As an incredibly individual individual, I’m incredibly proud of my individuality. This means I usually prefer to shun anything mainstream (as to prove how individual I am). Or if I actually do shockingly start to like something also liked by anyone else, I’ll either turn my back on it quicker that an ice dancer, or deny I like, or indeed ever have liked it. As soon as anything becomes so incredibly mainstream that I’m not the only one to hear about it, it’s just dull.

This makes me unpredictable… so unpredictable to the point where you’re able to predict exactly what I think of anything. If you’re able to ask me what I think of it (thereby mentioning it), then I hate it. And I instantly lose all respect and hate you for not hating it.

As part of this predictable unpredictability, you should expect me to hate sports right? I mean, I’m male, so I must automatically love all sports. Which means I will hate them all. Plus, unless it’s some kind of possibly ancient sport, but not, because I’ve only just made it up to make me seem cool, like Ice Basketball, I will hate it anyway. Even with the old age game of Basketball, which I was taught by a wise old monk in Tibet, once I’ve told you about it, it automatically becomes tedious and bore-filled to me.

But no… I fucking love everything about sports… every one of them. From Lawn Green Bowls to Archery (by the way, who decides how opposite things are to other things, in order to determine their placement in that ‘From x to y’ phrase? Why is Lawn Green Bowls at one end of what spectrum, and Archery at the other?)

Watching on TV, watching live, watching a video of the best of the 1990-1999 World Clay Pigeon Shooting Championships, I love it all. Ask if I want a front row standing position at the UK Angling Cup, North East Round Robin Qualifiers and I’ll be starting the car in that year’s branded tournament hat and t-shirt before you can say ‘Don’t forget the Thermos’. All you have to do is give me someone to support. An excuse to want one of them to beat the other so badly, he/she’ll by drying his/er eyes with a hairdryer. It won’t be hard to find something. The place they’re from, international is obvious, or just a familiar city or nice sounding town. The underdog’s always good to back, if you’ve an idea of the odds. Failing any of these, I can go with the colour of their shirt(s), or just their kind of face. Give me a reason, no matter how mundane, and I will follow.

I can feel what you’re thinking (I’m not the only unpredictably predictable one). You’re not even here, or reading this yet, and your thoughts have burnt their words into my retinas like an old tattoo of an ex-girlfriend. ‘All this watching, where’s the playing you fat lazy bum’ Well you’re right about a few things. About the fat and laziness mostly, I won’t bother arguing either of those points, sharpened like a bayonet. But you’re wrong about the playing. I play sports whenever I get the chance. The problem with that, is that I just never get the chance. I’m shit! I played Ice Hockey for the Altrincham Aces under 14s/16s, but I was dropped due to a lack of ability to keep the puck (the little black thing) anywhere near me for more than 5 seconds. I played 5-a-side football for a team in University. Technically I couldn’t have been ‘dropped’ from that side, but when it became apparent the team were playing a man down without calling me up, it was time to move on. I used to play rugby for the school team for Christ’s sake! Which I was actually pretty good at, getting in on merit instead of because I was friends with 4 other guys, nor because I was one of 10 people who could actually skate in the Greater Manchester area. The reason I was actually pretty damn good at rugby, was because all it involves (at least at that age) is being able to maximise and minimise your weight at different times. I was small and quick, but both knew how, and wasn’t afraid to use my weight, throwing myself into tackles with basically men, three times my size. It was this skill that also got me into the Ice Hockey team, I became the best tackler and overall defenseman the team had ever seen. The obvious difference however, between rugby and ice hockey, is that in hockey you get mounds of padding to protect you from injury. Rugby? No such luxury, and I inevitably broke my thumb amidst one especially vicious tackle. After that point, the school strangely stopped teaching the sport past Year 8, when the kids are still too small to do any real damage to one another. Pussies!

Right now though… I’ve stopped watching all TV, so there’s no vicarious enjoyment going on, and what with Nick having moved a while ago, taking his Nintendo Wii with him, the closest thing I get to playing sport these days is about 50 minutes of Table Tennis every lunch hour.

My workmate Pablo is in the middle of working on what I’m told is what will prove to be an illustrious article on his dismay at getting his ass handed to him on the table week in week out. And I’m currently ebay bidding on a new personal bat. Pablo had better get his quill ready, he’ll be writing that article with a mixture of tears and broken dreams.

I Like Sports I Don’t Care Who Knows – Brought to you by James Wormald -