My personal experience of sport consists only of “games” at school — specifically football, an astonishingly vicious game that in America is played by beefy men wearing helmets and shoulder pads. In a different definition of a game, you are only allowed t-shirt and shorts to shield yourself from an incredibly hard ball, kicked with great force and travelling at great speed. Good times.
Even with this especially spartan old-school introduction to the agony of running about on a muddy pitch, I always think that, at its best, sport is about the human body doing something transcendentally brilliant, something amazingly skilful and disciplined, something occasionally breathtakingly beautiful — and in so doing bringing enormous joy to the people watching, whether they’re proud parents or a crowd of millions. It’s not about who does what to whom in a hotel bedroom or how much their wife’s hair extensions and veneers cost. Or at least it shouldn’t be.
Alas. Think “sportsman” and last week — there’ll be another story along in a minute — you think Ashley Cole, freshly dumped by Cheryl Tweedy for philandering. Or John Terry, former England captain, not dumped by his wife for philandering. Or Tiger Wood with his squeaky clean image crumbling down with the revelation of his particular fetish with blond bombshell.
Personally I am of the unfashionable opinion that what people do with their genitals is nobody’s business but their own. This applies to anyone, in my view, whether they are in or out of the public eye and whether they’re Bill Clinton or Tiger Wood. I just can’t bear the prurience, which has nothing to do with anything that matters to the public, such as running the world’s last remaining superpower or being the no. 1 golfer.
I don’t understand why being good at something means you automatically have to be a moral exemplar. Why? Whose stupid idea was that? Do young boys who audition for football teams or aspire to be the best in a game have to proclaim they are morally immaculate? Of course not: it’s not Pope Idol.
It’s quite a big ask, isn’t it, of anyone in the public eye, and yet we take it for granted that some poor bloke who has been anointed a “role model” through no fault of their own must always behave as a model of moral rectitude. For the vast majority of us, that would involve a personality transplant. Why assume that some boy who’s really good at running and kicking a ball is going to be any different? And since most ordinary men — regrettably — don’t subscribe to the idealism of monogamy, why assume that footballers would be the exception?
I find what’s happened to football extraordinary. I was acquainted with a bunch of coursemates who are obsessed with football. When they were bragging about their favourite teams, this was to do with the joys of scoring a goal and, by extension, about teamwork, camaraderie and the pleasure that came from watching their team win. They seldom associated their pride with their football team with money or glamour: if David Beckham was going to marry one of the Spice Girls, well — they would not suddenly switch allegiance to another rival club.
Over the years, the sport has evolved to the point where the actual playing, while still obviously thrilling, has become permanently overshadowed by the salacious gossip and the fabulously vulgar displays of ostentation.
It is pointless mourning the fact that footballers have become huge media celebrities, albeit for all the wrong reasons. But this latest spate of scandals is nevertheless properly sad — not because of the pity of the spouse and children of the sport celebrity in question, but because all of this stuff does detract from the game for the people who love it.
I have a cousin, who is 17, really loves football, passionately. But he reads the sports pages and looks slightly ashamed; he reads the front pages of the tabloids and looks uncomprehending. They’ve debased something he loves.
I don’t blame the players for being flawed people and I don’t blame the media for being so endlessly thirsty for this kind of content. The public gets what the public wants — always, so it can feel all deliciously schadenfreude— and the public, apparently, wants to hear about who was in a sex scandal or paid for abortion.
And, just like that, for one 17-year-old boy at least, the game isn’t very beautiful any more.
Even with this especially spartan old-school introduction to the agony of running about on a muddy pitch, I always think that, at its best, sport is about the human body doing something transcendentally brilliant, something amazingly skilful and disciplined, something occasionally breathtakingly beautiful — and in so doing bringing enormous joy to the people watching, whether they’re proud parents or a crowd of millions. It’s not about who does what to whom in a hotel bedroom or how much their wife’s hair extensions and veneers cost. Or at least it shouldn’t be.
Alas. Think “sportsman” and last week — there’ll be another story along in a minute — you think Ashley Cole, freshly dumped by Cheryl Tweedy for philandering. Or John Terry, former England captain, not dumped by his wife for philandering. Or Tiger Wood with his squeaky clean image crumbling down with the revelation of his particular fetish with blond bombshell.
Personally I am of the unfashionable opinion that what people do with their genitals is nobody’s business but their own. This applies to anyone, in my view, whether they are in or out of the public eye and whether they’re Bill Clinton or Tiger Wood. I just can’t bear the prurience, which has nothing to do with anything that matters to the public, such as running the world’s last remaining superpower or being the no. 1 golfer.
I don’t understand why being good at something means you automatically have to be a moral exemplar. Why? Whose stupid idea was that? Do young boys who audition for football teams or aspire to be the best in a game have to proclaim they are morally immaculate? Of course not: it’s not Pope Idol.
It’s quite a big ask, isn’t it, of anyone in the public eye, and yet we take it for granted that some poor bloke who has been anointed a “role model” through no fault of their own must always behave as a model of moral rectitude. For the vast majority of us, that would involve a personality transplant. Why assume that some boy who’s really good at running and kicking a ball is going to be any different? And since most ordinary men — regrettably — don’t subscribe to the idealism of monogamy, why assume that footballers would be the exception?
I find what’s happened to football extraordinary. I was acquainted with a bunch of coursemates who are obsessed with football. When they were bragging about their favourite teams, this was to do with the joys of scoring a goal and, by extension, about teamwork, camaraderie and the pleasure that came from watching their team win. They seldom associated their pride with their football team with money or glamour: if David Beckham was going to marry one of the Spice Girls, well — they would not suddenly switch allegiance to another rival club.
Over the years, the sport has evolved to the point where the actual playing, while still obviously thrilling, has become permanently overshadowed by the salacious gossip and the fabulously vulgar displays of ostentation.
It is pointless mourning the fact that footballers have become huge media celebrities, albeit for all the wrong reasons. But this latest spate of scandals is nevertheless properly sad — not because of the pity of the spouse and children of the sport celebrity in question, but because all of this stuff does detract from the game for the people who love it.
I have a cousin, who is 17, really loves football, passionately. But he reads the sports pages and looks slightly ashamed; he reads the front pages of the tabloids and looks uncomprehending. They’ve debased something he loves.
I don’t blame the players for being flawed people and I don’t blame the media for being so endlessly thirsty for this kind of content. The public gets what the public wants — always, so it can feel all deliciously schadenfreude— and the public, apparently, wants to hear about who was in a sex scandal or paid for abortion.
And, just like that, for one 17-year-old boy at least, the game isn’t very beautiful any more.
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