Everyone has gone football crazy. Except me.
I may have mentioned that I live with a bunch of sport fanatics. If they aren’t playing it, they are watching it. If they aren’t watching it, they are reading about it or talking about it. Then there are the football cards that seem to be everywhere I look in this house; little piles of swaps or the odd ones that have escaped the book.
So there is a small sporting event on at the moment that is causing huge excitement in this house. Unnecessary excitement as far as I’m concerned. L is bubbling over with football frenzy. He is in his element as he already knows all of the teams, the fixtures and probably most of the players and if anyone needs an answer to a World Cup question, he leaps in with a smile and his chest puffed out with pride. This is his time. He loves it.
I wish I had his enthusiasm I really do. I like watching the boys play football, that’s different but I cannot and will not sit and watch endless games on the television. I mean what is the big deal about football anyway. Men running around a big field with a ball. Over paid men on the whole it seems too. Just a big excuse to kick people and roll around on the floor crying if you ask me.
And don’t get me started on the whole role model thing. My eight year old runs around the football pitch with his top off, screaming like a lunatic when he scores and falls to the floor doing an impression of a dying duck if he gets tackled. Apparently this strange behaviour comes from watching his footballing heroes. Great, I’m impressed.
The Olympics were amazing. Even as a ‘sporttheist’ I could see the value of the Olympics. The collective spirit, the bringing together of a nation. It inspired us all, even the couch potatoes like me. But I’m afraid the World Cup leaves me cold. I know,I know that the children having a love of sport is a wonderful thing. It is good to inspire them and encourage them and many other children to get outside and do more exercise. I know it brings people together; well mainly in the pub but that is still together. I also know that I will inevitably get coerced into watching an England match and sucked into the enthusiasm of it all only for hope to be dashed when they get knocked out.
It’s not just football either, oh no. There has been much talk about the next few weeks being wall to wall sport; football, test match cricket, tennis, more football. I may have to go and lie down just to get over the exertion of thinking about it. The husband has even invested in Sky Sports so that ‘we don’t have to miss anything.’ Who is this ‘we’ we speak of? There is more chance of me scoring a goal for England than voluntarily flicking through the sports channels.
But I will smile through gritted teeth and they will be gritted from having to deal with two tired boys who have been going to bed late from watching the late night matches and try and muster some sort of enthusiasm for the whole event and on the plus side I will probably be blogging a lot over the next three weeks to get away from it all. Then maybe we can get back to a slightly less sport obsessed normality.
That at least is my goal.
I don’t hate football on the telly, but I certainly don’t share my family’s enthusiasm either. I’ll watch the England games (the ones that kick off at a reasonable hour) and I will enjoy the freedom afforded to me by the other games. I’m imagining blogging, reading, going to bed early… Although the reality will just be me telling the kids off who are refusing to go to bed and doing even more around the house than usual because my husband is watching football.
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That sounds very similar to me then, I am already suffering the fall out of tired children.
I consider myself a very lucky man – I don’t watch football, my wife doesn’t either. My dad was a big rugby/cricket fan (still is) but none of that rubbed off on me. And so far I’ve managed to get my kids to play sports at school but not watch any of it on TV.
It’s a cracking opportunity to catch up on all that TV that we’ve wanted to watch over the last few months. We’re blitzing the “Angel” DVD box set at the moment.
And yes, as role models, the Olympians are far, far, superior.
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