Sport Matters To Me
About three weeks before the final race of the F1 this year, I said this to a bunch of Formula 1 loving friends: F1 is BORING. It’s just cars driving fast. I can see that on any motorway in the world. There’s only two good bits; the beginning, where they crash, and the end, where they stop. I have believed that my whole life. Cars driving round — boring. Cars crashing — fun for everyone.
But, three weeks later, as I realised that Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen were literally about to battle on the track for the championship (in my head it was more of a Transformers fight than a race), I put on Channel 4 and settled down to watch an hour and half of a ‘sport’ I don’t even like. And let’s not talk about the result — because that’s highly contested and not important (and I’m sure anyone reading who is an F1 fan is willing to fight to the death for their point of view) — what’s important is that, when it boils down to it, I love sport. I love that you can watch, and cheer, for someone’s dream coming true. And, I guess, on the flip side, for someone’s dream stalling. Or being stolen by them for the entertainment of the world.
My job, when I am not writing, is teaching. Specifically, I am ateacher of maths at a local college; now, none of those students want to do maths. None of them dream of one day passing maths. But watching the artists become artists, watching the musicians become musicians, watching the footballers…you get the point…watching someone find their dreams is something that can truly fill the jug of soul that every person has within.
I have always loved sports.
I distinctly remember when Andy Murray won his first Wimbledon. I was working a tutoring company, and in between helping small children count things on their stubby fingers, I had a computer up in the office with the BBC Sport commentary on it. Murray had been incredible all week, and it felt like it was time for the first British man to win Wimbledon in my era, but I couldn’t quite believe it when he stormed through the first two sets. I managed to get out of work when the final set was starting, and in the car, on the way home, the radio was on, so I heard the plucky Scot take the lead in the final set, breaking Djokovic, and had to imagine how he’d glowered and pumped his fist when the points happened. We got back home just as Murray served for the match — I sprinted through the door, into the living room, and then I was there, nervous, like the rest of the country, as Murray let Djokovic take it to deuce — before winning a spectacularly Murray-like point, sprinting around the court like a possessed demon, refusing to let that little luminous ball pass him. He won, and despite missing most of the game, I felt the elation and release, that only sport (and phenomenal food when you’re stomach is at it’s very emptiest), can give you.
My life is littered with memorable sporting events that I was fortunate enough to watch and remember. I was in a pub, just about to play 5-a-side football when the infamous AGUERO moment happened for Man City. I watched England win the Cricket World Cup via superover in the living room of a rented flat, my cat cowering in the corner as I cheered. I saw the football team I support (Fulham, for my sins) win a final at Wembley. I saw Luka Doncic score the winning buzzer beater during the NBA bubble on a dodgy stream in the same rented living room, this time in the middle of a terrifying, all-consuming lockdown.
These events are some of the most memorable of my life, and I wasn’t even involved in them. Sports does that, you see. Drags everyone who is there, everyone who watched them, everyone who was aware of their existence into a sphere of unity. Yes, it wasn’t me that hit that shot but it was my heart that was pounding along with everyone else’s, like the hammering of a million raindrops on hot car roofs at the same time. It was our mouths that dropped open. Our hairs that rose like sunflower heads at the first rays of spring.
What I’m saying, what I’m thinking, is that sport is an enormous part of my existence, because it’s an enormous part of our existence. A mutual existence. Sports happens in the poorest parts of Africa, where footballs have panels hanging off them, or are woven from reeds. Sports happens in the Vatican, where the Pope uses one of his hats for a goalpost and thanks God after every made basket. It happens in the most Northern part of the Arctic, where scientists dressed in furry coats play baseball in the snow (this isn’t verified but seems likely to me).
Sport exists everywhere, in different forms, but importantly, it’s a common thread that unites every single inch of the world. People in every single country have fantasies where they’re international footballers, or high jumpers, skiers, cyclists — every sport has dreamers. Because it unites us. A whole world.
That’s why this website exists. I want to unite the world of literature through sport. I want people who are nervous about reading, or don’t understand the magic of transporting yourself to a new world through the portal of a page, to step through the paper and ink, to imagine themselves in an arena, or a stadium, or a French road — because that’s what reading does. It lets you live in another world, one which you can’t live in yourself.
I want your words, too. You can submit your sports writing (fiction preferable, but non-fiction also accepted) by emailing your piece to FeistyRunts@gmail.com.
