I remember sport,
things sporting, at school with a mix of horror and shame. Rugby was
shivering on frost hardened mud with my hands down my shorts waiting
to be crushed. On my cricketing skills my report noted that I would
do better if I didn't run away from the ball. At university I did a
fair bit of sailing and canoeing but they never captivated me nor did
I show any particular skill for them. Between then and now I have
generally avoided anything that involves wearing shorts, Lycra, oddly
shaped sunglasses, vests or neoprene; in fact anything that smacks of
sexual fetish or sweat.
Yesterday though, for
some strange reason I spectated at two sporting events. No neoprene
you understand. Street clothes for me and well away from the
activity. Just watching.
You know that round
here there is a local language, a lot like Catalan. I usually call
that language Valenciano. The Spanish that the world speaks is
called Castellano. It can become a bit odd at times - why do I say
Valenciano, which is a Castellano word, rather than say Valencià,
which is the name of the language in the language or just translate
directly into English and say Valencian or Castilian?
The next town
down the road from us is called Monòver in Valenciano and Monóvar
in Castellano. That's where I went to watch a sort of handball game
yesterday. Despite Monòver producing nearly all its publicity in Valenciano I can, normally, get the gist of what they're saying and if I get stuck Google translate set to Catalan bails me out. The poster said 1
Autonòmic de Galotxes de Monòver and showed some people playing a
version of handball. Fair enough I thought the game is called
galotxes. When I was there, I began to wonder if the courts were
the galotxes and the sport was called pilota because on the walls
were things like Galotxa Antonio Marhuenda (so something named for
Antonio) and Galocha Oficial De la Matinal (La Matinal sounds like a
club so this is their official Galocha). It's probably the first time that I've been to something on purpose and not known what I saw!
The games were a bit
boring to be honest - it was played by hitting a squishy tennis sized
ball over a net rather than against a wall but those reverse shots
from the back wall were allowed. As a spectator I had no idea who was
winning and who was playing well. There were lots of quite heavy
people, plenty of middle aged players, a few women but, not too
surprisingly, the fastest and most competitive game I saw was between
two teams of fit young men.
The football I've been
threatening to do for a while. Someone who Maggie knows plays in the
local Brass Band and he and his wife go to the games of Pinoso FC.
They said they'd take me along and they were good for their word. The
Pinoso team did really well last season and were set for promotion to
some sort of league that, whilst it was still pretty low, was good
for such a small town. I guessed, though I don't know, that it was a
bit like the old Fourth Division. Anyway there was some political
argy bargy about funding with the town hall and the team folded. More
argy bargy and it reformed but by now their place in the division was
gone and they had to start again from scratch in the deepest pits of
the lowest leagues - well Grupo XI de la 2ª Regional sounds pretty modest to me.
It's the sort of ground
you'd expect. They do well to have grass given our climate. There is
a covered stand along the length of the pitch with plastic seats on
concrete terraces and otherwise it's all pretty open. No fancy
scoreboards, the dugouts are bus shelter style and just 3€ to
watch. Season tickets are 10€. Maybe a couple of hundred people
watching though I may be being a bit over enthusiastic. Despite the
five nil scoreline it was hardly an action packed game but at least I
knew what was going on.
That's probably enough
sport for a while though.
