Taking sport too seriously

Ian Bell's my favourite English cricketer since David Gower. He's the one I emotionally invested in, felt nervous for, rued his failures and glowed at his successes. I'm going to write about the nature of individual sporting fandom in general, about Ian Bell in particular, and then make a case for his test recall. I think my relationship with sport has always been more about individuals than teams. That begins with Gower. Loving Gower taught me early on about the need to make arguments in support of your champion, that there was an army of dolts in the world thinking the wrong things, who needed to know your facts, and if you didn't get to use your facts, you got to hold fast to the truth and nurture your resentment. In the late 80s and early 90s, lots of people thought that it was perfectly sensible that David Gower wasn't in the England cricket team. I used to argue about it at school with several actual people who held that seemingly incomprehensible opinio

Since everyone's talking about who's better out of Ronaldo and Messi at the moment, I thought I'd make myself a hostage to fortune by coming down definitively on one side, and while I'm at it give spurious reasons for who comes out on top in various other great sporting rivalries. Look no further, here are all the opinions you'll ever need. Ronaldo Vs Messi Ok, I'll start with the nub of it. This has become trickier in recent times. For many years, Messi fans were able to say "Of course Messi's better, are you blind and stupid, and what's more have you a completely warped conception of beauty?" But the only part of that that still definitively still holds is the last bit.* And, maybe, just maybe, Ronaldo is almost getting close to being in the argument. Maybe if Portugal win this World Cup, he might even, heaven forfend, have won the argument. But failing that, look here's the thing. Their stats are very, very, remarkably similar.