetres were used in Europe but the hand was
retained for commercial transactions with Britain.
In sports fishing, line breaking strain in newtons replaced the pound
or pound force measurement. Conversion to the kilogram mass was not
appropriate as the breaking strain specified for a certain kind of
fish was not related to its mass. Kilogram force was no longer a legal
unit of force and breaking strain in newtons was required under
Standardised Packaging Regulations.
Despite the interest in sport in Australia and the very high degree of
support given by the media and sporting commentators, conversion of
sports did not appear to have been significant as an educational aid for
##
I disagree, slightly, with Kevin Wilks' final point. I think that the
marking of the 50 metre lines and the 10 metre central squares has had
a significant effect on the way that commentators and spectators
discuss the game of Australian Rules football. As the lines are there
all the time, players use them to judge the way they play; you might
choose to shoot for goal rather than passing the ball to a member of
your team depending on whether you are inside or outside the 50 metre
line. See the beginning of this thread (below) where the original
title was: Geelong wins national football championship – Whee!
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain
from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com
for more metrication information, contact Pat at [email protected]
or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter
to subscribe.
On 2009/10/13, at 01:39 , John M. Steele wrote:
Metricating American football should be WAY down the list of
priorities. Trying to do it early will just make folks mad. Once
the US is nearly completely metricated, people will wonder about
those yards and perhaps be willing to metricate football (its not
like the rest of the world loves it and is just dying for a metric
version).
However, a 90 m field and 9 m of forward progress probably make more
sense than blindly pretending yards are meters. The 90 m field fits
existing stadiums and represents less than 1.6% change in total
length, and progress for a 1st down. I am not convinced that a
small change of the magnitude invalidates all statistics, I think
they could be "adjusted." Certainly some other rules need to be
revisited. I would number to the 40 m line, leaving a 10 m zone
between 40's (Canadian football has two 50 yard lines). The meter
line for kickoff (30 yard line) and taking possession (20 yard line)
would have to be reconsidered, and the chainsmen would need a 9 m
chain. Extra point attempts could be undertaken from the 2 m line.
Pretending meters are yards is about a 9.4% change in total length,
and progress for a first down. Besides not fitting most stadiums, I
would argue that this would change the nature of the game and
invalidate statistics far more than a 1.6% change.
FIFA rounded the rules of the game in an apparently intelligent
way. Important measurements were rounded to the nearest centimeter,
and less important measurements were rounded further. I think a
thoughtful approach would allow any game to be metricated, but not
until the folks in charge of the rules or laws of the game are ready
to undertake it.
--- On Mon, 10/12/09, STANLEY DOORE <[email protected]> wrote:
From: STANLEY DOORE <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:46001] Re: FIFA Football Fields
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Cc: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Date: Monday, October 12, 2009, 8:35 AM
Most comments here on conversion of American football to metric
have addressed the problem from the rules and game playing
standpoint. However, only one addressed it to a new field length
(90 m) standpoint.
Changing field length to a full 100 m would require
reconstruction of stadiums to provide space for a 100 m field. A 90
m field would fit most current stadiums; however that would require
changing rules and void all previous statistics.
Leaving American football fields size as is (100 yards plus end
zones) and current rules would have the nostalgic but practical
advantage for Fred Flintstone Units (FFU) in this case.
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
To: U.S. Metric Association
Cc: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:31 PM
Subject: [USMA:45985] Re: FIFA Football Fields
Metricating US football would weaken the offense, particularly the
rush, and strengthen the defense - the offensive team would have to
go about 10% farther to get first down. However, since teams have
both an offense and defense, most would be equally affected. The
likely result would be somewhat lower scoring.
Carleton
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kimbrough Sherman" <[email protected]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, October 9, 2009 10:50:01 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [USMA:45982] FIFA Football Fields
I don't believe that the use of metric measures will at all alter
U.S. Soccer, but, incidentally, the fixed measures of the field and
goals Worldwide http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/lawsofthegame.html
are in former hard English Yards (Penalty and goal areas) and feet
(height of crossbar) and soft metric. The Penalty Area is specified
at 16.5 Meters to accommodate the original dimension of 18 Yards.
American Football, as Stanley Doore has mentioned does have a real
problem with conversion. The concept of "first downs" would be
altered by a ten-Meters requirement, and if the fields were enlarged
to 100 Meters, with two 10 Meter end zones, there are almost no
stadium floors that would accommocate these fields (more than 11M
longer).
In my opinion, American Football should keep the "Yard" as its
measure and children can be instructed that it is a football
measure, and left to die a slow and painless death as people get
tired of explaining it in the far future.
American Football is the only U.S. Sport I know that would suffer
(statistically, and logistically) from SI adoption.
From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On Behalf
Of STANLEY DOORE [[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 5:49 AM
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:45976] Re: Geelong wins national football championship
Congratulations Pat.
It is my understanding that soccer fields do not have a standard
size. This makes it very easy to use metric dimensions entirely.
Great!
Not so with US football fields which have a standard size.
Performance statistics are therefore based on the yard. Stadiums
also are built with this in mind.
Soccer fields could be standardized on rigid metric dimensions;
however, wouldn't there be problems when trying to fit a
standardized metric field size into various sized stadiums?
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Pat Naughtin
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2009 4:33 AM
Subject: [USMA:45897] Geelong wins national football championship
Geelong wins national football championship
So what, I hear you chorus. Who cares that Geelong has won the title
as the Australian Rules football championship? However, this
bragging is not the purpose of this email.
The ground that the football game is played on is slightly variable
in size but it has all of its markings in metres. Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Australian_football
This means that the sports commentators have continuously available
references that they use to describe each game. The metric influence
is continuous, especially the two arcs marked 50 metres from each
goal. This has had the effect of making the descriptions wholly
metric.
I doubt that the transition to metric in Australian Rules Football
would have happened so quickly without the constant metric reference
lines on every ground built into the rules of the game itself.
Perhaps there are some thoughts here for other metrication
transitions!
The game, today went for 100 minutes, but if you would like to get a
flavor of the action there is a 10 minute sample athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIOvSv9Q1Gk&feature=fvw
Geelong are the only team to wear horizontal stripes of navy blue
and white – watch for the Gary Ablett goal at 5:15.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain
from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that
they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or
selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources
for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial,
industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and
in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google,
NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the
USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com for more metrication
information, contact Pat at [email protected] or
to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter
to subscribe.
