re: its not soccer you americanized zombies "A soccer player...

re: its not soccer you americanized zombies "A soccer player cant understand the rigours and demands of playing a physical sport like AFL. Soccer is like basketball, it is non contact. Tell dermott brereton playing in a grand final with broken ribs that soccer is more demanding than football, i dont think so."

Hmmm ever heard of Bert Trautman

It is not often you will hear someone describe the day they broke their neck as being 'very lucky'. But that is exactly how Bert Trautmann, Manchester City's German goalkeeper of the 50s and 60s, remembers feeling on the day he wrote his name into English footballing folklore.

Around 70 minutes into the 1956 FA Cup final, with City 3-1 up, Trautmann came out to claim a cross at the feet of Birmingham City forward Peter Murphy. 'I flew forward,' he recalls, 'and he came into me; it was like a train crash. I got his thigh in my neck and in that moment I was gone.'

Concussed, and groggy from the pain, Trautmann - though he didn't know it at the time - had broken a vertebrae in his neck. With no substitutes in those days, he carried on, making two vital saves to retain his side's advantage.

'The only treatment I got on the pitch was the 'magic sponge' and cold water,' he laughs. 'From then on I couldn't remember anything. All I saw was like a fog; a greyness. I saw things moving but didn't really recognise them as players, but instinctively I carried on. I can't explain it, nobody can.'

'When I saw it later on the TV I broke down a couple more times and made a couple of saves, but it was like watching a stranger. That was the luckiest time of my life: lucky that I got to play in an FA Cup final and lucky that I could carry on playing after the injury.'

The break was so serious, Trautmann, in staying on the pitch, had risked his life.