The Sporting Dilemma

Cricket is not a spectator sport. Yet people watch it. You'll always find some wanderers at the Wanderer's wondering why they have paid for a ticket that allows them to waste seventeen hours of their life getting sunburnt on TV while watching some guy throw a piece of cork at some other guy who hits it back at him in an attempt to get it past some more guys who are actually on the first guy's team. The hitter, or 'batsman' will then attempt to run at the person who threw the cork at him, but instead of angrily beating the thrower, or 'bowler', with the bat that he currently holds, he promptly turns round and runs back to where he started. Then, the people who are out in the field ('fielders') will try throw the cork back at the batsman who's in in an attempt to get him out. Once they've got him out, he'll go inside and another person who was inside will go out to be in until the people who are out in the field get him out too. Once all of the people who are meant to be in are out, the sides switch and the whole bloody thing starts again.

Other non spectator sports include snooker, croquet, bowls, showjumping, swimming, athletics meetings, night time motor racing, day time motor racing, rowing, and the Norwegian ladies championship for knitting. But probably the least spectator friendly sport on the planet is golf. You stand on a patch of desecrated rainforest and watch some guy (who probably isn't Tiger Woods) hit a ball into a hole. Action-packed and exhilerating are words that don't exactly come to mind. However there are some sports that can be more interesting to watch than dried deer droppings. Basketball is one of them, however I'm way too white to be interested, so that can get crossed off my list. There's also soccer, but unfortunately that has turned into too much of a money making scam for my liking, so that can go too. Which leaves me with three choices...

Waterpolo, rugby and that Aztec game where you have to use any means possible to get the ball (which is usually a human head) through a hoop, where at the end the losers get sacrificed. Unfortunately one of those is illegal and one of them is gay; the thing about waterpolo is this: it's a nice concept, but I just can't grasp a game that involves two sides of near naked men in a pool trying to throw an inflated sheep's pancreas at some netting, just to have the other side throw it back. So this leaves just one. Rugby. With sufficient amounts of violence, skill and intellect (well, the commentator must at least know how to speak), rugby is the perfect spectator sport. And it was upon this realisation a few weeks ago that I began to get excited for the Menlo Park game...

As all of you should know, we had our first rugby match on Friday against a school that I used to know as Menlo Park, but which I now refer to as the Arrogant Mucus-filled Vile Scum of the Earth. We were all pretty excited as a short, gay guy in a green shirt switched on his mic and told all of us that he was the presenter. We all sat patiently while the commentator made some indistinguishable noises on his own mic. We even waited quietly while the Scum's team ran onto the field. Then all hell broke loose. I won't remind anyone of the details of the game, suffice to say that we got our arses handed to us. On a silver platter. With gold leaf. And titanium cutlery. And then they stepped on our faces as well. However, I am proud to say that for the two and a half minutes or so that we were in possesion of the ball the entire College shouted their lungs out.

So, the lesson I've learned from this is to stay away from sport. With cricket you would waste your life away, with soccer you would lose all your money, with golf you would be bored to death, with Aztec sports you would get arrested if you're not killed to death for losing, I'm too white for basketball and too straight for waterpolo, and when it comes to rugby you will just be downright disappointed (and have no lungs). Maybe I'll take up chess...
James Hosken