ONLY A GAME

This week I posted on the Somerset cricket supporters Facebook page. I said a few, admittedly optimistic, words about Somerset’s prospects for the upcoming day’s play and said that, win, lose or draw, I was looking forward to seeing them play Kent the week after next commenting that, for me at least, there are few more enjoyable things than watching Somerset play at the county ground in Taunton.

You would have thought that this would have been an uncontroversial view to express on a forum specifically set up for Somerset supporters – but you’d be wrong! Alongside those who ridiculed my suggestion that, given past batting performances, the team might yet do well, others presumably disenchanted by the teams recent batting performances and who clearly think Somerset are only worth watching if they win, responded by suggesting that I should ‘get a life!’

Which got me thinking about what, for some, a life entails.

As a doctor I regularly sit with those whose mental health is so poor that all they want to do is die – and those who mourn the death of those who meant the world to them.

I spend time with those whose cognitive functioning is declining – and those whose chemotherapy hasn’t delivered the cure that had been hoped for. Furthermore I speak to those whose cancer is so far advanced at presentation that an attempt at curative treatment isn’t even an option for them.

I visit those, some of whom are just a few years older than me, who, having had a stroke find themselves in a nursing home – and I console those who, gear themselves up for surgery only to have it cancelled at the last minute meaning that their pain will continue for longer still.

Such are all our lives to a greater or lesser extent and so, in a world full of suffering, we all sometimes need to be distracted by something we enjoy. So yes, because of the life I have, spending a day watching Somerset playing cricket at Taunton is one of the things I like doing most.

It saddens me then when a small minority seem to find it necessary to spoil the pleasure we have in supporting the teams we do by denigrating individuals who have entertained us so wonderfully for so many years. Do they not know how fortunate they are to watch what many are denied the pleasure of because of their life situation? And in a world where we are constantly told we have to be better, where the pressure to prove that we are a success is a constant burden, it’s a shame that they can not enjoy sport for what it is, an opportunity to play, to take part in what is after all just a game, without having always to win.

Of course there’s disappointment when results don’t go the way we might have hoped – but unkindness and rudeness are never justified.

And they make the world, cricketing and otherwise, an even sadder place than, for some, it already is.

As I’ve said before, and fear I’ll have to say again, on line criticism – it’s just not cricket.

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Related posts:

To read an extended, theologically minded, version of this blog entitled, ‘On NOT leaving your COMFORT ZONE’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Ah but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘A Sorrow Shared’, click here

And to read ‘Don’t forget to be ordinary if you want to be happy’, which has a more theological flavour, click here

Other cricket related blogs:

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol’, click here

To read ‘sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘My love is not a red, red rose , click here

To read ‘Stumpy – a legend reborn’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And now a couple of cricket blogs with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here