Fun Monday # 84 Team Sports

Our hostess today Heather and what topic has she set us today.....

Sports. More specifically, the sports team that you are rabid about. Maybe you love the Dallas Cowboys. Maybe you never miss a Cincinnati Reds game. Perhaps you follow every goal of the Fighting Illini Water Polo team. Or maybe nobody can tear you away from a Manchester United game. I want to hear about whatever sports team(s) that make you cry tears of joy when they win and tears of sorrow when they lose.

And on the flip side, I also want to hear about the teams you love to hate and why you hate them so much. You know what I mean. Like when you meet a new friend who is really cool and fun, and then you find out they root for your most hated rival team and you actually consider for a moment that you can't be friends anymore. Those teams.

That's it. And if you don't like any sports at all, I don't know what to say to you. Tell us something else you are impassioned about.

Well this is easy or maybe difficult because I do not follow any team sport in any way shape or form. Well actually that is not strictly true as I'll explain in a minute. As a child, my mother and I had to keep absolutely silent for my father to watch TV which was either sport (mainly football and cricket), cowboy films and comedy. My mother and I used to look at each other and burst into fits of giggles which did not go down well. This, together with having to go watch my father play matches or as I got a bit older field for him and my brother to play cricket really put me off.
I have only ever been to a football match once in my life and that was to see Bristol Rovers play because my then boyfriend's cousin was in the team. I also attended one Rugby match for similar reasons. When I was training to be a nurse I went to see a match (can't even remember who was playing) with a doctor, with whom I was quite friendly so I feigned an interest! Big mistake it was pretty boring but the drink in the pub after was worth the boredom!

Now I don't want to give the impression I don't like sport because that is not true, I do enjoy some of it in small doses but the one sport that would keep me glued to the TV is tennis. It is the one sport that I really love and played very competitively for many years. So I suppose you could say I follow the British Davis Cup Team. Not that they did very well this weekend losing to Austria, resulted in them being relegated from the world group.

Well that's it really, except of course the other thing I'm impassioned about is my family, so I'll leave you with a picture of my grandchildren (3 on the right) with a couple of their friends, when they were staying with me last month.


I'm sure that you will find many more posts that prove to be a lot more interesting than this one from the others participating this week.

Archives:
2007: Ladies who Lunch

Archives:
2006: Relax and Enjoy

Drugs in Sport....

I don't know about you but I feel very disappointed when ever I read about sport personalities taking performance enhancing drugs. There is now so much money in sport that I suppose the temptation must great. We all know that it went on in the Eastern Block countries long before the routine testing caught many of these cheats. Gradually in recent years a lot more sports, especially athletics have been tainted with drug taking and blood doping.

This week there has been a lot of controversy, here in the UK, about drug cheat Dwain Chambers who was given a two year worldwide ban from competing back in 2003. He has a lifetime ban from competing in the Olympics, however, amazingly he is being allowed to compete in the 60m indoor sprint at the World Indoor Championships in Spain next month.

This is a man who admits to taking a drug because he was arrogant enough to believe it would not be detected. When eventually caught after testing positive, he went on to say 'you can't win anything without taking drugs'! So why is he being allowed to compete, because of some stupid clause that says anyone who wins the trials has automatic qualification. Now I'm all for forgiveness and once someone has served his/her time...they should have the opportunity to put it behind them and start again. What I do find it hard to believe is that he should have changed his views about taking drugs and looking at a recent photo (he took the drug for some 18 months)...well I don't think I need to say more!
UKA are I understand looking for ways to exclude drug cheats in the future. What do you think? What message does this send to young athletes trying to make their way in a highly competitive sport?

While I'm on the topic of sport.........
you will have read that Hollywood film director Steven Spielberg has resigned as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing accusing China of not doing enough to pressure Sudan over Darfur (as reported by the BBC). I saw an interview with George Bush on the news last night and he seemed relaxed about attending the Olympics, emphasizing while he was there, he would not talk publicly about Beijing's policies and that Spielberg's decision was a personal matter. Why is that sport, music, films become a political arena........or am I burying my head in the sand!! I'd be interested in your views.

Archives:
2007: All's well that ends well

Jonny did it !!

I still have a lot of FM visits on my agenda for today so this is going to be a very quick post.


All I'll say is Jonny did it for England with some help from his friends hoorah!!

A bit sad for Lewis but he has one more chance and I'm rooting for him!!

I'm sure there are some of you out there who will know what I'm going on about..

Archives:
October 9th 2006: Tyntesfield House