everybody loves sport

[darren_stranger]

It's true, i hate sport (or at least dislike it strongly).

It's something i've often said, but have usually taken it to be an exaggerated way of saying that i just have no interest in it.  But, when i think about it, it's more than that.  i have no special interest in ballet, roleplaying or stamp collecting either, but i don't actually hate those things.  It doesn't piss me off if people are talking about ballet, i never find myself thinking unkind and unfair things about roleplaying enthusiasts and, while i might not understand the attraction of stamp collecting, it's still a case of 'each to their own'.  So why does sport shit me so much?  Last night i put a finger on (what i guess i partly knew) was probably behind it.

Before bed, i was watching the last half hour or so of The Panel.  In amongst their usual musings on tv, current affairs etc, they were going on and on about the Olympics.  Fair enough, it is big news at the moment.  During the show, they had some inane look at people caught on tv making pigs of themselves, and one of them pointed out: "The greatest sporting event in the world is about to start and here we are talking about a guy shoving pies in his face".  Something struck me as odd, and i worked out that it was not that a great sporting event made everything else pale into insignificance, but that it didn't seem to matter what sport it was.  i can understand someone playing a sport and enjoying it, i can even understand someone following a sport and getting passionate about their team and the intricacies of the game etc, but i just don't get this excited enthusiasm about *any* sport.  Someone being mad about football, for instance, i can understand, but it just seemed odd that people can be so passionately, sit-up-all-night obsessed with sport, any sport, and it does't matter whether it's swimming, soccer, wieght lifting or showjumping.  Still, each to their own, and nobody's asking or expecting me to appreciate what someone else sees in their own personal interests.

Except, that's the problem - they are.  It was the end of the show and, as they were wrapping up, they discussed the fact that they could do whatever they liked in next week's show because nobody will be watching anyway.  That remark, as throwaway as it may have been, summed up exactly what bugs me about sport and sport fandom in particular - not because it's everywhere, but because it's expected and assumed that everybody is into it.  Nobody will be watching The Panel next week, because the whole country will be glued to the set watching the Olympics.  Because everybody loves sport.  It's not even a question. And this extends to individual sports as well, people looking at you like an alien if you don't follow a footy team, or at least some other sport or code. ("Well, then you must be going to play cricket this year, Johnny").

Really, i guess i should have known this was what was behind it, why my feelings on sport tend toward active hostility rather than just a disinterested indifference.  It also would explain, in a narrower (subcultural) sense, why i find feelings of resentment and hostility rising at things like discussions of IT geekery, PVC clothing and industrial music, which should otherwise just have no interest for me either way.  Just one of my buttons i guess - i've always hated it when it's automatically assumed i must be into something, just because 'everybody else' is

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