I ended up watching more of the World Cup than I had ever watched before. I guess I am part of the World Cup soccer bandwagon because I have signed up for an English Premier League fantasy team. Will this be a passing fancy, as was my 2-3 year dance with fantasy hockey? Or will it be more long-lasting? We shall see. Fortunately, ESPN3 might start broadcasting a few EPL games which means I can watch them on the internet.
But in the space of a few weeks I’ve gone from a thimbleful of knowledge about the EPL to a full pint. I thought a good book to get started with might be Bloody Confused! by Chuck Culpepper and I was right. It’s a great overview for someone who does not know much about the EPL. The only other book I’ve read about English football was Among the Thugs by Bill Buford, which was very interesting but is as I understand it somewhat outdated.
But let me give you one quote from Chuck Culpepper to help explain why English football excites me. Culpepper was a jaded American sportswriter who went to England hoping to rediscover his love of sports. Here’s one passage from early in the book:
As Match of the Day played, I committed blasphemy and paid only scant attention to the twelve-inch Digix TV in the basement guest room.
Suddenly, though, I heard the great crowd noise blaring from the set. The noise was so clearly unleashed by what happened shockingly in the draining seconds of Portsmouth versus Manchester City gave me goose bumps even through a screen in Camden, and even though I knew nada about either squad except that Portsmouth wore blue and played on brown sod at Chelsea. Why bother with sport? Here’s the number-one answer: because you might hear this kind of noise. It might swim in your ear canals and rustle your soul and electrify your skin and maybe even prolong your life.
For myself, following sport is largely about the hunt for that noise.
You can find the play he’s talking about here. Culpepper has a point, no?
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