Reality and unreality

The reality and unreality of sport

First, the unreality

In issue two of The Nightwatchman, a writer looks back at her fourteen year old, England cricket obsessed self. When they won a game, and then a series, she talks about going out the next morning, buying every broadsheet newspaper, and spending some happy hours basking in the warm glow of the victory, reading all the reports in the sports pages.

In 2007 I was invited to the S***s v Arsenal league cup game, at White Hart Lane. Great company (two Spuds fans, two Arsenal), great seats right by the dugouts, and a great result. Two-nil up at half time, they were crowing. Loudly. Then we came out and brushed them aside in the second half, pulling the game back to 2-2 and going through on aggregate over the two-leg semi final.

There was some trouble after the game and some stations were shut, and my guide (one of the Spuds guys) had left his briefcase, and his house keys, at the ground, and so I wandered about a bit before missing the last train home and stopping over. I had a morning physio appointment, so was on the 04:30 night bus to Charing Cross for the 05:30 train.

I did just what that writer described. Maybe not every broadsheet, but two, maybe three. At least a Guardian and a Times. It was snowing the wrong sort of snow, and I woke up about halfway home, at eleven o'clock, being chucked off the train, where the regulars on the 05:30 up to town had just got chucked off the upward-bound train. I missed the physio appointment, and spent the rest of the day basking in the glory of that comeback, grinning at the initial roll-out of the “Two-nil, and you f***ed it up” song.

That's sport. It's magic. That idiot Sugar gave an address to the Oxford or Cambridge students union which he used to promote his view that over-paid and pampered players needed “bringing back to the real world”.

Yet it is the unreality of sport that makes it so compelling. The unlikely comebacks. The giant-killings. The Mexican roadsweeper (Monday) and world bantam-weight champion (Saturday night). Why should businessmen like Sugar, who earn fortunes pulling dodgy deals and striping folk condemn players with a much shorter shelf-life, a much harder working life, and a much more measurable metric of their success or failure?

The reality

Unlike almost anything else, sport is the ultimate exercise in practicability. At the end of the round of golf, the scorecard does not record the number of gorgeous and ugly shots played, which holes were scrambled and which were spanked.

The records are not of how, but how many.

Imagine politicians taking over the 100 metres. Their man may have come third, but after you apply the seasonal adjustment, take all the other mitigating factors into account, well, he's actually got the gold sewen up.

Imagine bankers playing rugby. They would lose by a huge margin, drop the ball all over the place, give a thoroughly inept performance, cost their club every penny it has, then still hold out to claim their huge win bonuses.

The top players command huge money because they're rarer than rocking horse plop, because they have a track record or banging in important goals, scoring runs that change the course of a game, taking big wickets, making last-ditch tackles stopping their opponents scoring a try. They drive faster, jump higher, run quicker than anyone else. In real, measurable, indisputable terms.

So, it's that warm glow...

...after MM and I watched a comedy S***s team brushed aside in the 3^rd round of the FA Cup at our place. Another song was rolled out, the “Tim Sherwood's a gooner” song.

It's still making me smile 24 hours later.