Bush & soccer

The Los Angeles Times's Grahame L. Jones takes President Bush to task because he told a German newspaper that basically for him soccer didn't really exist when he was growing up. Jones finds this almost unbelievable because

1. Bush was born in New Haven (his family moved to Texas when he was two)
2. Bush was 4 when the US team beat England in the World Cup
3. Bush was at Yale in 1966 when England hosted the World Cup and
4. Dallas had a professional soccer team from 1967-1981.

Uhh, Mr. Jones, the President was talking about when he was growing up in Midland Texas (when he was 12 or 13 – here's the transcript of the full interview), so I'm not sure what relevance there is to the fact that he was at Yale in 1966 or that Dallas got a professional team in 1967.

I don't find it surprising at all that Bush would claim that soccer didn't exist for him. I wonder how much soccer my father witnessed growing up in New York during the 40s and 50s. I know from talking to a couple of post-war immigrants who played soccer in New York that you could find games all right, but you had to know where to look.

And, I doubt that the big win over England made an impression on too many 4-year-old Americans. I was 5 when New York went bananas over the Mets win in the 1969 World Series and I don't remember any of it. I guarantee you that the US team's win was not as big in Midland as the Mets' win in New York in 1969.

Some people are just keen to criticize Bush for all sorts of reasons. Maybe they should just stick to the legitimate gripes and forget about damning him over this kind of nonsense.

(NOTE: if you read the full transcript I'm pretty sure that the translation has used "Bush" where it should say "President" or "the President".)