Things I Have Realised

Today I realised two very separate things:

1. I prefer sports that have an ongoing narrative structure.

Ever since Euro 2012, which I tried very hard to watch, I have been trying to work out what it is I dislike about the game of football. I am specifically talking about the game as it is played on the pitch, leaving all the cultural add ons to one side, I do not like the game of football.

I like some sports and I couldn't work out what didn't engage me about football. I'd focused on a few things which were helping me hone in:

a) I don't like spitting.
b)I don't like the way tactics can involve learning when to cheat.
c) I can't pick out the impressive parts.

I have never watched much football, the only games I've seen are televised international matches. Because of this, I have no concept that what the people on the pitch are doing is in any way impressive. If you haven't seen bad football, you can't comprehend why international level football is excellent. All the little flicks and passes and tactics that are arguably genius, just look like the basics of what it is to play any football to the untrained eye. When I watch cricket I know what to look for which makes the game more fulfilling, with football my interest only piques when the ball goes somewhere near the goal. That leaves an awful lot of the pitch containing some boring men running around with a ball for no reason. There's no comprehension of how the middle of the pitch builds the pressure and the choices and the reactions at the ends of the pitch.

The breakthrough I came to in terms of my initial "narrative" realisation came when I was watching the tennis. I realised that I enjoy the way, whenever a point is started in tennis, that point is going to be allocated to one of the players. There will be an outcome. This makes tennis much more about the ongoing pattern of the narrative. Football, it seems to my uneducated eye, is more about the big events in the play.

I could be coming across as a complete idiot here. I hope this doesn't seem like ignorant football bashing, I've really been working hard to assess why I don't understand and enjoy football as much as everyone else seems to. It's very isolating for your national game to receive so much hype and yet be a completely alien idea to you.



2. I am still hoping in the back of my mind that my legs will grow out in time for my wedding.

Today, when wasting time allocated to admin by browsing wedding dresses I have no cause to be browsing, I realised that in my head I am at least 5'6" when I get married. This is not going to be the case is it?