“Life without sports is like life without underpants” – so said the wonderfully eccentric New Zealand cricket umpire, Billy Bowden, who by his signals tried to bring some levity and laughter to the very proper world of cricket. His view of sports, therefore, is one that suggests sport is an absolute necessity; we simply cannot live without it. But can we? John Arlott, a highly respected cricket commentator of a different generation, gave a slightly different perspective when he said that “We take life too lightly and sport too seriously.”
If we take some comments written and uttered by other cricket commentators over the years we may well argue that we can find a huge amount of light-heartedness in sport, which helps us not take it too seriously. Trevor Bailey was a brilliant batsman but maybe not such a good commentator when he came up with such lines as, “The first time you face up to a googly you’re going to be in trouble if you’ve never faced one before” while on another occasion he declared that “On the first day Logie decided to chance his arm and it came off”. Was he thinking about what he was saying? Richie Benaud, the masterful Australian commentator was not spared such a faux-pas when he said that “That slow-motion replay doesn’t show how fast the ball was travelling.” Other commentators though bring great delight through their clever wit and humour. The same John Arlott mentioned earlier described a shot brilliantly when he said, “He played a cut so late as to be positively posthumous”.
We can derive great pleasure in sport from comments that commentators or players make. Some of them are simply humorous (“If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again”); some plain ridiculous (“For those of you watching in Black and White, Spurs are in the all yellow strip”); some outrageous (“I never comment on referees and I’m not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat”); some erroneous (“What will you do when you leave football, Jack – will you stay in football?”); some ridiculous (“That would have been a goal if the goalkeeper hadn’t saved it”); some ingenious (“The score is Sunderland nil, Leicester nil, the temperature is nil and the entertainment value is not much above nil”).
Of course, no-one could ever say that George Best, one of the world’s greatest soccer players, took sport, or indeed life, too seriously as he once famously declared. “I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered”. So do we take sport too seriously? Bill Shankly, the legendary manager of Liverpool, certainly made people think so when he also famously once said, “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” While we may not take it that far, we do often take it too seriously, for example when we see a loss as a “disaster” or “tragedy” (shedding tears over it); when we measure the value of a team, an individual or a school by the results; when we make vitriolic comments about a player’s (or official’s) mistakes. Where, then, on the barometer of seriousness might, and should, we place sport? Is it something about which we simply have some knowledge? Does it inspire interest? Is it rather a fascination? Is it more a means of relaxation? Do we have enthusiasm for it? Does it extend to a passion? Has it developed into an obsession? Or is it in fact now a religion? Where in that process does it become too serious?
Sport is generally defined as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment…. a game, competition, or activity … that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job”. It is an activity, a game, for entertainment and enjoyment. It is no more than that. It is nothing incredible, nothing unusual, nothing significant in the greater scheme of life. So it becomes for us a matter of balance, of perspective, of the right balance between sport and life. The current pandemic and the recent death of a man in police custody have helped to provide a better and more appropriate perspective of life and sport. Yes, we can take sport seriously but not too seriously. In the light of these events and the comment by John Arlott, we should certainly take life more seriously and sport more lightly. (As Billy Bowden recommends, do wear underpants!) Hopefully, we have begun to do that in this article.
