It’s hard to imagine a world without sport to lift the soul

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

It’s not meant as a judgement, but I’ve never understood people who just don’t get sport. I don’t mean people who don’t like sport because that’s entirely their prerogative – but people for whom sport might as well be astral physics, such is their utter indifference to it.

And yet, clearly, there is a whole section of the population out there for whom sport is an all-encompassing word to describe what appears to be on the television from morning through noon and onto night.

Nothing infuriates them more than when they ask what’s on, and the reply is succinct.

“It’s the match.”

As though there’s either only one match – which is clearly not the case – or the world should know what this precise match is to the point that it requires no further clarification.

It was the same with ‘the darts’ over the Christmas, or ‘the tennis’ as opposed to Wimbledon or ‘racing’ as opposed to Cheltenham.

Because one half of the world knows exactly what they’re the shorthand for – and the other half is utterly exasperated and infuriated at the presumption that they should too.

I worked side-by-side with a colleague once who had absolutely no interest in sport; he didn’t hate it or rail against it, he just couldn’t care less whether Ireland won, lost or drew.

The great thing for me – and the worst thing for him – was that our desks were directly in front of the newsroom telly.

So when the Boys in Green were in action or the All-Ireland was in full swing, back in this era before tablets or streaming, this telly was the only show in town.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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