Marbles my last resort

AFTER weeks of no live sport, it has finally happened.

The bottom of the barrel has been found and it involves marbles. To this development, I must thank John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, which introduced the Jelle’s Marble Runs YouTube channel on Monday to my internet routine.

With no new sporting content touching our collective consciousness for the past two months, finding something, anything to fill that void, has been an emotional slog.

Relive past glories? Done that. Debate who is the best? Been there. Argue over the future of old and new talent? That’s so 2019. Watch sports movies glorify past heroics Hollywood-style? Yawn. Mouth the best quotes from Rocky movies? It will break you…

Instead, millions of sports fans have turned to the internet to find content that scratches the proverbial itch. For now, I have found mine. It involves putting marbles – yes, marbles – into contests such as racing on a track, rally or the popular Marblelympics to see which one is the best.

When I stumbled on to the first video, I thought it a novelty, a one-off curiosity but by the 10th video it has become something of an obsession. I now find myself backing certain marbles – such as Mercedes-Benz EQ in the Marbula E races – or the savage Speedsters in the Marble League.

Clearly, the lack of live sport has reached a breaking point, but watching these marbles perform feats of more luck than skill, has quietened the once insatiable need to watch a rugby ball being passed in anger or Frank Lampard stitching together an exciting Chelsea squad.

Have I lost my marbles?