Sporting Goodness

I’m not a massive sports fan. Point of fact: the first time I ever spent an entire day in a pub was about a month ago, for the Wales-Scotland encounter in the Six Nations. It was a lot of fun; I sat with Daf and some of his mates at the Isaac Newton in Cambridge and cheered the Welsh onto their victory.

This weekend saw a reprise; the England-France game on Saturday (supporting England, despite a constant stream of insults from Rachel, an England fan, who’d decided that my support of Wales at any point in my life was unfounded and absurd), and the Boat Race on Sunday evening.

Unsurprisingly, the England game left me largely nonplussed (I think anyone who wears those skin tight tops deserves to lose, but both teams couldn’t, so…), but Cambridge’s victory in the boat race had me very happy. Standing on the bank near Hammersmith bridge, whooping and cheering and very definitely feeling the underdogs – Oxford seemed to have about 80 times as many supporters on the banks as we did – I finally began to understand why people support teams and follow sport.

I don’t intend to start doing it in any way – quite apart from the sport I play, I have enough hobbies… but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

[Listening to: Zak and Sara – Ben Folds – Rockin’ The Suburbs (03:14)]