So it was with some disappointment when the editor sent this back to say I had used the same story TWO WEEKS AGO - literally my previous column! Nothing like repetition when criticising something for being repetitive. If I was smarter, I could say I meant it.
Perhaps the cupboard is now bare for my writing career, but the anecdote illustrates how rarely I get truly angry about sport. The hyperbolic sensationalism of almost every aspect of football gets pretty tiring pretty quickly. Play your "The game's gone" card carefully - surely you can only use it once.
Occasionally a moment can move me to the point of tears, even if it doesn't push me over the edge. Staying up on the final day. Winning at St James' Park in the FA Cup. Watching Stuart Pearce's penalty against Spain in Euro 96 over and over again.
But defeats seem to get less painful as I get older. Perceived refereeing injustices have always just been a bit annoying, as opposed to an excuse to boil inside for days. Anger over sport seems misplaced when we are confronted by the horrors of real life across the world.
However, what I like to think is a measured, almost superior way of watching sport collapses as soon as I see yet another penalty awarded for handball. Such is the blind fury at these decisions that I've lost all sense of what handball is - getting to the stage where I wouldn't penalise Luis Suarez against Ghana.
This story is from the November 08, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the November 08, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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