True Love of Sport

       Yesterday I was in the pub watching the Arsenal and Chelsea but the pub was also showing the Ryder Cup golf and the rugby union match between Saracens and Leicester.  There was three distinctive groups of people watch the three sports.  Watching the football was young adults and student, watching the rugby was the middle age men and watching the golf was the over 50's.  The final few holes of saturdays play in the golf came during the second half of the football and whenever a big put went in for Europe there was a large cheer.  What was interesting was the students infront of me looked very puzzled whenever they cheered, then one of them said 'I don't know how they can get that excited over golf.'  It made me think, can you truly love a sport if you haven't played it?

       Well due to me being a massive sports fans I thought I would use myself as a test of my hypothesis.  I watch a lot of sport, I'd almost watch any form of sport with a few noteable exceptions but there are also people who would watch thoose and not ones I like.  In my time I have also tried to play lots of different sports, I have palyed most of the obvious ones, like football, rugby, golf, but I have also played a few less popular ones, like Handball and Ultimate Frisbee.

       With pretty much all of these sports I love watching and playing them, I think it is due to glimpsing the sport at an amatuer level.  When you play or watch a sport at an amatuer level you can more easily appriciate the skill at the top level.  But I also believe that bad experience of a sport at a young age can badly affect that persons view point on the sport, for me the one sport I really didn't like at school was hockey.  I thought it was a stupid pointless sport and it has taken me over ten years to change my opinion on it.

       There are many sports which I claim to love which I have never even tried to play, mainly the main American sports and winter sports.  The main three which I love and follow with major intrest are baseball, american football and biathlon.  In the cases of MLB and NFL it is the growing coverage and my years at university which have increased my love for them and for biathlon it was the fact it was only early on a saturday and subnday morning and when I moved on from cartoons this is what i stumbled on.

       For all of these sports I really do love to watch them and I do understand how skilled the athletes are but I believe that I can't fully appriciate them because I haven't dabbled in the sport myself.