Sport shows its beautiful side on and off the pitch to joy of boys
STANDING in the cold, dancing on the spot at my daughter’s first soccer match on Saturday morning I finally got what sport is all about. Playing in an astro-turf pitch I’ve played on countless times was The Whirlwind Wonder, togged out in the blue and yellow of her club, also dancing on the spot to stave off the cold and intermittent pelts of rain.
Being a competitive player, I couldn’t help but shout instructions at her, as she, having been coached to be in a particular part of the pitch, was seeing none of the action,
I relented in the second half, but was blown away, literally by the weather, and metaphorically by seeing her and her teammates – and the opposition team for that matter – play so well as team members.
During a week in which one of the world’s top managers, Jurgen Klopp, took the time to write to a Man Utd fan in Donegal, having been asked to stop winning and during a week which saw a suicidal bullied Aboriginal Australian boy lead his favourite team out on the pitch; my faith in humanity and in sport has been restored.
My daughter’s game ended with a loss, but nobody was counting really and those who were just didn’t get the point of underage sport. As with education, religion and everything, competition has no place in the world of any child. OK, detractors will make the argument that it is a disservice to a child to let them think they’ve done well when in fact they’ve been trounced. They’ll spout on about how life is hard and losing is a part of life. But you just can’t and shouldn’t dampen a child’s enthusiasm.
The team that lined out and lost on Saturday got on with it and apart from one or two of the players innocently accusing the opposition of being ‘dirty’, took the defeat well, with a shrug.
After a treat and a quick question and answer session which included the question: ‘what’s a dirty player, Daddy,’ it was on to swimming lessons and the rest of the weekend.
Sport gets a bad rap. Corruption. Scandals, including the seemingly endless FAI stories, don’t help.
But then something amazing happens. You turn on your phone and you see Messi score four goals. You switch on the telly and watch France and Wales play an incredible match. Pity the same can’t be said for the Ireland England encounter, but even it had its moment of battling spirit when the chips were down.
The story of Quaden Bayles – the 9-yearold Australian boy who suffers from dwarfism – whose mother Yarraka took to social media to highlight her son’s treatment at the hands of bullies, did not go unheard. An offer to lead out the indigenous All-Stars NFL team came from a team player and Quaden had the best day of his life.
The contrast between the video of Quaden saying he wanted to take his own life and the smiling chap on the field holding the hand of his hero Joel Thompson couldn’t have been greater. It reflected the aspirations of a child who wanted to be able to compete, to be like his hero. Of a child who wanted, needed to transcend the limitations of his life. Sport provided that space and sportsmanship – defined as the fair and generous behaviour and treatment of others – was also there for all to see in Klopp’s letter to Daragh Curley. His father declared it: ‘beautiful’ and it was, not least in its championing of respect and its honesty. Klopp definitely made Daragh’s month, if not year. Further proof, if needed, that sport is not all about competition.