I must confess that I have always felt the need to support one player or team while watching any game.I find this a very strange need that I seem to have to emotionally connect to a player or team. It has nothing to do with any nationalistic feeling or anything as cliched as that. I have been grappling with trying to understand this inane need for us to attach ourselves sometimes unneccesarily really and I thought i would explore this and share it.
It goes back to the time when I first discovered the radio and the power of the medium. I was in my early teens, playing cricket for Young Cricketers with the then unknown Jumbo who would even in those days terrorize us with his faster ones ! More on that in another post. I discovered Saturday Sports Special and what began with Wimbledon tennis commentary very quickly spread to the whole 9 yards, be it golf, rugby and offcourse football. I am trying to rack my brain why I supported Manchester United and not Liverpool, after all they were the champions then and dominating the league, but Man U it was. And then there was also coverage of the Scottish League and for some strange reason I had to support a team there too,so it was Dundee United. Did I like the name, I mean why not Celtic, Rangers or Aberdeen.
Once the team was in place then I had to have my favourite players and mine strangely was a goalkeeper, Peter Schmiechel, a Dane and look at the strange coincidence, I now professionally have a very strong Danish connection and consider myself half Danish ! Saturday nights were now taken care of and my support for Man Utd continues unflinchingly and passionately.
Cricket was offcourse my first love, since i played it, was reasonably good at it but the problem was that I was a left hander and those days we were a rare breed. There were even fewer in India, I remember only Surinder Amarnath among the batters at that time. So my hero was David Gower, arguably one of the most stylish left handers the game has produced. That lazy cover drive was worth a million and considering we did not have a TV at home you can understand how good the commentary of Chris Martin Jenkins, Alan Mcgalvray, Tony Cozier etc was. So having sporting heroes who were not Indian created a problem for me when India played these countries because when we played the Windies I enjoyed watching Kalicharan play or the raw power of Clive Lloyd all left handers again.
During the same time I also discovered the passionate Australians and still remember waking up early to catch the early morning starts at the cricket. The EIGHT for no wicket in the typical Australian twang is imprinted in my mind. I have never been to Australia but I got the sense that here was a nation that had sport in their DNA and I fell madly in love with that. So whenever India played Australia, I was an emotional wreck not knowing who to support. Secretly wanting Australia to win but on the outside off course supporting India. Even today, i have similar challenges when we play Australia in particular.
I think just the way they play the game, for that matter any game is so refreshingly different. It seems so much more natural for them while for us it seems almost artificial. When they run or they slide, it is very very apparent that they do it far more easily than us.
And finally individual sports like Golf, Tennis, Badminton- I find myself needing to support one player or the other. My daughter asked me the other day who I was supporting when Nadal was playing Djokovic in that epic match and I very instinctively said Nadal even though my favourite Fedex had already lost in the semis to that very man, so logically should I not have been supporting Novak ? But Nadal it was and what a rollercoaster it was. I did not have tears in my eyes but still felt for those two warriors.
So why this need to support, to be a fan, to have a favourite. I think we all want to and need to be part of a social structure be it family, be it a pack, gang or fan club. It gives a sense of brotherhoood, belonging and allows us to share our joy and fears and cry on each others shoulders, curse at will and at the end of the day find your family. I enjoy that inspite of the fact that with it comes all the emotional turmoil and the division, the competition, the winning and losing and much much more.
I finished my 10th from a KFI school and those who know it will understand when I say that here I was really into competitive sport in a school that felt that competition and the things it did to the human mind was very distructive and inherently dangerous to well being. I can see where they are coming from in the sense that we will be kidding ourselves if we do not accept that all of us do feel a tinge sad for the loser and do comment on any over exuberant celebration by the winner. Professional sportsmen will claim we do not understand the sacrifices that they go through and how they train to win and it is that deep desire to win that has got them where they are and cant argue with that.
It goes back to the time when I first discovered the radio and the power of the medium. I was in my early teens, playing cricket for Young Cricketers with the then unknown Jumbo who would even in those days terrorize us with his faster ones ! More on that in another post. I discovered Saturday Sports Special and what began with Wimbledon tennis commentary very quickly spread to the whole 9 yards, be it golf, rugby and offcourse football. I am trying to rack my brain why I supported Manchester United and not Liverpool, after all they were the champions then and dominating the league, but Man U it was. And then there was also coverage of the Scottish League and for some strange reason I had to support a team there too,so it was Dundee United. Did I like the name, I mean why not Celtic, Rangers or Aberdeen.
Once the team was in place then I had to have my favourite players and mine strangely was a goalkeeper, Peter Schmiechel, a Dane and look at the strange coincidence, I now professionally have a very strong Danish connection and consider myself half Danish ! Saturday nights were now taken care of and my support for Man Utd continues unflinchingly and passionately.
Cricket was offcourse my first love, since i played it, was reasonably good at it but the problem was that I was a left hander and those days we were a rare breed. There were even fewer in India, I remember only Surinder Amarnath among the batters at that time. So my hero was David Gower, arguably one of the most stylish left handers the game has produced. That lazy cover drive was worth a million and considering we did not have a TV at home you can understand how good the commentary of Chris Martin Jenkins, Alan Mcgalvray, Tony Cozier etc was. So having sporting heroes who were not Indian created a problem for me when India played these countries because when we played the Windies I enjoyed watching Kalicharan play or the raw power of Clive Lloyd all left handers again.
During the same time I also discovered the passionate Australians and still remember waking up early to catch the early morning starts at the cricket. The EIGHT for no wicket in the typical Australian twang is imprinted in my mind. I have never been to Australia but I got the sense that here was a nation that had sport in their DNA and I fell madly in love with that. So whenever India played Australia, I was an emotional wreck not knowing who to support. Secretly wanting Australia to win but on the outside off course supporting India. Even today, i have similar challenges when we play Australia in particular.
I think just the way they play the game, for that matter any game is so refreshingly different. It seems so much more natural for them while for us it seems almost artificial. When they run or they slide, it is very very apparent that they do it far more easily than us.
And finally individual sports like Golf, Tennis, Badminton- I find myself needing to support one player or the other. My daughter asked me the other day who I was supporting when Nadal was playing Djokovic in that epic match and I very instinctively said Nadal even though my favourite Fedex had already lost in the semis to that very man, so logically should I not have been supporting Novak ? But Nadal it was and what a rollercoaster it was. I did not have tears in my eyes but still felt for those two warriors.
So why this need to support, to be a fan, to have a favourite. I think we all want to and need to be part of a social structure be it family, be it a pack, gang or fan club. It gives a sense of brotherhoood, belonging and allows us to share our joy and fears and cry on each others shoulders, curse at will and at the end of the day find your family. I enjoy that inspite of the fact that with it comes all the emotional turmoil and the division, the competition, the winning and losing and much much more.
I finished my 10th from a KFI school and those who know it will understand when I say that here I was really into competitive sport in a school that felt that competition and the things it did to the human mind was very distructive and inherently dangerous to well being. I can see where they are coming from in the sense that we will be kidding ourselves if we do not accept that all of us do feel a tinge sad for the loser and do comment on any over exuberant celebration by the winner. Professional sportsmen will claim we do not understand the sacrifices that they go through and how they train to win and it is that deep desire to win that has got them where they are and cant argue with that.
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