As the industrial complex of global sport clanks to a halt it is only natural to feel shocked, concussed, perhaps even bereft
When did it become real for you? Perhaps it was when the first grisly footage started emerging from Wuhan, of deserted and dystopian streets, of a human catastrophe beyond understanding. Perhaps it was when an entire airline went bust, when plans and schemes were thrown into disarray. Perhaps it was when the Italian government decided in effect to put an entire nation of 60 million people under house arrest or when every school in Ireland shut down.
Or perhaps it was when they called off Fulham v Brentford on Friday night. If so, there’s no need to feel ashamed or abashed about it: for so many of us, sport isn’t simply a way of passing the time but a way of marking it. It offers a liturgy, a structure on which to measure the passing days and seasons. Tuesday and Wednesday: Champions League. Thursday: Premier League darts. Friday night: Super League rugby. And then the entire weekend, from the Saturday lunchtime kick-off to the PGA golf on Sunday night: hours and hours of it, all stretched out before us like a delicious picnic. In frightening times, virus or no virus, these are the rituals that offer the veneer of normality, a background noise as reassuring and immutable as the ticking of the clock.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2WhOLHZ
via
0 Comments