A Sporting Life?

Hi everyone and thanks for your suggestions of blog topics. As I said in my last blog Olfa gets first choice. :)

So Olfa, you want me to talk about sports… hmmm… well right now as I think I’ve mentioned, sports are not a very big part of my life – neither actively or passively to tell you the truth. One of the reasons for this is my inertia after a day’s work and putting Isabel to bed. I tend to want to unwind with a bit of Thelonius Monk and a nice glass of wine rather than hit a gym or sports centre. Another is, as I said in an earlier blog, I haven’t yet established an exercise regime. Every time I go to the beach I contemplate the volleyball players who seem to be having so much fun but I remember how weak my wrists are and how I have embarrassed myself on several occasions attempting to get the ball high enough into the air so that it at least approaches the net. They also play footy and cricket – young lads and lasses with bare feet having a great time!

Generally I am influenced by my surroundings, as is usual with extraverts and well, if it’s there and I happen to have a friend or acquaintance who does it, I am more inclined to be motivated to do sport regularly. In school, I played hockey and did cross country running – both representing the school. After school – in sixth form and when I was an undergraduate I was pretty lethargic sports-wise and was more into music, film, reading and dancing! The times I have been most fit and sporty are when I lived in Vietnam and when I did my Masters degree – both periods of my life have one thing in common, I lived on a college campus and when I stepped out of my flat/room I was surrounded by sport – it was cheap, accessible and ubiquitous. That’s what I need! In Vietnam I played a daily round of badminton doubles and at Reading University I also played badminton, swam and cycled to my classes which were held on another campus. So, who knows, I may get into beach volleyball after all. :)

Here’s a few pics of me looking like I’m sporty! Do you think I pull it off?






Now, spectator-wise, there are only really two games that have captured my interest – certainly for TV viewing. That is football and tennis. Both are high energy games and the skill is easily definable. When you see a skilled footballer on the field, it’s almost like watching ballet. The foot movements can be so deft and graceful and the kind of sports photography we have access to nowadays is something else. Tennis I like for the tension and the whole peripheral culture. The green and purple colour scheme, the glamour of the refreshments stalls, the reverence expected of the audience during play, the customary streakers across the court and the sheer Britishness of the inevitable rain and resulting drama.

These are also the two sports I have been lucky enough to encounter live. I first went to a football match at Ayresome Park Stadium to see Middlesbrough United back in 1990. We used to live across the road as students and the atmosphere was electrifying. Being in the stadium was another matter though. Full finger gloves, scarf, woolly hat and duffle coat or bomber jacket – none of this made a difference. You were still freezing like icicles by the end of the first half. I miss those days. It seems to me that it’s all about season tickets and corporate sponsorship now – back then we’d queue up and pay a fiver and that was it. Now you have to be a season ticket holder, be vetted to check you’re not a hooligan and it’ll cost you and arm and a leg for the privilege.

Wimbledon is one of the worst events for corporate sponsorship. My dad always gets mad about this. He took me one year – to see the men’s’ semi finals. Roger Federer (Switzerland) v Jonas Bjorkman (Sweden) we were on Centre court, four rows back from the court, next to the box where the trainers and players' guests sit. There was a slight delay for rain but it was a wonderful day. There were whole sections of the audience empty due to the practice of giving tickets to corporates who were too busy in the Pims or gin and tonic tents to be bothered whether the tennis was top class or had got rained off.

Well that’s my rant over now. I hereby pledge to get fit and bring sport back into my life!

Until the next time, bye all. Have a good weekend.

The challenges: define and use the words/expressions in bold and find 5 phrases from a phrase finder or a dictionary that use a form of the word ‘sport’. For example, sporty. Again, try to use them in a sentence. Responses and review of last homework later. I can't miss my mother-in-law's aloo paranthas:)

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