We need to talk. About silly old sport. And I often do refer to it all as silly old sport. Because it is. Silly games that become so disproportionately important in our lives.

Silly that we, me and you, let ourselves become so emotionally involved, and often overwhelmed, in something we have zero  physical control over.

Silly when you think we've gone a full 5 weeks now without any of our favourite live sports and not like life, in whatever restricted form hasn't carried on now is it? 

Even sillier that after saying all that I still really do miss it.

Which got me thinking. What is it exactly I miss? And I think that rather than even the contests themselves it's the banter'n'bollocks. It's the camaraderie and all the other cobblers I miss most of all. The pre-match and post-match verbals. Giving it to some other geezer whose team is even more rubbish than yours.

Imagine for a minute what sport might be like if you didn't have mates, family, colleagues, acquaintances who supported different teams.

How utterly boring it would be if everyone you knew and/or called a friend supported the exact same teams as you. Or maybe you're the kind of person who likes to consider yourself more of a purist, you're above all that low rent pony, you only watch sport to appreciate the athletic prowess.

The field is a stage, the players are there to play and just like rock'n'roll you can admire many different bands making all sorts of music. Me, I think I'm addicted to the  inter-personal niggle as much as anything else.

I love the build-up to a big game. I both love and hate the tension and stress caused by a nightmare performance. I especially love it if that team's Liverpool. I positively party when the Poms bottle it at rugger, when India, England or anyone stuffs the  Ozzies at cricket. I thrive on every Canterbury defeat no matter what the sport.

But that's only because of the lingering bitterness still nagging away from years of  shield heartbreak, another NPC second place and the utter skullduggery pulling out  a fog machine so they could steal the 2006 Super Rugby title off us.

But equally I adore the get out of jail free card. That religious moment where somehow, who knows how, by sporting miracle or act of imaginary God you escape defeat in the last seconds, the last play or scoring movement. That moment of sheer relief when the final whistle blows. The exhilaration, the adrenaline rush, the buzz you  still get every time you recall the glory of that moment.

I'm not even sure I've ever, pre-coronavirus, sat down to even think about all that stuff. I'm so ensconced in so much sport going on it's just there and there again and  then there's another something and who ever gets time to stop and be this philosophical, this boring. I mean MORE boring. Because I am boring. I know I'm boring. And I absolutely love boring everyone I can with my boring. I'm not sure if I've taken sport for granted but I do know I can't wait, I'm so looking forward to it all coming back.

I heard this saying yesterday and I'm quite happy stealing it because for me it defines what I'm trying to say. Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.

That for me says exactly why I love sport.