In any sports team the starting players are usually the best that the team can muster up. They are the stars, the best athletes and the ones that help win matches. But all sports teams also have a team of replacement players that they can call upon if anything goes wrong or if an injury takes place. A film was made starring Keanu Reeves called The Replacements, which was based on a true story about a team of replacement American football players who took over from the starting players because of a player strike. They went on to perform very well and this idea led to a question whether it has happened any other time?
In 1987, the Dallas Cowboys American football team was in the midst of a player's strike and had to use an entire team of replacement players for three games. "[The team] prepared for a player strike in 1987, and when the time came, the Cowboys fielded a very good team of replacements. Dallas ran its record to 3-1 with a 38-24 win over the Jets and a 41-22 win over the Eagles. A total of 40,622 fans showed up for the Philadelphia game at Texas Stadium. The following week, a total of 60,612 attended the team’s game against the Redskins". What is interesting to note here is that the fans supported the replacement players and came out in full force to watch the games. This was a very unique form to take place because it is usually the case that the second string of players in any squad are never as good or as talented as the first tier players. Sometimes something odd happens, if an entire team of replacement players is called upon to perform for their club or their country, they might feel a certain level of pride and exuberance and play better than expected. It might also be the case that the reason the replacement team play so well together is because as they are all called on at the same time to work as a team they get a feeling of unity and might excel because of it. They are usually just individually called in one at a time if at all. An interesting fact of this story, of the '87 replacement team, is that several players played the only games of their entire careers during those three winning games of the Cowboys. It must have been the greatest experience of their professional lives.
This phenomenon is not limited to American football; it also took place in cricket in 2009 when the West Indians took on Bangladesh. It seems the team was hit by a player strike similar to the one felt by the Dallas Cowboys and so they replaced most of their team with unheard of players. "West Indies have announced a second-string squad for the first Test against Bangladesh on Thursday following a boycott by the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA)". One doesn't expect this kind of action to take place in the game of cricket because player's usually don't strike in the game and the strength of the governing bodies means that player dissent is not usually tolerated. The West Indians faced a similar situation when five top players almost dropped out of a test match to go play for the IPL. The article which mentions the quote above tells us that that situation was narrowly avoided but the player strike before the Bangladesh match went ahead and so the team was made up of relative unknowns and inexperienced players.
It seems a lot of people suffer from a player strike. First of all the management suffers because they have to deal with striking players and trying to reasonably satisfy their demands. The fans suffer because they watch games and come out to the stadiums to watch their favourite players, not to watch a bunch of unknowns. Although the case of the 1987 Cowboys team begs to differ; the striking players also suffer because they lose playing time and have to deal with a lot of pressure and uncertainty. The only people who don't suffer in this situation are the actual replacement players. These inexperienced and untested players usually have the greatest time of their careers because they get to replace major stars and try to showcase their talents to try to get picked for the starting line and most of the times it gets some much needed professional level practice that helps them improve their talent and skills.
This practice of replacing a whole team is very rare and we probably won't see it happening too often. All we can do is relish the times it did happen and treat it as a very interesting aspect of the sports that we all love so much.
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