A Quote by Robert Byrne

Once-dominant games like straight pool and three-cushion billiards have lost ground to eight-ball - the game of choice for millions of tavern league players - and nine-ball, the preeminent tournament game.
In America everyone plays bang ball, eight ball, nine ball, that kind of stupid crap, but in Canada and Europe they play snooker which is a much more skillful game and I enjoy that. I play pool now with friends, if we go to a bar we will play, but I am nowhere near as good as I once was.
It is impossible to do it for the whole game, but when you have the ball for most of the game and have players like Samir Nasri, David Silva, Yaya Toure, and Raheem Sterling, they keep the ball so well.
There was one planet off in the seventh dimension that got used as a ball in a game of intergalactic bar billiards. Got potted straight into a black hole.
The Premier League is guided by this dynamic: ball lost - ball recovered - ball lost again. That makes matches unpredictable, teams must be objective and behave like that because that's what excites fans.
You will never run more than the ball. The players that don't lose the ball are the most important in the team, and good players decide the game.
To me, it's just another game of football - 11 players, a grass pitch. Regardless what shirt I have on, it's important you win the game, and I'm competitive as anyone, and I want to win every game, whether it's a Sunday league game, a five-a-side tournament, or a World Cup qualifier.
My approach every game is to try to keep the ball down and get ground ball outs.
I find the ball, and I think, 'Where's the ball going, and where do I need to go?' It just puts me back in the game, and it's the simplest thing, but it's become sort of like my soccer mantra. I simply use the ball as my focus point and move back into position, and the distracting thoughts disappear, and I'm right back in the game.
I like to go see a ball game. I'll have seven, eight, nine - 10 beers, and the second inning will roll around, and I gotta go.
I play in front of 70,000 fans week in and week out, and I may drop the ball in practice, I may run the ball the wrong way, but once it's game time, it's game on.
I learned to approach racing like a game of billiards. If you bash the ball too hard, you get nowhere. As you handle the cue properly, you drive with more finesse.
We played 63 games in the treble-winning season of 1999, and I cannot remember feeling tired once. We won the league title with the last game of the season, and along the way, we knew that in any game we could miss out on this chance of a lifetime to win all three. We had 22 players who were ready to be called on at any moment.
There is fireworks before the game; there is the national anthem before the game, so that is a huge difference to how it is in Germany: like, after the warmup, you touch the ball 20 minutes later. So that is a little bit different. The league, for example, the MLS is quite a young league, actually, but it is developing.
There are several differences between a football game and a revolution. For one thing, a football game usually lasts longer and the participants wear uniforms. Also, there are usually more casualties in a football game. The object of the game is to move a ball past the other team's goal line. This counts as six points. No points are given for lacerations, contusions, or abrasions, but then no points are deducted, either. Kicking is very important in football. In fact, some of the more enthusiastic players even kick the ball, occasionally.
In sixth grade, my basketball team made it to the league championships. In double overtime, with three seconds left, I rebounded the ball and passed it - to the wrong team! They scored at the buzzer and we lost the game. To this day, I still have nightmares!
Anyone who has played the game professionally, you're always taught that the ball is the most important, most precious thing, so when the ball hits the ground, it's always a mad scramble. It's amazing how many times there is a fumble, and the person who recovers it initially doesn't walk away with the ball.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!