Sport in retirement. I don’t write many sports-related retirement blogs these days. Maybe I never did. There’s a good reason for this absence and it is that, unless I wanted to write a lot of ‘writing as therapy’ blogs, there wouldn’t be much reason to write a blog at all.
Although I’m a great fan of various sports, some of which I used to play and some which were beyond me, I would say on the pleasure / pain continuum I’d be mostly stuck at the pain end, whatever the sport and at whatever level.
Take last night for example (Tuesday that is), my team of nearly 60 years (Nottingham Forest – I believe I was 14 when I saw my first game) had an opportunity to get promoted into the highest level of football, the Premiership where they have not been for 23 years. All they needed to do, at this point, is win one game, specifically to beat the team above them. By so doing they would be in second place and get automatic promotion.
They lost. Which means they must now face the lottery of the play-offs. For those of you who don’t know I won’t bore the rest of my readers by explaining what this entails, suffice it to say it’s painful, With four teams competing and only one spot bringing success it’s also clear that the odds against success are, well you work it out, slim might cover it.
Last night I unusually put myself through the agony of watching the above game on TV. My usual theory is if I watch, they lose Well, I watched and they lost, so you work it out. I did watch with the sound off and playing my guitar so I thought that maybe this tactic would bring success. It didn’t. So as I say it’s the play-offs. Unless they win next week (the last game of the ‘regular’ season they will go into the play-offs without any positive momentum (a massively key word in this era of sport).
I realised, as I watched the game last night, that I was witnessing a unique event. In the nearly 60 years I’ve been supporting Forest. I have never seen them play a game as important as this and I might even say this includes, European Cups, FA cups, League Cups, any game where the result is so important and depends on just that one game. The financial implications of playing in the Premiership rather than the Championship (where they have been for the last 23 years) are, well, sorry to use the word again, but massive.
And so here I am again vaguely complaining that, by my own actions, I am putting my well-being in the hands, or in this case, the feet of others. But then, as they say it’s not the pain, it’s the hope that kills you. Forest have done remarkably well this season, rising from bottom of the league to third, and possibly second, since our new manager took over. The guy looks promising but don’t be fooled this club has been through more than 30 managers in those 23 years or since the late Brian Clough ran things in his own unique fashion. All of them at one point or another hailed as geniuses. Ha.
So don’t buy into it, don’t get involved. Watch this sport, and indeed any sport, from a detached distance. Raise an eyebrow of interest, perhaps even a faint smile on the lips (where else?) but do not, repeat, do not allow your well-being to rest on any game of chance even if it has an element of skill which you can admire.
If you do allow such a thing you will become at best a slave to schadenfreude. The best you can hope for is that the teams supported by others will fail. Your pleasure comes from the misery of others. Now tell me is that any way for a grown (indeed retired) man or woman to live life in their golden age and a limited one at that?
Sport in retirement summary
So I think I have made a pretty good case particularly, especially, if you are a control freak like me, for not gifting your happiness to others who operate in a world beyond your influence. Right that’s good, I’ve got that off my chest, now onto the play-offs. You never know we might just win.