The first exception is golf, the only sport in which I feel sorry for the ball. Let’s face it, a “sport” in which the person playing needs to have someone follow behind carrying their bag is, in my world, shopping.
The second exception is soccer, I’m not going to call it football, even though I risk offending most of Europe and South America, mainly because I don’t care if I offend them, in fact if I have offended some Europeans, I will be quite pleased.
A “sport”, where for ninety minutes twenty men run around a field while two others stand motionless, and walk off at the end after a “riveting” nil-nil draw has got problems in my mind. My interest was briefly piqued in the early nineteen eighties, when rioting was introduced to the game as a pick me up, however one or two deaths has seen that fall from favor.
However, despite the extreme boredom factor, I find myself strangely drawn to the, once every four years, celebration of mediocrity that is the Football World Cup. Being a New Zealander, my interest is slightly more heightened that it would normally be, since we are actually in it. The last time we were invited to play with the grownups the only hair I had was on my head, so as you can imagine that was a long, long time ago. How well are we doing? Well New Zealand has drawn two games, which apparently makes us pretty damn good! God only knows just how the country would react if we were to win a few times.
So for the next four weeks or so, be prepared to watch tears, agony, sorrow, and grown men dry humping each other; and that’s just the Italian team.
I wanted to include a picture of the actual world cup here, however, FIFA have threatened to send David Beckham around to talk to me, and there are some things that I will just not put up with.
