I have a confession…..it’s a biggie I’m afraid….I am, and
have for 40 years, been an Olympicoholic.
Ever since the Munich
The Commonwealth Games, World Athletic Games, European
Athletics all plug a gap in the four barren years between games, but it’s only
the Olympics itself that can truly satisfy the need.
The Olympics are something special for it’s not just Track
and Field that works so well in the 16 days every 4 years, but also swimming,
cycling, diving, archery, in fact pretty much every sport at the Olympics
becomes utterly, totally, compellingly addictive. …all except the football that
is.
Never liked football, not even at School. I guess part of
the reason was that, during the dark days of school, it was track and field
(and mostly track) that was the only sport that I ever really got the hang of.
Running fast is something that, as a sport, makes perfect sense: no silly rules, skills or time limits;
just belting as quickly as possible to the line. I loved running, especially the
100 and 200 metres. I was, truth be told, never going to be an Olympic
contender, though I did (briefly) compete for my school, town and county back
in the day. Up until the age of 15 running was (almost) everything, until, that
is, archaeology got in the way (and I discovered that you could have as much,
if not more, fun all year round without the need for endless training).
As the years have gone on, my interest in running / jumping
/ throwing sports has remained, whilst interest in football has deteriorated
even further. I don’t know why footie is still proclaimed as the National sport
and, bizarrely, the ‘Beautiful Game’. In the cold, hard light of day, there’s
nothing beautiful at all about football. If you’ve ever had the misfortune to
be in a city centre (or on a train / bus, any form of public transport) when
there’s a football match on, you’ll know what I mean: hoards of
shaven-headed, chanting, drinking, fighting, brawling thugs smashing their way
through shopping arcades towards their own personalised form of Valhalla.
You
never get this with Athletics.
A crowd watching track and field events cheer and celebrate,
but they applaud performance, irrespective of nationality; they congratulate
sportsmanship and achievement, they do not (and never have in my experience)
berate competitors for their skills, nationality, appearance or skin colour.
I’ve never heard athletics (or cycling or swimming or gymnastics or archery or
any other Olympic-related sport, other than football of course) yelling abuse,
booing, racially abusing, questioning the sexual orientation of sporting
competitors of other nationalities. Do British Athletics fans boo American long
jumpers, Jamaican sprinters, Russian pole volters? No.
Same really goes for football players themselves, as all the
recent furore in the British press confirms. The ‘industrial language’,
aggression and casual violence that occurs on the football pitch seems to be
perfectly ‘acceptable’, at least in a court of law; a common and natural aspect
of the sport. Well, it shouldn’t be. Are football players (and why is it just
‘football’ when it’s clear that we’re talking about the male game…why is there
‘Football’ and ‘Women’s Football'? Why the distinction? That implies that ‘Women’s Football' is
somehow different, less important…surely, to be fair, it should be the ‘Men’s
World Cup’ or ‘Men’s Euro 2012’ etc so that the female game isn’t somehow
considered in anyway second rate….anyway, I digress) really that special? 11 overpaid,
racist, misogynist, sexist, homophobes spending 90 minutes trying (and, more
often than not failing) to kick a ball into a net and cheered on by thousands
of violent ultra-nationalists? Is this really something to celebrate? Is this
really the ‘beautiful game’?
I’m digressing again…
I didn’t manage to get any tickets for the London 2012 Olympics though,
in order to see the games close up (though that’s probably good news for my bank
manager as I did apply for over £4,700 worth of tickets….even saying that makes
me come out in a cold sweat) but I will have a grandstand view thanks to the BBC .
Only trouble is, now that the games are in the UK, there will be full coverage
from 6am to 9pm every day for over two weeks…….then, of course, the Paralympics
follows straight after……
……it’s going to be a long month…
Last week I witnessed the Olympic flame as it dashed past my house (ok, near my house) as part
of the relay and suddenly I was a five year old boy again. The Olympics will be
here in less than a week and I will be utterly transfixed. Forget about
football and all of its violent, racist, nationalist associations, and focus on
real sporting achievement. As one commentator said as the torch was carried
past, “it’s better to carry the torch than a sword”. Yes indeed and they could
well have added “it’s better to hurl a discus than racial abuse; it’s better to
kick to the finish line than kick a police line; it’s better to run 100m than
run for cover”.
Didn’t manage to get any tickets of though, did I mention
that?
