Sport, the final frontier

I have a dirty secret. I've tried to hide it from my friends and family for years, but living the lie has taken its toll on my soul. I have to confess.... I hate sport. Don't like it, not interested in it, would not affect my life if all forms of organised sporting competition were stopped tomorrow.

Oh the shame I've felt when the topic arrises in the company of men. Christmas day, the males of my extended family are standing around a BBQ, beers in hand, when one of my Uncles will drop a "Kerno wasn't half bad at Subie last Sat was he?" What is he talking about? Football obviosuly, but what team? Subie? Subiaco? That's in Perth right? He's from South Australia so he wounldn't go for a Perth team, so it must be... Ah fuck it. "Yeah, wasn't he?" I mutter before downing the remainded of my beer so I have an excuse to leave. 

I know what will happen if I stay. The inevitiable question. Who's your team? It was somewhat manageable when South Australia had only one team in the national competition. I obviosuly went for the Crows. No problems. Then another SA team joined up and my usual answer wasn't good enough. Now I was either a Crow's man or a Port Man, and whichever one I picked would be taken as an open invitation to a debate about the intelligence, masculinity and penis size of supporters of one team versus the other. Who cares? I think they are equally stupid, or equally awesome if you want to be positive, but I honestly have much more interest in the protocols used in creating the team's respective websites than I will ever have in the game itself. 

Having my condition (I will not cheapen this post by using the suffix 'itis') can be quite debilitating sometimes. Depending on the company, I'm basically excluded from 25-75% of all male conversation. Well, not entirely excluded. I can stand there of course, and that works suprisingly well because along with actual recounting of sporting matches comes a wealth of statistics that would put the ABS to shame. This means conversations about sport can be participated in by dropping small and uncommital questions like "Is that a record for away-games?" or "who had that title before him?" which will start hours of idiot savant like recounting of sporting records while leaving everyone under the impression that I was a participant.  

But this must end. I'm an expat in Dubai now and need to make expat friends. Sport is a natural medium for strangers to converse. In between shelling each other I bet even Hamas and Israel have a quick chat about Man U. So I'm going to get into sport. Rugby sport to be precise. Expats here all seem to be into football (soccer) and Rugby. Soccer seemed a little too much to bite off as a first effort so I've gone with Rugby, more specifically Rugby Sevens, which is some offshoot sect of Oxthodox Rugby. 

Coming up in March in Dubai is some sort of Rugby competition and I have secured tickets. My goal between now and then is to swot up on the game to the point that I can converse sufficiently well with other spectators. Who knows, I might actually get into it. Stranger things have happened. 

Play ball!