By Kenneth Roy
A personal highlight of this amazing summer of sport – I must add ‘so far’ since the best is yet to come – was to watch four consecutive hours of European championship football, a quarter final followed by a semi final, without seeing a single goal.
I spent most of the matches explaining to the visitor from another planet, who happened to be staying with me over the holidays, how it all works. There are these things called nets, placed invitingly far apart. The idea is to kick or head the ball into them.
By Kenneth Roy
A personal highlight of this amazing summer of sport – I must add ‘so far’ since the best is yet to come – was to watch four consecutive hours of European championship football, a quarter final followed by a semi final, without seeing a single goal.
I spent most of the matches explaining to the visitor from another planet, who happened to be staying with me over the holidays, how it all works. There are these things called nets, placed invitingly far apart. The idea is to kick or head the ball into them. Sounds simplicity itself (as I said to my uncomprehending house guest on more than one occasion). Yet together we sat in a darkened room for 240 minutes (plus all the intervals) and no one managed to score. We could have watched ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night’ in that time, with dinner afterwards. Okay, forget the dinner.
A strange thing happened at the end of each period of 120 minutes – that’s 90 minutes of regulation play followed by 30 minutes of extra time. Most of the players stood impotently by while one of their number walked up to a spot close to the nets, a whistle blew, and the penalty-taker (as he seems to be called) kicked the ball towards the goal. Although the goalie had been deceived into diving the wrong way, or maybe he was just diving the wrong way for the hell of it, the first two attempts both missed the target.
Somehow or other it all got sorted out. In a state of catatonic inertia I boycotted the final and it turned out to be a real goal fest. That’s the beautiful game for you.
I thought I’d give Wimbledon a miss. I even managed to skip Sue Barker’s introduction of the first minister of Scotland as Sir Alex Ferguson. But by the sheerest fluke, I switched on just as Sue was handing the microphone to Andy Murray. Had he won? Had he lost? It was difficult to tell. But as a blubbing match it was three straight sets to Andy.
The spectacle was a little embarrassing. I found myself muttering ‘Pull yourself together, man’ before turning it off. In the emotionally buttoned-up industrial community in which I was brought up, men didn’t cry. As a boy I noted with some awe the granite faces at funerals. Did nothing move these village men? Were they impervious to grief? Slowly I came to learn that, if you were an adult male, it was considered poor form to greet in public. My friend Ena Lamont Stewart wrote a play called ‘Men Should Weep’, and maybe they should, but I don’t think Ena had Wimbledon in mind.
Andy went on crying. We have his word for that. Long after he was dragged in a lachrymose condition from the Centre Court, his pillows were stained with tears for days. His poor girlfriend deserves our deepest sympathy.
But then another strange thing happened. The media decided that Andy’s show of feeling was a huge story. The Scotsman devoted the whole of its front page to this phenomenon – there was not another scrap of information on the page. My house guest wondered if there was anything else happening on this alien planet of ours, something of more importance than a tennis player weeping into a mic, and I was happy to assure him that a ground-breaking scientific discovery had been made. There was now proof that Andy Murray was not a machine as originally suspected but a rather lovely human being. A national hero was born.
So that was Wimbledon.
The Scottish Open Golf, a byword for non-events, lived down to its reputation. Less than a fortnight later, does anyone remember who won it? Sir Alex Ferguson – or it might have been an imposter called Alex Salmond; either way, it was the first minister of Scotland – handed over a colossal trophy, and Luke Donald was probably fourth. He usually is. That’s what makes Luke the number 1 golfer in the world, and very very rich: being consistently fourth.
At the time of writing, I’m in somnolent recovery mode after the Open Championship at Lytham. Golf is the sport which most closely resembles human life. Like life, its public business is conducted more or less fully clothed; like life, it ends with a fluffed putt and a man on his knees; like life, you can go away for ages, return with a completely new identity, and nothing much has happened. So it was this year. The man on his knees after the fluffed putt was called Adam. At that awful moment he needed a consoling Eve. The championship had in fact been won 20 minutes earlier by a chap called Ernie, only no one knew at the time. In golf there’s no need to arrange the anti-climax. It happens naturally.
Luke Donald was, as ever, a triumphant fourth and his usual pleasant self. Meanwhile, Sir Bradley Wiggins led all the national TV news bulletins for winning a cycle race. I have awarded him a knighthood in advance of the formality.
But these are just the preliminaries. Hazel Irvine is already polishing her superlatives for what she will no doubt call the big one. The amazing summer of sport is about to get more amazing still. We are to have 17 days of people throwing things. The national obsession with sport knows no bounds: we will be invited to watch scantily clad young persons swimming. And, greatest thrill of all, we are to have a re-run of that whole Andy thing – the cheers from the Murray Molehill, the effortless progress to the final, the Duchess of Cambridge biting her lip, Andy letting it all hang out with Sue.
Coward that I am, I have decided to confine my viewing to the 100 metres final. I’m told it should be over in around 10 seconds. How wonderful.
There is no question of the millions observing these curious rituals taking up a sport themselves. The obesity epidemic will continue unchecked as the grotesquely unfit nation indulges in the new voyeurism – the endless watching of sport.
But wait – blessed normality is just around the corner. Rangers will soon be playing Annan Athletic in a long-awaited grudge match. I shall take my friend from the other planet and introduce him to the pleasures of Bovril and a hot pie in the glorious Third Division. We will still be watching, of course, but at least it will be recognisably part of us.
Courtesy of Kenneth Roy – read Kenneth Roy in the Scottish Review