I no longer play any kind of sport. I’m too old, too fat and neither of my legs works in the manner for which they were designed.
I played my last ever game of rugby when I was 29; my last ever football match when I was 34 and the last time I played cricket was in 2004. I could still play darts, pool, or skittles but none of them is a sport. They are games.
What is it about an activity that makes it a sport and not a game?
I used to think that a sport was something that couldn’t be participated in while the contestant was smoking or drinking alcohol. I no longer think that works because I can remember several works-league, 20-over cricket matches I played in when I saw a fielder in the outfield having a smoke.
I was guilty once myself of drinking beer during a rugby match. That so incensed the referee that he booked me. The fact that it happened during a ten-minute hiatus while a seriously injured player was being treated and the beer was offered to me by a spectator did nothing to assuage his ire.
This is a better distinction, I think: A sport is an activity for which a participant must change into different footwear.
That consigns bridge, chess and possibly even golf into the “game” category where they belong.
The only time I have ever rung into a radio phone-in programme was while listening to an interview with someone who had recently become a Chess Grandmaster. Throughout the discussion, chess was referred to as a “sport”.
“If chess is a sport,” I said (I don’t know how many people were listening at 2:15 in the morning), “then so is doing crosswords, playing Monopoly or Scrabble or Poker. Any activity that you can do while drinking pints of beer and smoking a pipe cannot be called a sport. Chess is a game!”
You probably think that settled the matter and you would no doubt be amazed to learn that it did not. They both told me that I was wrong. Idiots!
Nowadays I only watch sport on television. I won’t go to watch live sport. If I were given tickets to attend a sporting event I would not go. You see so much more on television.
Watching sport on TV allows you to realise just how things could be improved:
Athletics
Usain Bolt false started in the 100 metres of the World Championship recently and was disqualified. The watching world was denied what they were all looking forward to with such excitement and anticipation.
The solution: Let them all run and afterwards, disqualify anyone who set off too early. Retrospective disqualification is what they do with drug tests, and it would work with false starts too. Everyone benefits and the only sufferers would be the cheats.
Boxing
Why are there rounds? When two rutting stags attack each other, they don’t pause every so often for a rest and a drink. When drunks have a brawl outside a pub on a Friday night, they don’t stop every three minutes to discuss with their mates how things are going. Boxing should stay as it is but make the contestants fight for up to 30 minutes without stopping.
Cricket
Things have changed considerably since the Laws of Cricket were written. When the height of the wicket was decided the pitches were never covered and they were often soft and spongy. The ball would rarely bounce over the top as it does now, when the soil is dry, rolled and compacted like concrete.
Make the stumps longer and so make the wicket higher. And while we’re about it, to redress the balance between bat and ball (the advantage these days is far too much in the batter’s favour), add a fourth stump.
Football (Soccer)
Where to start? 0-0 draws. Whatever the pundits say, 0-0 draws are not good. If you are in the crowd watching the game live, a 0-0 draw can be very exciting but remember that I am writing this as a TV viewer.
When I heard the Arsenal had beaten Chelsea 5-3, I was eager to see the recording of the game but had it ended 0-0, it wouldn’t have mattered how dramatic and exciting the analysts told me it had been, I’d have been up those stairs and asleep before it started.
Make the goals bigger. 150 years ago, the average goalkeeper was five inches shorter than his counterpart today. To make up for this 7% increase in size, make the goals 7% bigger too. Now, they are 8 yards wide and 8 feet high (7.32m x 2.44m). Increase them to 8 metres by 2.5 metres. It’s a bit more than 7% but that should do it.
Formula 1 Motor Racing,
Watching Formula 1 motor racing on television is one of the most boring things there is. In bordometry terms, it is only beaten by NASCAR racing. Some drivers may be marginally better than others, but the cars are the stars.
Whoever has the best car will be in pole position.
Whoever is in pole position will be first out of Bend 1 and,
Whoever is the first out of Bend 1 will win.
Once the cars have negotiated the first bend, the race, from a spectator’s point of view, is usually over.
I’ve got the answer. Instead of 24 cars lining up and then following each other round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round for two dull boring hours, how about putting them into two groups of 12?
Group A will race clockwise, and Group B will go anti-clockwise - two start/finish lines on opposite sides of the track. Paint a white line down the middle of the track and tell them to drive on the left (just to annoy the Euro Zone members’ teams). Then we’ll see how good their judgement is and their driving skills are when faced with oncoming traffic. That could be really exciting.
Golf
Golf is a game of two distinct parts: golf proper and putting.
When watching on television, the interest is in the tee shot and the approach to the green. Once the ball is on the green, I go and make a cup of tea. The hole is too small! It is 4¼ inches in diameter and it is that size by accident because that was the size of the first ever golf-hole-cutting machine.
(It’s a similar situation as with the standard track gauge of railway lines. They are set at 4 feet 8½ inches because that’s the gauge standard set by George Stephenson on the Stockton and Darlington Railway when work began in 1822. It’s a bit late now to widen it.)
The primordial (in golf time) golf-hole-cutting machine was made and in use before the rules of golf were established in 1891 and since then that size has been set in stone – except it isn’t of course. Unlike railway tracks, the rules of golf could easily be amended to make the hole bigger and watching putting on television less dull.
If putting is so interesting, why don’t we have putting competitions on television? Because nobody would watch it, that’s why! How many viewers would watch "Celebrity Putting" or "Putting with the Stars"?
Rugby Union *
A total mess. Probably broken beyond repair. Collapsing scrums, forward passing, crooked feeds, constant offsides and referees who can literally decide the result of a game with one arbitrary whistle blast that no one can see the reason for except for him. Introduce a referral system as they have in cricket with a maximum of three refused referrals a game.
“Excuse me, Sir,” the England captain may say to the referee. “Sorry to bother you Sir but I believe that French chap with the beard might have been just a teeny-weeny bit in front of the ball just now when he received the pass that led to the try. Could I refer it to the match official please, if it’s not too much bother of course?”
* Thank goodness some people are paying attention.
Since this was written more than 10 years ago, Rugby Union has now introduced a TMO (Television Match Official) for international games. The TMO can only rule on exactly what the referee asks them but they can direct the referee’s attention to foul play by speaking to him through his earpiece.
Skiing
Watching slalom on telly can be quite fun because sometimes they fall over and may even break a leg or two, but downhill racing is boring. Any activity against the clock runs a high risk of bordomness.
I would like to see the Downhill Race be just that – a race. Let the competitors go off in groups of 8. No clock and the winner and runner-up go through to the next round until we reach the final 8. Just like in athletics. Fantastic!
Squash
B O R I N G ! It must be the only sport where spectator interest wanes as the quality of the players increases. The court is too small for top professional players. Sadly, there is no answer.
Tennis
Why two serves? It’s ridiculous. It’s worse than golf. Two different sports: tennis and serving. Scrap the second serve now. It’s analogous to someone being allowed a second penalty kick if the first one missed. Ridiculous!
I’ve got some revolutionary ideas for chess, bridge, scrabble, backgammon, tiddlywinks, Hungry Hippo and Twister too, but as they are all games and not sports, I’ll keep them to myself – for now.
