Norwitch/Man City and the Reason I Gave Up Sports

Norwitch/Man City and the Reason I Gave Up Sports

One of the reasons I lost my interest in sports, and it was a gradual loss over a period of several years, was the emotional involvement that I had in them. Truly, some of the best, and worst moments of my life were caused by my teams performances. I was embarassed for myself.

So gradually I withdrew, first it was the baseball season tickets to go, then the hockey, then the basketball (yeah, I had it bad), then the trips to see my alma mater play. And concommitantly my tv sports viewing dropped from--no exaggeration--about ten hours on college football Saturdays to zero. Zero. It's gotten to the point where if I am over at a house and a football game is on TV I get bored and antsy after about fifteen minutes.

I follow sports now the way that most women and some men do, I know the big events and players but not much else and I do keep track of my alma mater and my soccer team, Manchester City.

Even though I am now so far removed from fan(atic)-dom I still empathsize with my ex-fellow addicts, so Monday night's match between Man City and Norwitch brought back a lot of feelings.

Man City is mid-table in the English Premier League, Norwitch was nineteenth out of twenty teams. In English football the bottom three teams automatically get "relegated" to a lower division. There is no equivalent of it in American sports. Hard as it is to even imagine it would be like if the Tampa Bay Devil Rays finished in their customary last place and the next year found themselves playing the Toledo Mud Hens instead of the Yankees. It's devestating financially for the team and more so, I MEAN MORE SO for the fans.

Norwitch had just been promoted to the premiership this year so Monday night's match was a must-win for them to avoid a quick demotion. They were playing at home against a beatable opponent in Man City and an opponent that (1) has been erratic in its play in its own brief, three-year stay in the premiership and (2)had just sold its top goal-scorer to a Turkish club because of his own mercurial play.

The Canaries jumped on the opportunity. Inside 17 minutes they had gotten up 2-0 on Man City. 2-0 is A LOT in European soccer but before half-time City had tied it up. Norwitch had a great opportunity to retake the lead in the 71st minute but our, er, City's, goalkeeper made a great save.

The 90 minutes of regulation ended at 2-2. Soccer though adds on a few extra minutes at the end of each half to make up for delays caused by injuries and the like. The amount of time never amounts to more than 3-4 minutes but it was a few seconds too long for Norwitch.

City's best player, Shaun Wright-Phillips, took a decent shot on goal that the Norwitch keeper blocked but couldn't control and the ball bounded free. City striker Robbie Fowler was there to knock it home for the winner.

The reports of the match in the soccer press were full of those adjectives that I'd remembered and suffered through before. "Fowler Crushes Norwitch" was the headline on ESPN's Soccernet. "Norwitch Despair" was the title of Sports Illustrated Online's article. A "cruel" goal said another. It was awful. I remember, I KNOW, how the Norwitch fans felt and my heart went out to them. After I had read all the reports and got over my gape-jawed initial reaction all I could think was,

FUCK YOU, YOU CANARY BASTARDS!
WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF NAME IS "CANARIES" ANYWAY?
FUCK YOU, YOU TWEETY-BIRDS! GOOD LUCK IN THE COCA-COLA LEAGUE!

-Benjamin Harris