The lens of partisanship

We are attracted to sport by such things as glory and beauty, usually refracted through the fantastic lens of partisanship. But the thing that keeps us coming back -the thing that keeps us marvelling - is courage, the more vivid when seen through the same lens.

Better words on sport may not have been written. Isn't this exactly what makes us all sports fans? Keeps us awake? Makes us forego productive time to shout at the TV? Isn't the lens of partisanship something we all own? Isn't courage shown by our team and the glory they gather one of the most invigorating feelings ever?

Simon Barnes of the Times in London is a star.

Wimbledon and the rain

Two articles on Wimbledon this year the rain that has plagued it - one superb one on rain affecting sport in general from Simon Barnes here, and one from Martin Johnson - typically ha ha funny. Sample this -

Is it possible that Wimbledon fortnight is now beginning to impact on the British public as tennis does for the other 50 weeks of the year? Judging by the absence of queues yesterday morning, even those people who are prepared to risk lumbago and pneumonia after spending the night on a soggy pavement for the chance of seeing an Ova playing an Eva on Court 17 have given up.

No one bloody knows!

That's the beauty of sport, innit? For all the punditry, all the analysis, all the damn experience and been-there-done-that of the experts and ex-players and commentators, beyond a point, in competitive sport (where two teams/individuals have reasonably evenly matched skill and ability), anything can happen. OF course, in this time and age, another caveat we need to add is the absence of dirty money and fixers!

That is precisely what makes us all so attracted to sport - an underdog can win (India v WI in 1983), a superstar can just as easily fail (Augusta this year - no one expected anyone else but Tiger to win on the last day), strange results do happen (India in Aus in 2003-4, India V Bdesh in WC 2007) - that is why for me sport is the supreme entertainment form, not films, not music, nothing.

You don’t know, I don’t know and, more to the point, experts don’t know either.
No one can ever truly be certain about the immeasurable and indefinable stuff
inside. John McEnroe had a flawed technique and a flawed temperament, but he
wasn’t going to let things like that hold him back. The truth is not in our
backhands, but in our minds.

Read Simon Barnes on precisely this subject. Aah, looking forward to Indianapolis and the US Open this weekend. No one can say for sure who is going to win. I am as good at predicting stuff as the experts in the respective sport.

I feel proud and powerful. I feel on par with everyone else. Cool!