The Sport
Early in the twenty-first
century, the British Government had begun to
greatly encourage sport. It soon became apparent,
however, that conflicting demands for resources
from hundreds of different sporting organisations
was highly inefficient. This led the Minister for
Miscellaneous Loose Ends, who maintained
responsibility for such matters, to return to
fundamentals. What, he asked, was the purpose of
sport?
On that point, there was
universal agreement: The purpose of sport was to
raise revenue through advertising and
merchandising. It followed, therefore, that there
was little point in having a multitude of
unrelated sports: All should be combined to form
a single, all-embracing entity – The Sport.
This concept was
enthusiastically accepted. The Devil, however,
was in the detail. Despite the inception of The
Sport some thirty years ago, the International
Sport Rules Formulation Committee has yet to
complete its work. Should the offside rule apply,
for example, if a player is holding a snooker cue
while standing in the crease? How would that be
modified if he or she were underwater and/or on
horseback at the time? Similar problems have
dogged the International Sport Pitch
Specification Committee: How could it be
possible, they have argued, to accommodate, on a
relatively small table, up to twenty-seven
players and a kangaroo?
All this was resolved, or
at least made academic, by the International
Sport Referees Committee. They concluded that,
even if the rules and venue issues could be
resolved, The Sport could never be played: The
elements derived from cricket would lead to
cancellation in rain or bad light; those derived
from skiing could not accommodate high
temperatures; those related to swimming could not
cope with very low temperatures; those having
their basis in English football would be called
off due to mindless crowd violence, and so on.
When the characteristics of all constituent
sports were considered, there were no conditions
in which The Sport would not be cancelled before
it began.
For those of us who are
international Sport superstars, this revelation
came as something of a relief. Years of
uncertainty about the rules, together with no
practice or training, had made us very anxious
about the prospect of being called upon to take
to the field, track, pitch, pool, course, table
or whatever.
Also, of course, where
would we have found the time? As one of the world’s
leading Sport stars, I have lucrative sponsorship
deals with manufactures of watches, toiletry
products, electronics, alcohol, crisps and fast
food. Also supermarket chains, fashion houses and
record companies. My time is totally devoted to
photo shoots and product launches.
Many of my fellow
superstars have entered the world of publishing.
Inspired by the autobiography of Wayne Rooney,
published in 2006, some recently conceived
fertilised embryos in the pre-foetal stage have
risen to Sport stardom and had their life
stories, so far, ghost written in three hundred
pages of unusually large script.
I, however, will shortly be
retiring. Sales of Sport shirts with my name on
the back, and my famous number, 786451462789.75,
seem to have limitless sales potential in China.
This revenue alone should keep me in comfort for
the rest of my days. The Sport is definitely
‘The beautiful game’.
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