Converting the Infidels

It is the dream of any fan of any sport that all the peoples of the world be so inclined. Soccer fans like to claim that their game is THE world game, but I doubt the New Guinea Highlanders that have seen white men twice want to be like Pele (actually they want to be like Mal Meninga but that's another story found elsewhere in this blog). Similarly, I'd like all Australians to wanna be Wallabies, but even I'm aware that that the bum sniffing codes are truly only played in two Eastern states. And don't even get me started on the plans of Australian Rules Football to eventually rule the planet - that's about as likely as American Football's (or Gridiron's) Down Under Bowl (no, really, it exists) being broadcast on free-to-air TV (which is only slightly less likely than Super 14s being broadcast on free-to-air TV - but that's a subject of regular tipping comp rants).

So most sports fans settle for much smaller goals. Those with children content themselves with simply brainwashing their children from the day they're born. My brother, in an effort to turn his sons into Wallabies, calls both Rugby League and Rugby Union just 'Rugby' so that as far as they're concerned it's the same thing and they will grow up not knowing what Rugby League is. It's an admirable cause designed to ensure that they don't follow the Bulldogs, but the plans were destroyed when the Tigers won the Premiership and his 1980s allegiances (and more particularly his 1989 heartbreak) ensured that he was the first on the bandwagon and his sons were soon sighted wearing Tigers jerseys.

A more common goal is the conversion of just one person, and that tends to be a partner, and the partner tends to be female. It's not sexist but statistics. I've tried it myself. I took an ex-girlfriend one day to one-day cricket. As any cricket fan who's tried this knows you have to start small. You don't introduce a virgin to the karma sutra, and you don't take a cricket virgin to a Test Match, you take her to a one-dayer.

I've pretty much got bored with one-day cricket. It's predictable and one-dimensional, of dubious entertainment value and lacking in the traditional strengths of test cricket - tactics that rival chess, stamina and concentration to rival marathon runners, a rich tradition of monumental deeds and nation defining controversies. One-day cricket is simple love 'em and leave 'em stuff but it serves (or at least served, until the advent of an even bigger abomination Twenty20 cricket) the masses appetites for results, action, colour and movement. So it’s a natural entrée for the uninitiated.

The day was going swimmingly. The ex was asking all the right questions and in those days you could still drink full-strength beer. With the correct amount of good humour we sledged the opposition supporters, cheered the inflatable condoms, booed the security guards popping beach balls and followed the chant of ‘Porn star – Porn star’ as a well-endowed blond in a Porn star t-shirt spilt a tray of beer (note here that the cricket was incidental). But then the Mexican wave started up. The first few laps were OK, but by the third lap we were sprayed by beer and on the fourth a half-eaten chicken landed in the exes lap. She’s a vegetarian and a tee-totaller. My one chance of converting her to my greatest passion (apart from barbeques and drinking) was over and the relationship ended soon after. I am sure it was no coincidence.

More recently, a friend went along to a soccer match between Australia and Kuwait. She had never been to a sporting match of any kind in her entire life, and debating the concept of soccer vs football with her was a total waste of time. But her reasoning was simple – I’ve reached a stage in my life where I need to know more people – more people are into sport – so I will give it a go too.

Now I hate soccer and I’m proud to say it (“soccer” – there I said it). I’d even rather watch one-day cricket. I warned her of the hours of no action, the pointlessness of a non-contact sport where any contact results in a pathetic attempt to fool the match official into awarding a penalty, and the arbitrary and random (ie non-skill) nature of the penalty shoot-out. But she went never the less.

Not surprisingly she was bored and texted me at half-time to tell me so. Her match report the next day consisted of “I went for Kuwait so people abused me but he Mexican Wave was fun. I left before it finished”. Apart from the irony of the Mexican Wave, my point was proved.

Now she has a boyfriend. He plays a variety of football. She’s not sure which but thinks they’re of both the touching (as in touch football) and non-touch (as in a Rugby code) varieties. Her very lack of understanding of this simple breakdown of the football codes (as incisive as it might be in an accidental sort of way) indicates to me that he has no chance whatsoever of converting her. And if he reads this article first he will never try.