Filling the no-sports void
Awinter of discontent looms, if you’re a TV sports fan, or a professional athlete even.
Super Rugby is gone, NRL going, Wellington Phoenix headed for the coronavirus penalty spot, there have been no speeding Scotts – Dixon nor McLaughlin – the PGA Tour is in a deep bunker, with tennis in the coronavirus net as well.
But hurrah, the ANZ Netball Championship is under way with the champion Central Pulse off to a flier, so let’s grasp at that sports straw.
It has all the elements required. Athleticism, provincial rivalries, oodles of world champion players, and tight scores.
For rugby fans who may not have watched netball and are baffled, forward passes are allowed. You league fans, it’s noncontact. Golfers, you aim up at the hole not along the ground, and there’s a net.
Basketballers, dribbling is right out in netball. As it is, none of us should be dribbling anyway, it can scare people – football fans also take note.
If netball is not your thing, and you’re struggling to replace the hole sport has left in your life and the Bachelorette and Country Calendar are not enough to fill it, you have come to the right place.
Some of us (me) are old enough to remember when there was no televised live sport, and have retained decades-old coping strategies.
Here are some tips. With any luck they’ll be better for your health than TV anyway:
LOOK AROUND THE HOUSE:
That taller person is probably your partner, the smaller ones are called children. If all of the inhabitants are about the same size, they might be your flatmates. Why not introduce yourself, they might be interesting? Evenings sitting on the sofa chatting, or playing board games could be fun. Maybe the others in your house are nervous about coronavirus, and you can lend them a kindly ear? SPORTS BOOKS: In the days before Kindles and iPads, people read books. There are lots of books, but as you are a sports fan let’s suggest sports biographies as a starter. You can buy them online, so as to avoid contact with the coughing great unwashed and greater unsanitised in the aisles of book shops. Open Side by Sam Warburton is a super rugby start, while rave reviews flowed for
Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi, even if it is 10 years old. Golf nuts must read the
The Greatest Game Ever Played,
about the first amateur to win the US Open. Why not set it aside for Easter, when you won’t be watching the Masters as you had planned. Football fans, if you haven’t read Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, you’re missing out – it captures the passion of sport like no other. WARNING: it’s about an Arsenal fan, non-Gooners might prefer Provided You Don’t Kiss Me: 20 Years With Brian Clough.
NOT SPORTS BOOKS: Read
Lord of the Rings (1178 pages),
War and Peace (1296 pages), those page turners will kill plenty of time, and some overtime to boot. Anything by James Joyce will prove a timekiller, as well.
SPORTS MOVIES: Usually dreadful, and not just because the Springboks win the 1995 World Cup in Invictus. Kevin Costner (great christian name right there) has appeared in three favourites: Tin Cup (golf), Bull Durham and Field of Dreams (baseball). Hoop Dreams is adorned with praise as a gut-wrenching documentary following Chicago-area teens, William Gates and Arthur Agee, as they pursue their dreams of playing in the NBA. Boxing is full of epic movies – Raging Bull, the wonderful Rocky, Cinderella Man, the knockout When We Were Kings and The Boxer. Chariots of Fire could well be used to replace an entire Olympic Games and
Cool Runnings the Winter Olympics, if the situation gets worse and worser. Petrol heads can make do with Ferrari v Ford, Days of Thunder, Senna, Rush
and (ahem) Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby – if it’s Will Ferrell you like. I prefer Blades of Glory. And Moneyball is not just about baseball, but life. NFL has
Any Given Sunday, Remember the Titans and football has Bend it Like Beckham. For novelty value – Dodgeball, Space Jam and
Happy Gilmore. And for being simply outstanding film-making and storytelling I, Tonya. That should keep you going until spring. Avoid Wimbledon, it’s a straight sets loser.
DIGITAL SPORT: Now the NBA has been suspended, a friend is playing all the remaining matches virtually. He reports that, coronavirus-positive Jazz player Rudy Gopert had a shocker against Oklahoma City last week, in the first game called off. So grab that controller, or open that laptop and away you go. Who knows, it might even be more exciting than the real thing. Maybe the Brooklyn Nets will win the title.
PLAY SPORTS: Solitaire is not a sport, so it doesn’t count. From personal experience, golf provides both the exercise aspect and a self-isolation bonus (particularly where my ball goes). Other sports with similar double bonuses: surfing, mountaineering, trail running kayaking, and mountain biking.
The negative there compared with golf is all of those activities are more arguably more likely to cause you harm than visiting a cafe recently frequented by a virus-carrying dingbat. Drifting is the motoring fan’s option, though large gatherings of boyracers will now be (more) frowned upon. Growing up in the 1960s, there were some standard games that can now have the cobwebs removed. Backyard cricket, for one. Belting a tennis ball endlessly against the wall. Running circuits of the house, and setting records for one, two, three, four laps and so on. Set up a basketball or netball hoop. Generally belting tennis balls, bowling bouncers and running at high speed inside is frowned upon, so practising your putting could be a better option, if less exciting.
BREW BEER: Learn a new skill, and sports fans are known to like beer. You can still like beer, without having sport to watch, so I’m told.
WATCH REPLAYS: Pretend it’s live, and get excited about the result. So you can relive, who will win this Cricket World Cup final? Probably New Zealand, though with Ben Stokes at the crease for England anything could happen. WARNING: Don’t watch games you can’t remember at all, there’s probably a good reason for that. Seek out games generally acknowledged as outstanding. Watch Jack Lovelock win the 1936 Olympic Games gold medal, check out Yvette Williams taking gold in Helsinki, watch Team NZ sail to a seemingly unbeatable America’s Cup lead off San Francisco in 2013. Avoid the 2019 Rugby World Cup, watch the 2019 Netball World Cup.
Good luck out there in the barren sports wasteland. We can get through this together.