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Published: September 19th 2010
This is the address: http://www.sportisglobal.blogspot.com/
I'll still be blogging here - more on that at a later date - but please please please have a look at the new site and tell me what you think. Rather than send you from link to link though, here's the first entry:
Permanent header:
Sport, for sport's sake, is the purest form of competition, answering a basic human instinct for superiority. It's war without death; evolution without science; reality television without self obsessed idiots spouting turgid banality and soulless filth.
When nations go head to head, peaceful pride takes centre stage, planet earth gets smaller and every flag can fly. It happens everywhere, every day, a never ending Olympiad of infinite disciplines.
Every Thursday I want to give you a hand. I make it my business to know what's going on in Global Sport, and I intend to share that knowledge with you. A little less Manchester United, a little more Mongolian volleyball...
About me:
After 30 happy years in England I live (still happy!) with Sarah in Melbourne, Australia. She doesn't like sport, but loves me anyway, for which I am deeply grateful. Like most men my age I like beer, fish and chips and good films. Like rather fewer contemporaries I like Thatcher's Traditional Cider, musical theatre and good punctuation. Above all these things I like sport, in a peculiarly obsessive way that severely compromises such basic elements of adult life as work, sleep and dinner parties.
First entry:
You see, I've got these spreadsheets...
Yup: rock and, indeed, roll. Some people get their kicks bungee jumping, driving fast cars or dancing all night, but for me nothing beats the thrill of building a vast, formula-linked and of course colour-coded collection of data. Even while writing this I occasionally tab across to a compact little number I'm working on relating to women's baseball in Nicaragua, just to admire its structure and see what new nuggets of trivia it might yield under the gaze of fresh eyes, while sipping coffee from my 'I ♥ spreadsheets' mug.
They're really good, though, my spreadsheets, and warrant more exposure than the confines of my fiancé's beleaguered laptop will allow. I've got big plans for my spreadsheets: one day there'll be a book; before too long there'll be a website; first, there's a blog.
The subject of this labour of love is Global Sport. It sounds a bit grand - all encompassing to the point of being vague. Please understand though, that it's not about indiscriminately covering every bit of sport that's ever happened anywhere. The focus, for the most part, is on the elements of sport - certain disciplines and competitions - that truly are, or aspire to be, 'global'.
You see, if there's one thing I love almost as much as spreadsheets it's maps. There's no input required, and very little change, and yet a good world map can occupy an hour of my time in what feels like an instant, drawing me to its exotic complexity, and revealing new anomalies, histories and queries time after time.
This other obsession has furnished me with a healthy knowledge of political geography - only last night I was the guy at the pub quiz who knew that Moldova shares borders with Romania and Ukraine, and that the Galapagos Islands are part of Ecuador - not to mention plenty of firm opinions on some less straightforward issues. I'm serious about 'not to mention' though: at this stage a debate on UK devolution or Guiananese independence would only distract.
The objective then, over time, is to identify, inspire and serve any likeminded individuals out there. Just spend 10 minutes with me once a week, and perhaps eventually you will share my intrigue at such landmarks as Kazakhstan's first grand slam singles quarter finalist (Elena Likhovtseva at the 2000 Aussie Open), Curaçao’s agonising wait for a global track and field medal (Churandy Martina has placed 6th, then 5th, then 4th in the 100m) or the United States of America losing, to anyone, at anything.
Domestic contests around the world see local tribes form, their natural aggression channelled into donning a replica shirt and screaming for a team. Victories that barely register on the global scale bring grown men to tears after years of devoted frustration. I’m no different, my domestic allegiances, ranging from ‘lifelong, English’ to ‘brand new, Australian’, and accordingly it's cards on the table time, where they will remain as I relate my personal weekly sporting experience.
For instance, last week started badly for me with Aston Villa's last gasp defeat, but took a turn for the much better when Worcestershire sealed County Championship promotion; all that remains after the weekend’s AFL results is for Collingwood to lose the grand final: I've been in Australia long enough to learn, and actually start to feel, that I hate Collingwood...
Anyway, back to the Global Sport project: don't worry. I'm realistic enough to reckon that the road to readership isn't paved with cells, filters and vlookups. For you, I will keep the spreadsheets in the background for now, forming a statistical foundation to the verbal museum of Global Sport that I intend to build.
Of course, noone is a true citizen of the world, and you can expect my observations to be particularly upbeat in regard to sporting success for England. By the same token, I encourage you to share your favourites and priorities, lest you suffer indigestion at Global Sport’s banquet table.
Tune in (is that what you do with a blog?) on Thursday then, and I'll bring you up to speed on Global Sport's key events of 2010 so far, before arming you with the tools you need to share my particular perspective on the week ahead. Oh, and tell your friends!
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Jon Bloxham
non-member comment
good idea
Brilliant Good idea