A friend of mine and I were drinking tea the other day and I happened to mention that I had a strange journey towards understanding football in my life. As I elaborated on my statement, his laughter bubbled up every few minutes, interrupting my stories with loud bursts of uncontrollable giggles. At the end of it, he was so thoroughly entertained that he suggested I go to tell the story to other people too. Hence, this blog post. Now, many of you may not be football-inclined or literate (you'll see that I'm not either) but the experiences will be relatable, I'm sure.
My journey with football began with a game. No, not running around, but a computer game. Every time I came down to Bangalore for my vacations, we'd visit my grand-aunt and while everyone were busy talking, I would go sit in front of the computer. Now, we're talking about almost 10 years ago, so when I say computer, I'm talking about the large, bulky grandfather of our sleek laptops: the desktop PC with a Pentium 2 CPU, the computers they still use in government offices (because the government office is the land time forgot; a place so slow, even Internet Explorer would fear to ask to be the default browser). There was only one game on it, FIFA 98. Now, this wasn't even the whole game, just the demo. Hence you were only allowed to play one game, which turned out to be Arsenal vs. Manchester United and you could only choose to be Arsenal. As a result of all this intensely one-sided time spent, I developed a hatred for the name Manchester United even before I knew what football was and what the Premier League was.
Later, when I joined school, I met another friend who was a big Manchester United fan. But by this time, I had completely forgotten all my football knowledge gained over playing that one game over and over again, so he was successfully able to convert me into a Manchester United fan by shoving information at me at breakneck speed. Also, he took it upon himself to educate me about the Premier and spent hours quizzing me on the teams and their home grounds. Suffice to say, I learnt all I could simply because it was impossible to hold a conversation with anyone else in an all-boys school without being interested in football. A similar scene saw me develop my tennis knowledge and favour Nadal and hate Federrer, but that story is for another day. My interest in the sport on the field, however, did nothing to help me curry favour with my classmates and hence I was relegated to be the goalkeeper, where I could do minimal damage to the team. I have no qualms in admitting that I was terrible at it, refusing to dive and dirty/tear my pants. I constantly complained about it too, so much so that one day, the class acquiesced and let me move beyond my restricted area to be what they call a 'floating goalie'. We lost 5-0 that day and I stopped one person from scoring, mostly because I crashed into him. That pretty much put an end to my dreaming of doing more on the field than move my hands around. Soon, on the sports day, I won a medal for the relay race, something I still can't believe to this day. I guess I know where my love for running came from.
With time, I learnt more about football, culminating in me watching my first full match on TV (the 2006 WC final). Even then, I missed the one event everyone spoke about after match, the Zidane headbutt, because I decided that I was hungry. Just bad luck, I guess. The Premier League is no longer a mystery to me and I can contribute certain inputs when needed, though for the longest time, I though Arsenal was named after Arsene Wenger, because he seemed old enough to have been with the team since its inception. But I learnt from that mistake soon enough and become proficient at contributing to discussions with my meager knowledge. The WC this time around was a better experience and I got through it with no major incidents. But I still wonder sometimes what would happen if I took the field to play the game. Injuries are immanent, I think...
Ciao!
My journey with football began with a game. No, not running around, but a computer game. Every time I came down to Bangalore for my vacations, we'd visit my grand-aunt and while everyone were busy talking, I would go sit in front of the computer. Now, we're talking about almost 10 years ago, so when I say computer, I'm talking about the large, bulky grandfather of our sleek laptops: the desktop PC with a Pentium 2 CPU, the computers they still use in government offices (because the government office is the land time forgot; a place so slow, even Internet Explorer would fear to ask to be the default browser). There was only one game on it, FIFA 98. Now, this wasn't even the whole game, just the demo. Hence you were only allowed to play one game, which turned out to be Arsenal vs. Manchester United and you could only choose to be Arsenal. As a result of all this intensely one-sided time spent, I developed a hatred for the name Manchester United even before I knew what football was and what the Premier League was.
Later, when I joined school, I met another friend who was a big Manchester United fan. But by this time, I had completely forgotten all my football knowledge gained over playing that one game over and over again, so he was successfully able to convert me into a Manchester United fan by shoving information at me at breakneck speed. Also, he took it upon himself to educate me about the Premier and spent hours quizzing me on the teams and their home grounds. Suffice to say, I learnt all I could simply because it was impossible to hold a conversation with anyone else in an all-boys school without being interested in football. A similar scene saw me develop my tennis knowledge and favour Nadal and hate Federrer, but that story is for another day. My interest in the sport on the field, however, did nothing to help me curry favour with my classmates and hence I was relegated to be the goalkeeper, where I could do minimal damage to the team. I have no qualms in admitting that I was terrible at it, refusing to dive and dirty/tear my pants. I constantly complained about it too, so much so that one day, the class acquiesced and let me move beyond my restricted area to be what they call a 'floating goalie'. We lost 5-0 that day and I stopped one person from scoring, mostly because I crashed into him. That pretty much put an end to my dreaming of doing more on the field than move my hands around. Soon, on the sports day, I won a medal for the relay race, something I still can't believe to this day. I guess I know where my love for running came from.
With time, I learnt more about football, culminating in me watching my first full match on TV (the 2006 WC final). Even then, I missed the one event everyone spoke about after match, the Zidane headbutt, because I decided that I was hungry. Just bad luck, I guess. The Premier League is no longer a mystery to me and I can contribute certain inputs when needed, though for the longest time, I though Arsenal was named after Arsene Wenger, because he seemed old enough to have been with the team since its inception. But I learnt from that mistake soon enough and become proficient at contributing to discussions with my meager knowledge. The WC this time around was a better experience and I got through it with no major incidents. But I still wonder sometimes what would happen if I took the field to play the game. Injuries are immanent, I think...
Ciao!
Typical Tarun-ness!
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