the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke

I watch almost no sports these days, I haven’t been to a sporting event for around twenty five years and don’t watch more than the odd highlight on TV, usually via my tablet. I just have no interest anymore.

I used to go to watch motor racing, football and cricket at amateur and professional levels. I played the latter two sports at local club level and marshalled at motor sport events. These were things that gave me great joy, but sport, in all forms, has changed and, in doing so, they have moved away from me.

At the time of writing this the Olympics are about to start and these would have been something that I would have followed on TV and in the printed media with enthusiasm. Not all of the events, but a good few, and all of these would be compulsory discussion topics the next day at work. If anyone in the office talks to me about the Olympics next week I won’t have the faintest ideal what they are talking about.

I used to enjoy watching skill, and do not need constant excitement. Test cricket used to be a particular favourite, something that I could sit amongst spectators from both sides and we could chat about what we were watching, applauding good play regardless of which side it was. I am old enough to remember when football crowds were not segregated either, and, on afternoons when I wasn’t playing, I would often take a ride on the train to watch West Ham. I wasn’t a fan of the team as such, but it was a cheap afternoon out to see a couple of top teams play. I never felt threatened, even on the Saturday I went to and East vs West London derby to see the Hammers play QPR.

Later, after marrying and moving home I became a regular at Portman Road whenever Ipswich were playing at home and then, once I began travelling at work, would try and get to see an evening game wherever I was staying but, by then, segregation of crowds had been introduced, and then all seater stadiums had become the rule. Football is not a game to see sitting down, at least not for me.

It is more than twenty five years since I last attended a sporting event, so what went wrong? Football became all seater and teams became full of overseas players. It is a more athletic game now, but I just do not enjoy watching people being paid a fortune to fall over and roll about feigning agony. Cricket has sold its soul to the short game and boorish spectator behaviour. Tennis I stopped watching when Wimbledon failed to chuck the oafish John McEnroe out and the game let people grunt loudly every time they hit the ball.

As for my big love, motor sport, I could write a couple of blogs, but it just isn’t the sport that so enthralled me from my schoolboy days through to middle age.

Sport has become more about entertainment than competition. It is looking for an audience that does not include me, and money is at the root of it all. Do I miss it? Not really, for I have other things in my life now. Occasionally I will find some film clip on the internet of a sporting event from the fifties, sixties or seventies and will enjoy the nostalgia, but modern sport belongs to a modern audience. It’s not for me.