Sport

Today I had the pleasure of going to Twickenham stadium with a band full of merry men, even merrier by the time we left. We went to go and see the international finals of the IRB Sevens tournament; in english this means 7 people a side on a full length pitch, 7 minutes each half. It was a great day and the sun shone throughout, even managed to get slightly burnt on the forehead. And to cap everything off, England actually won for once!

Coming home and hearing about all the other scores that went on today got me thinking about how sport can bring massive amounts of people together, for both good and bad reasons.

Firstly, the good. Sport has the power to unite not only a nation under one flag, but also bring together people from the local community to work towards a common goal. As a kid I remember playing for Brockford FC (Brockley and Catford blud!), although we were pretty shite I got meet a whole lot of people who I would otherwise never have met. Ok, so maybe some of them are working in fish & chip shops in Gravesend now, but the 40 minutes (20 minutes a half, we were kids!) that we used to play every sunday certainly gave me a love and understanding of 'the beautiful game' that I might never have got the chance to enjoy otherwise. To play sport professionally is something that I doubt many of us will ever get the chance to experience, and in some ways I don't think many of us would want to. To be at the peak of your abilities requires immense hours of physical training per week (well, depending on the sport ^_^), although in some ways this mirrors a normal job in that the more effort you put into it the more you (should) get out of it.

I also find it funny how different sports attract different crowds. For example, today at Twickenham there was a family who had brought a huge hamper with them, and out of this hamper they produced celery, malted brown bread sandwiches, profiteroles, strawberries with chocolate, I honestly thought it was just a small portal to the nearest Marks and Spencer's at one point. When was the last time you saw someone on Match of the Day reach into a wicker basket of dreams for a tasty morsel? However, in a way this does all make sense. Rugby is pretty much a mandatory sport for most kids blessed to have a private education, as is most other sports such as cricket, hockey, tennis and netball. For the majority that aren't rich enough to afford paying for education, football is pretty much the only sport that these kids can 'grab by the balls'. I'm not saying that you have to be wealthy to be interested in more than one type of sport, it's just that in this country, football is often the first and only sport that alot of children growing up can actually take part in without buying specialist equipment or learning the rules. Let's be honest, the rules to football are straightforward - use feet to put ball in back of net. You try explain to a kid that he has to get the ball from one of the pitch to another using your hands, yet you can only pass backwards, and see if he understands how it works without having to be shown an example.

The fact that sport can transcend boundaries such as class, gender and race is something pretty special, and in some of the poorer parts of the world sport can literally be one of the most important aspects of life. Alot of kids in Southern America, particularly Brazil eat, live and breathe football - it's no wonder those bastards win all the time come to think about it. In my eyes, one of the most amazing things about sport is the ability to fill an entire nation with the same feeling, be it joy, pain, disbelief, anger, humiliation.. the list goes on. Unfortunately, being English means that we are let down by our national sides around 80% of the time, often through sheer stupidity. Go China.

There is a flipside of this ability to manipulate the thoughts and feelings of thousands. Feeling exactly the same as the person next to you is not always a good thing, especially when that feeling is to act like a twat. In my eyes, there is no place in football for hooliganism, the very word hooligan could never describe something productive and worthwile. I'm all for passion in sport, and you can choose to show that in any way possible, be it painting your face or choosing to skip your wedding to watch the final. But for some people, as soon as they leave their house on matchday their brain is in a different state of mind, one that is more like a pack of animals than a crowd of fans. For me, there is a very clear boundary between showing support for your team and causing other people distress, more people than you think die from football related incidents, they're just hardly ever reported properly. This is probably because the government doesn't want us to link something that we love with something tragic too frequently, but I'm diverging somewhat so I think I'll call it a day there.

More teamplay less screenplay!

James