Tom Dunmore

A brief review—I mean, soccer is a good sport, at least as good as our American football (amber waves of grain notwithstanding lol). I won’t be playing it after all, although I’d like to do an active sport instead of walking for exercise eventually. (I’m going for pickleball: I know; I’m straight out of Success Magazine; Straight Outta Shrewsbury NJ Region!—lol.) But I don’t fancy obviously getting hurt, like—no doubt, you know. And thwacking a ball with my head—it’s amazing how important that is in soccer…. But that’s just not what my head is for! But yeah: I remember I played soccer for one year (theoretically) as a kid, and I just wasn’t in good enough shape to run around enough, so I neither enjoyed it nor was good at it. My theory was that I should just revert to baseball which, although it’s indeed a sort of athletic competition/physical skills test, isn’t always a proof of athleticism/fitness or a training in actually being in shape, you know. And my little theory—‘I just like baseball (I don’t want to have to run’—was indulged. Not that running is all there is to life. I think that our modern doctors, for all their skills—that they really do have—in zapping various illnesses and physical problems, don’t really have this equation (which they either pretend to have, or else go, I’m busy! Must not matter!) about how they can quantify the exact amount of exercise or food you should eat; although I pay some attention to the equations, I do so less than a card-carrying health person would, I think. But it is important to be healthy enough to exercise so you can be healthy, and eat mostly good food and eat when you’re hungry but not too much when you’re not…. Anyway, and watching sports is a good palate cleanse for the mind, (I don’t watch the full match in one go: thank you, tech age!), and soccer is fun to watch. It can seem very subtle if you’ve never watched it before because there’s almost no scoring, but it’s actually a pretty man-on-man (or Artemis-on-Artemis) kind of game, very physical. And there’s money in it too, for some people, and aside from the fouls and the yelling, it is pretty clean. I had a talk with the Morrigan once about that (I do tarot) because one of the crowds was happy that the rival player was limping off the field and I was 🫢—and some of the things she said were pretty wild, you know…. But, you think I’m a nut. And that’s okay!

…. I have to say, though: sometimes sports writers just phone it in. Sports writing often consists of endless brief dry spoilers, you know; c’mon guys, these are literally your peaceful warriors here: give me something poetic or psychological, give me something, guys! “Objectively speaking, soccer was played, Jim, and the fact is: goals were scored.” “Now true religion before God and the Father is this: just don’t say anything heretical and weird, life’s not beautiful; beauty and strength are suspect; if you have to do good deeds, at least don’t bring any joy or feel good about it—the facts are the things, boys; God is a fact…. Okay; we’re done.

…. It’s a beautiful game; it’s the simplest game.… (mer)

During July 2015 the CONCACAF 2015 Gold Cup is being shown on the FoxSport cable channels. Both USA and Panama are playing in the tournament. I checked this book out at the library. I wanted to learn more about soccer to see if that would increase my interest and enjoyment of the sport. I thought the book was a good introduction to the sport. I also enjoyed the chapters about the history of the game. Both USA and Panama played on Sunday the 19th of July. Both teams made it through to the semi-final to be held on the 22nd in Atlanta, GA.… (mer)