No more heroes

My next door neighbour is a Lancashire lad, well, slightly past the 'lad' phase, from Bolton and in his north country way he has inveigled me into popping over to The Tippling Philosopher pub for a pint every Wednesday evening.  We sit in the snug, sipping our beer and doing what old men do best - moaning!  Yes, indeed, it's a really fun evening, you should come and join us . . .

Anyway, last night I went into 'moan-mode' first complaining about the fact that there were no more heroes.  This was provoked by the totally unsurprising news, via The Daily Telegraph, that football was riddled from top to bottom in bungs, bribes and back-handers, including the English manager of the English football team.  I blamed my neighbour because the individual concerned was, for nearly ten years, the manager of Bolton Wanderers football club.

Needless to say, anyone who is a sentient human being would not have been surprised at the news given the incredible oceans of money that flow in and around football these days but even so I do think back to my childhood heroes like the late and truly great Stanley Matthews who played, I think, for £5 a week!  I have already sounded off, probably too many times, over the sad decline of athletics which, in its essence, say, ten of the quickest runners in the world racing against each other, is the purest of sports - until someone discovered steroids!

Even so, I thought, there is still one sport that, on the face of it, is impeccable and that is golf.  This is mainly because the rules on behaviour are exceedingly fierce and are deployed instantly and ruthlessly if anyone breaches them.  But alas, those rules do not control the so-called fans.  Today, we read that the brother of one of the British golfers about to take part in the Ryder Cup has issued a stream of insults aimed at the American crowds expected to be there supporting their team calling them “fat, stupid, greedy and classless” and “a braying mob of ­imbeciles”.  Apparently, he was totally unaware that by writing this he defined himself as classless and imbecilic! 

However, in doing so, he reminded me of the other factor in modern sport that turns me off it - the fans!  They are ghastly beyond definition and far from ever wishing to pay good money to see rubbish, I would rather pay good money never to see it - or them - again!

Comments

[AussieD]

Soccer is just a bunch of nancies running around aimlessly and when one of them actually puts a ball in the net it/he immediately runs across to the nearest corner and pulls his/its shirt off his/its hairless chest.

The Academy of Dramatic Arts on grass I tells yer.

That should stir up a bit of discussion Duffers.

[Whitewall]

“fat, stupid, greedy and classless” and “a braying mob of ­imbeciles”
Or, what it looks like when a rules oriented game meets the great unwashed middle class.

[David Duff]

Too many interruptions this morning, AussieD, for me to list all the different sports which gone down the drain but rugby was going to be one of them. Today, the great puffed-up, steroidal dolts actually take every opportunity to either gauge the eyeballs of an opponent or bite lumps out of his other set of balls!

"The great unwashed" - exactly so, Whiters!

[Bob]

Sports figures have always been dubious heroes. Look into the biographies from the "good old days" and in many you'll find drug use (usually amphetamines, pain killers, or excessive alcohol), whore mongering, violent behavior, and so on.

Which reminds me, the golfers failed to give us full credit by neglecting to include "violent" in their cliche.

[Whitewall]

When a modern Western culture no longer has athletes as "heroes" to worship, singers and entertainers will soon fall by the wayside. All of these different people are shallow and represent something deeply wrong with our societies. Soon we will be confronted with the "who and what" should be heroic and fit to be worshipped. There is and will remain a giant hole in Western thought until that hole is filled.

[JK]

And exactly what Bob, is wrong with whore mongering?

[Bob]

One definition of "worship" is to love unquestioningly, uncritically and to excess. It's just another word for idolatry. For what purpose does Western civilization need it?

[David Duff]

But, Bob, the point about 'worshipping' sportsmen is that deep down we know that what they do is essentially trivial and therefore, a few nutters excepted, we don't really take them seriously. So much better than 'worshipping' a politician, a practice best avoided until after he is dead and buried!

[TheBigHenry]

JK,

Nothing wrong with it. One of the heroes of my youth was Wilt Chamberlain, the all-time greatest scorer in basketball -- 20,000 women!

[JK]

So what does that Bob, have to do with whore mongering? And where'n the heck does your "worshipping" come into that at all?

Talent is talent Bob. And the other thing talent "enjoys" at the core is patience. Sometimes the ultimate patience as in, "Dad? I don't give a shit you paid me for the hour before, your son Bob doesn't get it anyway.

"Well he couldn't manage it this time anyway and if, what my sister whores insist is Bob's preaching, he will never even manage fish mongering!"

"A whelk stall?!! ... Not even a piss up in a brewery Sir!"

Bob and Loz of the planet Zog.

[Bob]

JK, please avail yourself of whores to your heart's, or whatever other part's, content. BTW, that last comment could have been written by someone in an advanced stage of syphilitic infection. You might want to have yourself checked.

David, some take sports quite seriously. Over here people have killed each other over high school games, and bad manners at European football matches is one of the few things most Americans know about your side of the pond. Assigning fantastic characteristics to sports figures, or any other persons, is a variation on religion.